15 June 2008
Kristina’s Highway to Hell Tour – Day 5
Well today seemed to go a lot smoother, my driver had rocked up and bingo the air con on the bus was fixed, finally something is going right with this guy. I had the owner of V-Go’s explain to the driver how to get to Oludiniz, but alas he still got lost and had to ask randoms on the road for directions, heaven forbid he should actually listen to me who knows how to get there. We picked up my four passengers and headed off. I thought he can’t possibly get lost getting out of Oludiniz so I did all my paper work in that half an hour.
We drove through Patara and Kalkan and I asked the passengers if they would like to stop for a swim at Kaputas beach, to which the reply was an overwhelming “hell yes!” I kept a sharp look out for the beautiful stretch of sand which is along the highway and again he attempted to drive straight past a stop that was there in front of him on his instructions in black and white. I made him stop and said 1 hour in Turkish, ‘No, No, No,’ he said. ‘Yes’ I said quite forcefully and made him open the boot so the passengers could get their swimmers.
Kaputas beach is the most beautiful beach in Turkey and as I lay there on the beach with my four passengers I thought, this job is so stressful at times but you can’t beat the working environment. We had a swim and got back on the bus and drove for 20 minutes into Kas, where I dropped two people off and then took the other two for lunch, they loved the place I showed them.
We then got back on the bus and headed for Olympos, I managed to get the driver to stop for petrol at the right place and then we drove through Kumlaca. I told him to go right and he went to go straight through anyway, so I yelled at him, ‘Sah, Sah’ he stopped and the look on my face must have said it all. He turned right and then he argued with me about the turn off to Olympos and got the same reaction. I’m so close to Olympos and 2.5 days off and getting rid of this guy at the changeover point, I’m not going to let him get us lost now!
Sure enough, my directing and the driver finally listening got us to Olympos without a hitch. I got off the bus got, my passengers organised and walked off with Ally and thought, he’s not my problem anymore. Ally who gets him tomorrow, took one look at him and said ‘Oh no! Not him!’ Apparently, she’s had him before. I spent most of the night relaxing with Ally, playing backgammon and drinking a much needed EFES!