We met Salih, the fisherman, for the second time and we decided to stay for coffee..then for lunch..then a backgammon championship with the local school teacher..and his friends..and the clock was ticking...and He was sweating cold…and the fish must have tasted bitter in his mouth…and he was calling random bus companies in Turkish to prove that we would miss our evening bus…and you could see his restless body twitching every time a new course of our gigantic meal appeared on the (rudimentary but heavily laden) table by the hands of our generous host.
But then, of course, we found a lift by car by our new teacher friends, first to pick up our bags at the pension and then to the local bus station. The teacher was speeding- or at least it felt so –by trying to squeeze the most out his first gear, with the motor roaring as if we were racing on a rally car. But –alas – the car was barely moving, and our hero’s impatient looks were filling the air in the small vehicle. I was ready to receive some thundering criticism, as soon as we would get off.
However, we miracolusly got to the “Otogar” on time, and despite a crowd of people wanting to get into the minibus, the most astute of us managed to get our backpacks inside the vehicle, granting us priority boarding rights over a couple of local ladies (what a dirty trick..). After a smooth 3 hours ride we got to Antalya, in perfect time to catch our long distance night bus. We were ready to celebrate victory, but our renewed sense of freedom was short lived, as we soon found out that...
we had a safe 3-hours buffer time to spend in Antalya’s monstrous bus station! Our fellow, who had been in charge of checking the departure times, put on his best Cheeshire-cat smile.
He tricked us, again!