After heaven and hell, we go to a little castle in the sea

For our second (and last!) day of sightseeing around Mersin, we headed west along the coast. First, we came to heaven and hell. Literally.

On the theory that it is better to end up in heaven, we went to the pit of hell first.

It was actually a little hell-ish. A hole 30 meters across descends, straightaway, 120 meters into the ground. No warning, just a big, big drop. The little platform of (reinforced?) iron that let me peer down into it provided little consolation, and I was quickly back on solid ground. To heaven!

Now, you might think to get to heaven you go up. Wrong, still down. But this chasm you can descend into, a full 455 steps. It was a cave that just got darker and darker, slicker and slicker all the way down. Anshul and I made a pact to get to the bottom, come hell or high water.

Once we got through the mouth of the cave, some of its coolness became apparent, like these formations on one of the walls.

We did make it to the bottom, essentially. We stopped when we got to the part where the cave, that had had 60 foot ceilings, narrowed to a foot and a half gap that looked like a river bed. Would've been cool to adventure further, but I'd like to take a proper flashlight (not just my camera flash) and a guide for that.

On the ascent, we were treated to fantastic views of the mouth of the cave, including some cool shots with and without flash that look very different (first two shots below). Also, we could get better perspective on the 5th century church about halfway down.

Finally, we left the afterlife and went to the sealife, to the town of Kizkalesi. The town was famous for, and actually named after, two of its castles. One was right on the coastline, while the second was, amazingly, on a tiny island about 200m into the sea. The castle filled virtually the entire island.

We had to see it. We jumped in a little skiff run by 15 year olds and headed over. It was the perfect place just to roam and explore, as there were still stairwells to climb in and vistas to be seen.

A great day of exploration and climbing around!