Bermudian Robyn Skinner is slowly but surely making her way across Europe, but it seems she is taking her time through Turkey. Here she reports on the last stop of her month-long stay in the country which she leaves for her next stop Jordan.

Next Stop: Olympos, Turkey: From the city of Antalya it was a fairly easy jaunt by micro bus to this backpacker haven which is also on the Turkish coast.

These micro buses are an interesting affair. Tiny, stuffy and always filled to capacity, their only schedule is to leave when they are full. When are they full? When strangers are sitting on laps and others are kneeling in the aisle. Imagine how happy he was to see us with two massive backpacks (I'm pretty sure our ticket price had an additional charge added).

Anyway, after three hours of this compact ride we were abandoned at a restaurant on the side of the road. Slightly confused we eventually realised it was a rest area for the shuttle that takes you the last 13 km down to Olympos. After waiting half an hour for our shuttle driver, we were on our way through the long and windy path that would finally expel us into my favourite place in Turkey.

It has everything. From beach (even if it is pebbly) to ruins, and eternal flames not to mention the chilled out vibe that sucks in backpackers for weeks.

Olympos was the spot of an ancient city dating back to 2nd century BC when the Lycians established a successful town that worshipped the God of Fire. Perhaps this veneration sprang from the natural flames that still pop out from the nearby hillside. This natural hotspot is about a seven kilometre walk from Olympos and is called the Chiamera on Mt Olympos. The ancient people attributed the natural spring of fire to an animal that was part lion, goat and dragon. Some might mock this belief, but the flames have still not been explained even with modern technology. The closest they have gotten to an explanation? It's some type of gas that naturally combustible. Think I could have told them that.

In any case, the ancient town of Olympos went into decline in the 1st Century BC until the Romans infiltrated and lifted the spirits. Pirates, however, came along and managed to decimate the town again so by the 3rd Century AD there wasn't much left. Now, people can wander through these ruins that are entrapped in vines and a forest that threatens to look much like an Indiana Jones set.

The set-up in the modern area of Olympos, where people stay to wander through the ruins, is pretty basic in comparison. There is one road from the highway that cuts down through the mountainous terrain and the closer you get to the beach, 'tree houses' start springing up on either side of it before it dead-ends at the ruins. These are not literally in trees but are built among the orange trees that abound here. Besides these hostels or tree houses there is really nothing else around. I saw one market (that was always closed) and one tea shop. Because of the isolation (slash spiritual retreat for the hippies that migrate here) hostels include breakfast and dinner with your accommodation. We found one that was only about 50 metres from the entrance to the ruins for $25 a night. Not a bad deal.

So after settling in, we decided to head for the beach. To get there you have to go through the ruins, which is also a national park so you have to pay about $4 for two days entrance. Down the dirt road an ancient theatre is on the right and tombs on the left, until after wading through streams running through these ruins the beach suddenly rises from nowhere. Unfortunately when we arrived it wasn't quite beach weather so after wandering through the ruins and a run on the beach it was time to get warm back at the hostel.

Our hostel manager had promised us they run trips up to see the Chiamera (natural flames) at night (obviously the best time to see it), but that night the hostel cancelled the trip so we had to settle for a man-made bonfire. Dismayed we held out hope that our second night there they would have another trip. Again, it was cancelled.

Not to be deterred we grabbed two flash-lights from the hostel (the least they could do if we had to walk seven kilometres in the dark) and set out to conquer Mt. Olympos. After being nearly eaten by rabid dogs and wading through the frigid streams along the beach, we managed the hike it in about 90 minutes.

It was incredible approaching it the way we did (by that I mean walking not cursing our hostel manager). Much like the Lycians, I would imagine, we could see the lights up on the hill to guide us through the darkness. After one kilometre of steps up the mountain we walked above the treeline to see what looked like five abandoned camp fires. When you get closer, though, you can actually hear the gas squeezing its way out of the mountain. We were the only ones there and between the quiet and still of the night coupled with the sight of these natural flames it was an incredible experience.

Our walk back, however, wasn't quite as easy as my travel buddy, who wasn't feeling so hot on the way there, lost his dinner on the beach. So struggling with two flash-lights, a sick buddy, and a rocky terrain I eventually made it back to the hostel a little worse for wear around 1 a.m. Unfortunately we couldn't rest the next day because we had booked ourselves on a four-day sailing trip that left from a town about six hours away, Fethiye and we had to get there the night before it left.

The bus trip along the coastline from Olympos to Fethiye was amazing so we could only imagine what it would be like by boat. We had one night in Fethiye (enough time for my stomach to stop churning from the curve-hugging coastline ride), which is famous for a mountain-side tomb and its harbour. After visiting the tomb and admiring the amazing views it was dinner and organising before the boat trip the next day.

Luckily for those of us who don't have the cash to buy their own boat or rent their own crew someone came up with the brilliant idea of a backpackers sailing holiday. These take 12 to 16 people on beautiful boats called Gulets, offer a fixed sailing itinerary, and include all of your meals for about $200 each. It was more than we would have spent doing it by land, but how can you turn up the chance of sailing under the stars and access to the crystal clear bays that carve-out the Turkish coastline?

On our floating hostel there were about 12 of us and three crew, which was actually the perfect amount. The chef was incredible and managed to make me rice so I would be able to eat for the four days and all of them were extremely laid-back.

Each day on the boat it was an early rise (for some reason two Australian girls on the boat had to squeal every morning around 6 a.m. as they jumped in the water). Then it was a breakfast of cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese and olives on the stern of the boat before we would set out to visit multiple different locations.

Some of the most incredible were Oludeniz (which apparently was the location for the movie the Blue Lagoon) and Butterfly Valley (yes another one). Again there were no Butterflies in this valley just like the one in Greece, but unlike the one in Greece this was absolutely incredible.

Waterfalls cutting through overgrown jungle lead from the beach through a magnificent gorge that eventually ends at a point where only rock climbers could venture on. The only access to this valley is literally by boat though some intrepid travellers have tried to climb down into the gorge, leading to the death of at least one person only a few years ago.

In between these visits and our gourmet lunch and dinner, also served on the stern of the boat, there was time for dips in the ocean. Well that's if you're part polar bear. While the Scottish couple on the boat seemed to have no problem and, well, we all knew how the Australian girls received the near freezing water, it took a lot of cajoling to get me in. My protests of being Bermudian and it's not even close to May 24, fell on deaf ears as I was called chicken and pushed into the water. At least I wasn't as bad as my travel buddy (who is from Canada mind you) who would only enter the turquoise sea with a wetsuit and even then only for five minutes.

I at least managed to survive one mad dash to a beach at Oludeniz, though not without hyperventilating, and then the boat was kept waiting an hour as I had to get the nerve to return. In any case after four days of vegging, reading plenty of books and trying to swim it was back to the mainland and roughing it (well a little bit) on buses back to Antalya.

After almost a month in Turkey (we just couldn't escape this amazing country) it was time to move on and take the next segment in our round-the-world airline tickets. This segment required that we fly out of Istanbul so even though we had already visited there we had to return. Luckily our inter-Turkey flight was only $70 for the two of us a fair price for my sanity and skipping what would have been a 15 hour bus ride from Antalya. So after two more nights to organise ourselves in Istanbul, we boarded a flight to our next stop: Amman, Jordan.