Around noon we entered the square, for the big event. There were some people already, mainly local people. That’s nice, instead of only eclipse travellers. We walked the edge of the square and were very surprised to meet Gert, an old man who was part of our group on our Africa Eclipse trip in 2001, he was part of our group then. Such a coincidence, to meet him here on this particular square in Antalya. We had a nice time with the three of us and again there was a real odd eclipse atmosphere. After a short time the first side effects were already noticable. The strange light, the moon which was already covering a small part of the sun, the sickle shades, and the mountains across from the bay which were exposed to this light.
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| The public square in Antalya, our eclipse base |
View from the square |
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| Fellow eclipse watchers |
Melissa and Gert watching the eclipse |
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| Sickle shades |
Strange light just before the eclipse |
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Me watching the eclipse  |
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When enjoying the side effects and approaching the big moment, most people still locals and a lot of young people were already getting excited, for most of them it will be the first time of course. When the sun was completely covered by the moon the crowd was cheering and “Wooow”-ing. Such a great experience again, I again was stunned and I had this strange eclipse feeling again, it is unbelievable how excited this phenomenon actually is. Full 3,5 minutes length, no clouds and again fantastic, it’s the third time we experience this, marvellous!
After this we’ve spend some time chatting with Gert yet, and we all agreed, it was again a success. We had still some time this afternoon, we said goodbye to Gert and we took the car and went up to the mountain chain near Antalya, in to the heights, we might spot some snow maybe, that would be cool! The route itself was beautiful. On the top we indeed found snow and I plunged into it. Strange feeling, 30 degrees a couple of minutes ago, and now lying in the snow in my t-shirt. After Melis and I had our fun we drove back to meet Fedde the boomerang man and agree about the departure time in the morning the next day to see the ancient city of Termessos. After this exciting day we walked through the cosy old part of Antalya, had a vega pizza and in this nice restaurant we both agreed that Turkey is one of the most relaxed countries we visited so far, the people are so sincere friendly and hospitable. We didn’t come across the so called nice chats to get you into their shops, no hassling while walking through the streets and no tedious offerings of “services” you don’t need.
A nice example; when walking the tiny streets after our relaxed dinner, we couldn’t find our way back. A nice turkish fellow was asking as if we were lost, because we passed his shop twice. I told him we would find it, because I already suspected some service offer, or leading us to some place else, where some familymember of friend of him has a hotel or something.
But no, he was really friendly and decided us to show us the way, because he really wanted to help, he asked someone else and walked us to the hotel, during the walk we had a nice chat and when we found the hotel we thanked him very much and he just said goodbye. He told us some people had helped him in the past, and he did like it so, he want to offer help as much as he can to others, how sweet 
We like the turks and felt very relaxed here in Turkey. Cheers to the turkish people!
Pictures from our trip to the high mountain chain near Antalya
