Happy Halloween!

Well the festive candy haul was a little different here on the coast of Turkey at Olympos.

The scariest part was likely the feet in this photo - luckily you can't smell them when viewing over the internet (at least not yet). The "Smelly Feet" song sure comes up often during our travels. You'd be happy to know that this particular pair did get a good soak in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea right after this photo.

Of course we couldn't find any Jack-o-Lanterns here either so we decided instead to eat chocolate around the "fire breathing rocks" of Chimerae. No kidding, these fires have been burning for thousands of years and though the photo might look like we're just huddled around the campfire, there is no wood burning here, just natural methane seeping out from somewhere deep in the earth. Legend (Homer) has it that it comes from the fire breathing beast (Chimerae) that was beaten and driven deep into the earth. In celebration of this the Lycian people would light torches and hold sporting events with these lit torches. Many believe that this is the origin of the Olympic flame.

 

After watching the fire burn into nightfall we hiked back to Olympos in the dark making sure to include going past tombs of the ancient necropolis for an added spooky effect. Not the same as the North American event, but we figured it was a pretty good alternative.