In this weeks round up of the local news Fethiye Face hit by disaster, Helicopter Scrambled Twice to Rescue Paragliders, a day at the races and lovely melons judged.

Fethiye Face House Burns to Ground

And that well-known Fethiye Face Haci had a disaster this week.

His house in Tuzla burned to the ground following an electrical fault.

Luckily he wasn’t at home when the fire broke out in the middle of the night, as his house had flooded in the rains a few of weeks ago, so he had been staying at a friend’s place.

However, he was still keeping all his stuff in his own house and says he has lost everything except the clothes he was wearing (of course that included his Galatasaray shirt).

He has even lost his stock of business cards and the takings from his shoeshine business.

Helicopter Scrambled Twice to Rescue Paragliders

The week got off to a bad start with two paragliding accidents in as many days. On the first day a German, then the next a Russian, both flying solo, crashed onto the slopes of Babadağ.

First of all 65-year-old Kaspar Reiner from Germany suffered a broken leg and lacerations when he crashed.

The military helicopter was called out from Dalaman and was only able to get Reiner on board on its fifth attempt – providing reams of footage for amateur film makers on the beach below.

The Russian Alexei Golovanov plummeted on to the mountain side the next day, and once again the army’s helicopter was scrambled, and took three hours to find the injured pilot.

Golovanov broke his hip but both men are satisfactory in the Sate Hospital.

A Day at the Races

A Festival with a difference took place in Muğla over last weekend – and we didn’t know anything about it until reports of the events appeared after they took place.

It was the 18th Muğla Cultural Festival and included all kinds of traditional competitions including horse racing.

We aren’t talking about sleek race horses with tiny jockeys dressed in multi-coloured silks.

These were horses ridden by their owners (all men) and a total of 110 were entered for a series of races.

Owners and riders came from Aydin, Denizli, Izmir, Manisa, Samsun, Isparta, Burdur as well as Muğla itself.

The animals were divided into nine categories by age/size/shape.

Whilst the races were taking place, spectators were served free rice, keşkek (a kind of savoury porridge with bits of meat if you are lucky), ayran and melon.

There were apparently exceedingly long queues for the food.

Meanwhile police had to intervene on several occasions when fights broke out between horse owners – sounds like it was a great day out.

Lovely Melons Judged

Another event at the Muğla Festival was the competition for the best grower of honeydew melons.

In total 27 growers entered their melons and the prizes were horticultural tools.

While the judges worked to decide who should win, the crowd were entertained with folk dancing.

We shall try and remember the final weekend in September next year and take a trip to the 19th Muğla Cultural Festival.