"Cirali! Cirali!" The call of the bus attendant wakes me from my doze. Flustered and hot, my partner Cedric and I scramble to collect our gear under the watchful eye of moustachioed farmers, white-veiled women, and a red-headed toddler seated quietly on his mother's lap. Squeezing past bags of lettuce, fragrant herbs, and bright red tomatoes, we emerge into the blinding noon sunshine.

With a honk of the horn, the bus rumbles on. We're left alone in the middle of a pine forest, still half asleep.

We're on Turkey's Lycian coast, a bump extending into the Mediterranean Sea in the southwest of the country. It's the home of the ancient Lycians, a proud race that developed the world's first democracy, resisted being fully overwhelmed by the Greeks and later the Romans, and produced Saint Nicholas — yes, the Saint Nicholas who later morphed into the jolly red-and-white-clothed man of the North Pole. Ruins of Lycian cities are scattered throughout the area, with the superbly carved cliff rock tombs being perhaps the most striking evidence of their former glory.

The bus trip was only 216km from Fethiye in the west to Cirali in the east, but it feels like we've changed worlds. In the west, new hotels, villas, and apartments spread like a rash from the turquoise Mediterranean water up the hillsides. The towns are busy with honking cars and buses, buzzing mopeds, the hammering of new developments — and of course tourists, with their associated shops and touts selling everything from tours and carpets to jewellery and meerschaum pipes.

But above Cirali, the only evidence of humans is the road and the fading sound of the bus. Behind us is a steep forested slope, in front we can just catch glimpses of the water far below between the trees. It seems we've finally found a place in which to properly experience Turkey's natural wonders.

Just as we're wondering how to get down to the beach, a minibus appears. We clamber on board, and are taken down the forested valley. Along the way there's a few wooden restaurants set between the trees, but no sign of concrete anywhere. When we reach Cirali it's the same thing: low wooden pensions and restaurants set amongst fragrant orange orchards, with not an apartment building or tout in sight.

We make our way to the Myland Pension, a little out from the centre of the village. Our host Pinar shows us to our room — a small but comfortable wooden bungalow set amongst banana and other fruit trees. There's a hammock right outside the door, and the beach is just across the road and through a sand dune. Bliss!

It might seem as though Cirali is simply one of the last fabled backpacker destinations — idyllic, undeveloped locations where local culture and natural wonders remain untainted by mass tourism developments.

But in fact, the village is deliberately focussing on quality rather than quantity when it comes to tourism.

Cirali moved from an agricultural economy towards tourism in the late 1980s. This small village could easily have gone the same way as much of the rest of the Mediterranean coast — seeing a massive boom in construction at the expense of the area's natural gems.

But Cirali beach is one of the last major nesting sites in the Mediterranean for the endangered loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). With new tourism facilities threatening the nests, the conservation organization WWF stepped in.

They worked with locals to develop a more responsible form of tourism — one that would still make money, but would also help with conservation efforts. Under the project, kiosks and restaurants built too close to the shore were moved back to the legal distance from the water. Ecotourism activities were started, and a land-use plan was developed. In addition, a move was facilitated from traditional agriculture, which previously polluted soil and water supplies with pesticides, to organic agriculture.

Floating in the clear turquoise waters of the Mediterranean after a delicious lunch of Turkish salads at the pension, we can appreciate the efforts the locals have made to preserve their village. All we can see is water, beach, forest, and the remains of an old crusader fortress — much more soothing than the overdeveloped towns further west.

Standing regally above the beach is one of the main reasons we've come to Cirali — Mt Olympos. Called Tahtali Dag in Turkish, its snow-capped peak rises from the sea to a height of 2366m. And we intend to conquer it.

The next day dawns clear and still. We could start the hike from Cirali, but this would add a return trip of about 20km to the day. So instead we ask Pinar from the pension to drop us off at Beycik, a village perched some 900m above the sea on a hillside facing Mt Olympos. We leave too early for breakfast at the pension, but she packs us sandwiches to eat on the way.

From Beycik, the well-marked track winds up through the pine forest. The trail is part of the Lycian Way — a 509km walk along the Lycian coast from Fethiye to Antalya. It's Turkey's first long-distance walking trail, and even has its own guide book. Unfortunately, we've managed to leave this behind. Hopefully the markings will continue!

After 45 minutes or so we emerge from the forest into a small meadow made yellow with spring flowers. Above us to the right looms an imposing cliff, its shadow stretching far down the mountainside. The path takes us to the left, back into the forest. Lined with juniper, wild sage, blue and white daisies, and hot pink wild cyclamen, it zig-zags ever more steeply upwards. It's not long before we cross the first snowdrift, and not long after that before the ground is completely covered in snow.

This makes following the path more tricky, but it's clear we must keep heading upwards to Tahtali saddle. Once there we stop for a breather, and admire a fine view of the Olympos Bey Mountains. There's also a fine view of where we must go: straight up a steep scree slope which hides the summit.

We scramble up the slope, which is thankfully marked with stone cairns the entire way. It's strenuous work, but with each step we somehow manage to climb higher than we slide back. After an hour we reach the final stage — a huge snow-filled basin that we must simultaneously traverse and climb to reach the top.

Wary of the cornice along the top of the ridge, and with no sign of the track thanks to the snow, we choose to traverse the basin lower down, but on a path that takes us upwards.

It's slow going. We have to stamp down each footstep to make sure the snow is stable and to prevent ourselves from sliding to the bottom, and there's a number of cracks in the snow that we test before crossing. But an hour or so later we reach the top without mishap.

The view is fantastic. We can see east and west along the coast, including down to Cirali far below. Inland is a carpet of forest, crowned by the rocky snow-covered peaks of the Olympos Bey Mountains.

We can also see the sheer cliff on the other side of the cornice we traversed beneath, and are very happy we kept well away. In fact, cliffs drop away from the summit on all sides, except for the basin we climbed, and even that's pretty steep. Mt Olympos is clearly not a mountain to tackle in bad weather.

The way down is much quicker. We trace our path back along the basin, and then run down a snowdrift beside the scree slope to Tahtali saddle. After that it's an easy walk back to Beycik.

Waiting to be picked up, we drink coffee in a small cafe and chat to Ahmet, a local who lived in Germany for 20 years before returning to Turkey. He's impressed we made the hike, but also bemoans the tourists who come on big tour buses just to take a picture of Mount Olympos.

"They do nothing for the village," he says. "They don't buy anything, they don't talk to anyone, they learn nothing about the area."

Back in Cirali, we thankfully take off our hiking boots and don our swimmers. Floating in the Mediterranean once more, we watch Mt Olympos turn pink in the sunset, and lazily contemplate the next few days. At one end of the beach there's the ruins of the Lycian town of Olympos to explore, and at the other is the Chimaera — eternal flames fuelled by seeping natural gas at the base of Mt Olympos, and the place where the mythical fire-breathing chimaera was slain.

But for now we're content to ease our weary legs and feet in the water, and think no further ahead than where to have dinner.

* Emma Duncan is Managing Editor at WWF International WWF - the environmental conservation organisation

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