It's a dog's life. Really? No, we are really enjoying this trip. We are meeting people - very friendly locals - and very hospitable. We have been invited to have Turkish tea just about everywhere we went in this little town, Akcakoca.
Akcakoca is a town on the Black Sea coast. From the amount of new apartments, it would seem that this town has a bit of growth lately, but like most other places, it is also suffering from the economic downturn.
Local fishing boats. They fish in the Black Sea and there are plenty of fish mongers in town. The fish are really fresh - no fear of chemicals use to keep them looking fresh as in other places.
A view of the camp site Tezel. All tents in view are ours. The calm Black Sea in the background.
Couldn't resist taking this picture of an old BMW motorbike. Dale Watkinson, you will be interested in this one.
Picture of the fish shop and the staff. Ahmet (middle) is not part of the establishment. He was at the road side and offered to help. He told us about the various local fish - which from Black Sea and which from Mamara Sea. He spoke very good English, helped us to buy a fish (we settled on a Black Sea salmon, 10TL/kg), help us talking to the restaurant to cook our fish, help with money changer, etc - with no expectations. Just another example of local hospitality. Other picture shows one of the steam salmon dish from the fish we bought.
More hospitality for the locals. Example: the following 3 pictures at three locations, we were served tea (in a shop, a road tea house and at the Cliff Cafe). We were walking along the street, these local called us over and got us low seats. Other, was sitting at the cliff "wagon chair" the proprietor just came over with tea.
More picture of local fishing boats.
We walked up the hill opposite the camp, saw a farming family and once again invited in for tea. We could not communicate, but that didn't matter. There were just friendly people.
The follow pictures of houses are taken from the hill opposite the camp. They are basically wooden framed house with bricks filling in the wall. Very unusual to see so many such houses. Houses of the whole village were constructed the same way. Looking through the gap between houses, the view of the Black Sea.
Just a relaxing day at camp over looking the Black Sea (in the background)
We (LH and I) started early next morning 5th May and walked down the Meskendir Valley which starts from behind the Kaya camp site where we stayed. At this early hours, we had the whole valley to ourselves, barring a couple of fruit sellers.
The pictures tell the story. It was simply amazing. The pinnicles at times looked unreal. We later found out this walk is known as Meskendir Valley and unbeknown to us, this valley walk is actually featured in travel books.
Our valley walk finished at Cavusin vallage. The old settlement (in ruins) up the hill behind the new Cavusin village is certainly worth visiting. The church within the collapsed hill side still have corinthian pillars in them. The fescoes, however, were basically damaged by vendals. The frescoes at the upper reaches were still in reasonably good shape. 
The picture which shows many pots on a tree may not be unusual, but the background was the open-air museum where an entrance fee is required to enter. If one was prepared to walk, one could see better examples elsewhere in the other valleys.
