Turkey by car, day 1 – Kyiv, Antalya, Kemer.

We approached the first day of the trip having adequately prepared: with a bad cold, inhuman fatigue and a clear understanding of the fact that the route was poorly worked out.

The plane Kyiv-Antalya was expected somewhere around 7 am, so we hardly had to sleep. I came home at midnight (I was at Rammstein concert), while I shared my impressions with my wife, while I washed myself with fire foam (there was something like that at the concert), then I repacked my backpack and … 2.5 hours left before the rise.

I observed Boryspil Airport with clear, but not quite human eyes. They looked very calmly and dispassionately at the huge queue at the registration desk (people are going to warm up), at the football players in funny long jackets (training in Turkey is much more interesting), at the brightly made-up girl who suffers terribly at every step (she, apparently, tortures with high heels accepted for the sake of the one who will meet her in Antalya). I was not at all impressed by the announcement on the radio that boarding our flight was ending – we did not disturb the order and squeeze through passport control without a queue.

The airline representatives at the boarding gate grumbled a little at the latecomers (there were 10 of us) and called the bus again. We got on the plane just in time – to the beginning of the show “putting on a breathing mask”.

I really counted on the plane as a quiet, comfortable place, perfectly adapted for sleeping. But an inimitable aroma flew through the cabin and the dream vanished. Will they be fed? (I didn’t even know that this is practiced in charters).

In anticipation of my daily bread, I began to flip through magazines, traditionally bought by my wife before a long trip. All three wrote about the same news (secular gossip), were published by the same publishing house, used the same photobanks, and differed only in the choice of the “issue topic”. However, I am unnecessarily strict and unfair, because the gloss did its job – it entertained me while the flight attendants served food.

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A gentle nudge in the ribs with my elbow brought me back to earth in every sense of the word. I woke up from my dream at the same time as the plane touched down. Apparently, before that, I had already woken up to buckle up and straighten the back of the chair, but no memories of this important action were preserved.

Obtaining a visa and a stamp in the passport took even less time than I would like – it’s nice to experience a slight thrill from waiting before the red line, to catch the officer’s stern look, to timidly hold out the passport (ugh, some kind of vulgarity turned out).

The first thing I did when I fished my backpack off the conveyor belt was change my shoes into sandals. Next time, I will wear sneakers only after 4 days, in rainy Ephesus. In the meantime, the weather, although it hinted at the possibility of precipitation, was exceptionally rapid and warm. In other words, it was very warm, quite a bit stuffy (humidity), plus an impenetrable haze over the surrounding landscape.

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We decided not to take a car directly at the airport, but to use the already paid overnight stay in Kemer (on a package tour) to sleep off, and start off tomorrow. We (and a dozen other vacationers) were taken to the Mecca of Russian-speaking tourism by a tour operator’s minibus. It was just wonderful to sleep in it – a dapper Turk, very similar to Garik Martirosyan, told us all the way in good Russian about spaceships, great weather, a little cold sea and wonderful, wonderful excursions for 50 bucks from the nose.

Already in Kemer, escorting us to the reception, “Garik” asked if he could help in any way and which of the two excursions interested us more. I answered with a question – “Where is a car rental here?”, which forever deprived myself of the attention of this wonderful person.

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Plans to sleep off again “went into the woods”. Checking into the room lasted so long (10 minutes while the cleaning lady put things in order there), dragged on so painfully that it was unthinkable to stay in the room for even half an hour. I turned on the GPS, memorized the coordinates of the hotel and we went to explore Kemer.

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Well, then, probably, there is no need to tell anything, since the entire Russian-speaking population of the planet has already been in Kemer, they saw everything and wrote about everything.

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I can only say that the city was busy with repairs (preparation for the tourist season), there were few vacationers – mostly elderly Germans, and the Mediterranean Sea in taste, color and temperature was not much different from the Black Sea (somewhere in mid-May) .

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Having walked around the city and studied the offers of 5-6 car rental points, we easily picked up the car we were interested in. A new 2010 Hyundai Getz with a gasoline engine, electric filling and full insurance (including tires and glasses) cost 200 bucks in 6 days. We didn’t see the car itself, an old (two-year-old) Getz was standing next to the agency, but the owner, through his Russian daughter-in-law, swore to us by oath to fit a new car by tomorrow morning. We trusted him and made a deal. For this, we needed: both driver’s licenses (I have an old one – laminated, my wife’s – plastic), 100 dollars in advance, and a demonstration of the keys to the room (the owner rewrote the coordinates of the hotel and the room number).

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From what I remember of the day, I also want to note free access to all beaches (and not endless fences, as you yourself know where), the complete absence of garbage in the path of a miserable local river (unlike the terrible Indian and Nepalese sacred rivers), and the complete absence canned meat (stews, etc.) in Turkish supermarkets.

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