Hike Part Two: Alara Bridge

The second half of our hike wasn't nearly as fun. It was just walking through the mountains down to the rushing river and going to an ancient cobblestone bridge. Ok, it was pretty cool.

We started off walking through the woods, the path was not very clear. At one point, everyone tripped and fell at least once. We kept walking through the woods and at one point we came to a clearing. I don't know why but I had a lot of energy and I just started running across the clearing. Then, while I was running, I saw something. I took a few steps back, and there it was!

It was a fossil, not the kind you make with fake shells and plaster in school. It had the clear markings of a shell. I picked it up and raced back to the group and showed it to my parents. Sooner or later, everyone got a look at he ancient fossil. We kept walking and eventually we came to another clearing where the group would take a break.  That's where I nearly left the fossil. I was just having a snack and I was so distracted that I almost just left it for someone else to find. But just before we started walking again, I remembered the fossil.

From there on the walk was easy and we got to an ancient bridge where we would rest before our hike back. I have no idea what the history of this bridge was, but it was pretty cool. It was a large cobblestone bridge that was pretty high above the river, which was also awesome.

I think the second half of our walk was pretty cool. But when we got home my mom searched the web to find out how old the fossil was and we discovered it was older than the mountains. So over all I think that I had a great time on the second half of the hike, even if the first one was better.

Hike to Alara Castle

A week ago I went on a major hike with the students. It was an all day hike in the mountains next to Alanya (the Taurus mountains). Our first loop is the one I'll talk about today, it was up a hill that seemed to be vertical at first look. To get to the top, we had to go through tunnels. Most kids might think: "TUNNELS!! AWESOME!!!" Until you start crawling through them. 

They were stairs, almost stairs, except ten times steeper. When we came out, we were half way up the hill. We were in a castle, it was a long, steep way down. But we kept on climbing. Now it was a little easier, except for a couple thorn bushes. Okay, it wasn't that easy. We climbed up a few boulders and some slippery patches of dirt. To make things worse, my hand and heel were both hurting from scrapes, then again, they weren't nearly as bad as my dad's scrapes.

We slowly kept making our way to the top, and finally when we made it, we were tired, hot, and thirsty. I couldn't even think about the way down. All I did was rest. 

It turned out that for me, the way down was easier. Once I was going the right way, and everybody else thought I was going the wrong way, so then we all ended taking an alternate path to the tunnel entrance. It was really hard, I had to climb my way along a rock, and from there jump down to the ground, about 3 feet down.

Then we went back to the tunnels, this was a hard part. We had to be really careful to not kick loose rocks to other people. Luckily we got out safely and  we had a great time on the first loop of our hike.