This used to be the nicest place in the world. It probably still is but I haven’t been back for a while.

Road to Üçağız

You drive out of the lovely town of Kaş, thinking that things don’t get any better or more laid back than that. You drive along this road to Üçağız.

A tiny boat takes you out to sea, rounds a cape and delivers you to a Lycian gem.

This is Kaleköy, the Lycian town of Simena. It is in the middle of a necropolis of those tombs shaped like upside-down boats and is overlooked by a pretty little Byzantine castle.

Kaleköy from sea level.

Flooded Lycian tomb

Lycian necropolis

Kaleköy from the castle.

In that last photo, you can see that Kaleköy is protected from the sea by a long island. This is Kekova.

After you have settled into your honey-coloured stone house and eaten lots of things, you might begin to wonder what that island is like.

You wander down to the waterfront and ask someone about renting a rowing boat. They shrug and point at one. Off you go. On the other side of the channel, you look down and see ruins. As you go on, you realise that the ruins are substantial. There is a dockyard (Tersane) down there as well the remains of Dolikisthe, a town destroyed by an earthquake in the 2nd century AD.

Diving is fun and you can pick up amphorae with a bit of effort.

Byzantine chapel on Kekova.

Tersane

Kaleköy from the little island.

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Nothing else to eat, really.

This is the place. Nothing much survives there. A bit of stored grain, no fresh fruit and vegetables.

I remember hearing a massive noise of cats mewing. When I turned round, there was a bicycle with a highrise of tiers of cages. Each one contained a miaowing cat. I don’t think they were off to salvation at some far eastern Battersea.

It was common to see people cleaning dog carcases in rivers. I guess eth salt was necessary to kill pathogens. I had eaten several interesting things but I knew I had eaten dog when I went to the toilet in one restaurant. I had to walk through the food store which consisted of a few sacks of rice and rows of flayed dogs hanging from meat hooks.

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I am a Biology teacher.

The penis lecture is quite a good illustration of different evolutionary solutions to the problem of sperm transfer.

The major issue is that a penis that is constantly ready to provide the most effective method of putting sperm into the female will be so much in the way that it will reduce survival potential. This means that most mammals need a way of getting the thing out of the way except when it is needed.

There are three major ways of making the penis erect:

1. The os penis. Many mammals have a bone called the baculum in their penises. This provides instant rigidity but does mean that the penis has to be scabbarded in a sheath when not in use. The walrus is rather a champion in the os penis department with the Inuit occasionally using the things to make runners for their sledges.

2. The fibous (or fibro-elastic) penis. The bull penis is a good example of this. The penis is rigid all the time. Relaxation of a particular muscle enables the penis to swing free of the body and be ready for action. This large amount of fibrous material means that bulls’ penises can be used as whips when dried.

3. The hydraulic penis. This is the human type which relies for erection on blood being allowed into spongy tissue in the penis. Mammals with a fibrous penis or baculum have erectile tissue but the human relies entirely on blood pressure for reproductive readiness.

At this point, one can diverge into some particularly interesting examples such as the tapir (truly massive compared with the size of the already large animal) and the echidna (a four-headed penis resembling a shower attachment).

This lecture generally gets a remarkable level of attention and more than justifies the unusual choice of content to get the evolutionary message across.

Iceland has a phallological museum which displays the members of a large number of species, although some are of elves and trolls. Interestingly, the elves and trolls themselves are invisible although it seems that the displayed parts aren’t.

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Mont St Michel

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