News From the Interzone: Marmaris, Turkey, January 2001
In the morning, our hotel manager had invited me for breakfast and gave me a ride to the bus station in Fethiye. I soon got a bus to Marmaris whence I planned on catching a ferry over to Rhodos which I had wanted to visit for some years (and which unfortunately remains elusive). Marmaris is a small port town set in a stunning wedge of pine encrusted hills. The setting is truly beautiful and although development is slowly encroaching the place still has immense charm, at least in its surroundings. The town itself has little to recommend it beyond a marina (a well-healed one for the yachts of the ultrarich) and a small castle whose base is lined with nightclubs, bars, cafes and restaurants, mostly of the expensive annoying variety. It was still well before the season and so there were few tourists other than a few Turks and yachties. I found a place near the castle, which would be well-nigh unbearable in season due to the intense music pounding from the various clubs surrounding it and the hordes of drunken revellers who frequent them. In any case I was eager to get out of the country before my visa expired so I was hoping to get a ferry first thing in the morning out of the country and over to Rhodos. I had an early dinner and after checking my email went perusing the town choosing a bar where apparently local youth hung out--an attractive crowd and pretty good music--I had a couple of beers and called it an early night.
In the morning, much to my chagrin, I was quite dismayed to discover that contrary to what everybody (including the guide books!) had been telling me, there are not daily ferries out of Marmaris to Rhodos out of season. So I was compelled to leave for Bodrum where I hoped to catch one to Cos. Well in fact I arrived in Bodrum, visited some friends for dinner and set out first thing in the morning for the ferry. Well the ferry existed but unfortunately I got screwed anyways because the official (that is, official asshole) at the port in what truly seemed to be a conspiracy with the ferry people, informed me that the visa in my passport (which says clearly in English and Turkish: 'valid for 3 months') is good for only 89 days--in other words they are on a lunar calendar unlike virtually the rest of modern humanity. In any case it cost me quite a bit of money in penalties, which I had to pay to the evil ferry people. A pox on them all. (When I get my super powers they will be amongst the first to suffer!)
It was a really nice day and I refused to let this get me down ('illegitimi non carborundum' --who coined and popularized this phrase of exceedingly bad Latin?). I had the good fortune to make a friend as I passed over, a nice girl from Brazil, going over to see Cos for the day. We arrived in Greece, and after wandering for a bit and finding me a hotel where I deposited my bag, we set out to see the town. The place is nice enough that I stayed for several days.
Cos was another stronghold of the Knights of St John. They built a fortress here just across the straits from the one on Bodrum thus allowing them control of the sealanes between.
Also Cos was in ancient times the birthplace of Hippocrates, the 'Father of Medicine'.
There was a major cult site of Asclepius here and people from all over the eastern Mediterranean came here for healing. Cos town itself is very pleasant and there are ruins scattered all over the town dating from throughout her history. There is some classical stuff, lots of Roman remains, Byzantine buildings as well as Ottoman. Indeed a couple of mosques in Selcuk style from the Ottoman period indeed are still evident in the central town, although they have been converted into cafes. Numerous excavations seem to be in progress here as well. There is decent nightlife in Cos although in the winter like so many other places in the Med, they are waiting for 'The Season'. I spent a lot of time working on my website and drinking Heineken, pleased as I was to escape from the single choice of Efes Pilsen generally offered in Turkey, although nowadays Miller Genuine Draft is also being brewed there. On the third day I finally made it up to the Asclepion--quite a nice site--of course much of the marble was pillaged by the Knights in the construction of their castle but enough remains to get a good idea of the site and its environs. When I visited I was the only one there except for a small group of Americans who seemed a little odd... they waited to see if I would leave but when I did not they finally began... they gathered around an ancient altar near the sacred spring and began to perform some kid of ceremony together... chanting and holding hands in a circle... they seemed harmless enough so I left them to their devices, fearless that they might be Dark Watchers or worse, as they seemed to relish the light and were probably there for healing... on the way back to Cos town I walked through a nearby village that is almost wholly Turkish which is a strange enough site in Greece to be sure... the weather was very fine this time of year if a little windy... I liked it here but decided it was time to move on... as the ferry services are very limited off-season my options for departure were limited so I got on a ferry to Athens...