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On April 14th I flew to Milas-Bodrum Airport (BJV) to do something I wanted to do for a long time. Walking a trail/camping alone, even for a few days. I picked a segment of Carian Trail and decided to walk as long as I can. I just found time to write a blog post about my short journey. Though I am not experienced in the subject I will also try to give some advice from my personal experience for anyone considering doing a similar trail since there is not much content out there about it.

Link to the offical webpage where you can find details of the entire trail.

So my flight landed. It was around 4 PM and my plan was walking to Bahçeköy which is the closest point of the walking trail to the airport. Which I did. This part of the walk is mostly walking on an asphalt road with cars passing by, so I recommend you to bypass it by either hitchhiking to the Bahçeköy detour or taking a bus directly to Milas and enter the route from there. The latter option does not overlap with my first day since it skips the Bahçeköy-Beçin part of the route. After walking the urban landscape more than an hour I reached to Bahçeköy. Local people are welcoming. After buying extra water and chatting with them about the other people who passed by the village doing the trail I walked up the hill and saw the first waymark of my walk.

Then I took the wrong path (twice). It is stated a lot on the official site but worth saying again. GPS is your friend. Sometimes the right path is much overgrown, compared to other paths you can see. There is no reason to risk losing time while carrying weight. After finding the right path I was welcomed with a forest setting. Not before long there was a fallen tree on the path. Not a big one indeed but really made me consider if I was on the right path or not. After climbing over it there was another similar scene. (I contacted the authorities about the trees when I came back home.) But these type of things are to be expected I guess. I kept walking until I found a flat area where I could camp since sun was coming down.

Here is a picture of my tent I took in the morning. Also the GPS of the location for anyone who is interested. A nice point to camp since there is no other place you can camp until you are out of the forest if you keep walking.

I thought I would do a lot of thinking since I am alone in a forest after planning this trip. But after eating what I brought for the meal (Which is something I will talk about on the next post.) and listening to an episode of Criminal I got really sleepy. But at the same time, I was a bit of scared. Not that I actually feared a specific animal or anything. This was more like a fear of the unknown. Though I did camp a lot before, I was never alone. I kept my knife close to relax, just in case. It took me some time to get used to the sound of rustling leaves. After some time I managed not feeling anxious about every little sound that comes from the outside. And I finally fell asleep.

Day 2 will be up when I can find time to write it down. Hopefully before the finals week I will be done with the Carian Trail and Tough Walk posts. Which is a board game I designed after the walk. No relation was intended B) . See you on the next post!