We followed the coast for about 30 miles and can see why this area is extremely popular with holidaying Turks during the summer, before heading inland to take a picturesque (if not a little bumpy) route through the hills down to Bergama, the modern day town next to Roman Pergamum. The scenery reminded us a bit of the English countryside at times, just not quite as green and with considerably more rubbish.
En-route we did a big food shop at Akçay to make sure we were prepared for the upcoming Kurban Bayrami festival, the most important religious and secular holiday of the year in Turkey, commemorating Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) near sacrifice of Ismael (Isaac). The holiday lasts four or five days and around four million sheep and cows are sacrificed each year, and upon arrival at our campsite in Bergama we found two such unfortunates awaiting their fate.
We also passed a lot of sheep tied up to lamp posts in the streets and more than a few cows in the back of flat bed lorries zooming round the roads (the cows looked remarkably unconcerned as they were driven at 60mph with no seatbelts).
As the only guests at the campsite we again made ourselves at home in the washing up area for the evening, doing a load of laundry and other general chores before bed (the glamour of overlanding). SPOT
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