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Diary - Turkey - Cappadocia to the Border (25th Apr to 29th Apr)
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| After allowing ourselves and Gweneveer three days relaxation and then quenching her thirst with some highly expensive diesel, we decided to make her work and chose a rural route towards Cappadocia in central Turkey. |
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| The route took plenty of twisting and turning dirt roads as we made a steady climb up and up towards the summit of mountains. We found the road or track that we needed to use had a road closed sign across it, which left us two choices, either back track for hours, or see if we could overcome what had closed the road. An eager Gweneveer pressed on with both of us a little nervous as to what was up ahead. It seemed the sign proved irrelevant as we made it to our wild camp spot with no issues. |
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| Angel Meadow was a very isolated spot on the crest of a mountain, where we experienced utter peace and quite. That was until Katie rustled in her sleeping bag all night. The setting is incredible with 360 degree views looking down pine covered slopes towards the largest lake in Turkey and have snow capped mountain peeks higher. The wonderful view turned magical in the morning as we awoke to a narrow band of cloud moving gracefully between us and the top off the mountains. |
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| Cappadocia is another area of Turkey’s wonderful natural landscapes; it is a mystical place where the strange and harsh collide with beauty and grace to make an enchanting region of Fairy Chimneys, underground cities and buildings carved into rock faces. |
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| We stayed at Kaya Camping which after wild camping for five nights, the hot showers were a welcome relief, so much so we spent four nights here. Our time at the site was made even better when people we had previously met, some as far back as Dubrovnik turned up. This did unfortunately cause us to get two dinner invitations in the same night. Not even the twenty five hot air balloons waking us up at 7am everyday could damper our great moods. Until Steve realised later that the camera had no memory card in it, so the quick rise was worthless. The camp at one point though was overtaken by a French tour group in their 11 motor homes, it is bizarre that they only seem to travel in packs, keeping themselves to themselves. |
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| Having wondered around the area for a couple of days seeing all the open air sights we ventured to an underground city, just as the grey and gloomy looking clouds began approaching. The city we visited was 8 levels deep and is astonishing to think at how much earth was excavated. Even with such an impressive human feat; Katie did wonder why with all the effort to make a school and even a winery down there, why they could not have made the stairs and paths a little wider and higher as we spent most of the time bent double. |
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| Turkey has rewarded us with more friendships than we have made in years back home, given us lots of incredible memories, with hours of stories to bore people with and photos to share. Our last few hours in Turkey is a prefect example of how friendly we found the Turkish people. We had been trying to find a Turkish flag sticker for our car since arriving (one for each country!), so with only one last town before the border we parked the car and ventured forth. As we wondered the streets coming up blank, we jumped at someone that said something in English to us, minutes later we were in a mobile phone shop waiting for his friend who was fluent. We explained our issue and after a quick dash round town he had got a friend to create and print us one. About an hour later and several cups of tea with his family and given time for Katie to be bitten by their pet monkey, a flag was presented. |
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| We can safely say that no other flag is this size on Gweneveer, but after such memories we a pleased to have it so dominant. |
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| For more photos please see the Gallery. |
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