I was the token sick student of today’s trip. The morning of Day 10 dawned with me feeling positively awful. Something I ate the night before did not agree with me (my burps tasted like the fish we had the night before), and my stomach tossed and turned the entire time at Caunos before I finally emptied it into the Mediterranean at the end of the trip near where we saw the turtles. I felt fantastic afterwards, so hopefully I will back to better health tomorrow.

We left our boat the Sadri Usta around 8am on a smaller boat to get to Caunos, which is up the Daiyon River. We learned that an endangered turtle species lays its eggs at a beach near there and go to see 2 of them in the water as they were being baited to come into view by other smaller boats near the river entrance. We also learned that there are blue crabs near here as well, so several people bought crabs for 6 lira a pop.

We finally docked near the Caunus Archaeological Park and walked up to the Theatre. Caunos is in the Cairon region but had a culture closer to Lykian. The area has many marshes, coves, mountains, and pirates, making the people a sea people who were used by the Egyptians as mercenaries and who were also a matrilineal society. Sarpedon, son of King Miletos founded the city around the 7^th or 6^th Century BCE, but the foundation myth focuses on Canos and Biblis. They were sibling sand Biblis fell in love with her brother and begged him to be her lover. He refused and moved on to found Caunos, and Biblis jumped off a cliff in despair at her unrequited love (“love of Caunos”). The Theatre has an olive tree in it and 4 entrances, with a spectacular view of the military harbor of Caunos.

We moved on to the possible Temple to Apollo a short walk away and then to the Bascilica close to that. You could tell it was a church from altar, the wall in between the priests and worshipers, and a baptismal pool made from an old column, one of the many spolias (spoils) of the church.

Our next stop took us to an old Temple to Zeus that had been excavated from the 1960s to 2004 with an altar and columns everywhere with a terrace. It was made of marble and a local stone, which had been plastered over to make it appear to be marble. Our final stop was at the Roman Baths, where a herd of goats had taken over and began to forage. The frize was of the Thyglyph and Metope style.

On the way back to our main boat (before I worshiped Poseidon in the most intimate way possible) we say the Tombs of Caunos, with the main one holding the body of Canos himself and his family either in 1 of the other 2 rooms in his tomb or in one of the tombs around him. They had a temple style fa�ade to channel an altar-like for a great second life in the afterlife. I would have loved to climb up the Cliffside to get to the tombs, as I have an uncanny interest in the dead and how they are buried. They reminded me so much of Petra, the city built into the rocks in what is today now Jordan, which served as tombs as well as a caravan center on the Royal Road, and it is another area I hope to see someday.

Location: Caunos, Turkey