A Week in Turkey

Having flown through Europe in a week, we began week two by crossing the Bosporus and beginning the Asian leg of our adventure. We decided to spend as little time as possible in Turkish city centres, mainly to appease our mothers, but unfortunately our lack of any map below a scale of 1 to several million meant we soon found ourselves hopelessly lost in downtown Istanbul. While pulled over with the map spread out over the bonnet of the car (the only way it can actually be read in any way approaching usefully) a couple of locals on a motorbike pulled over, and after a sign language conversation we were fairly confident that if we followed them they would lead us in the right direction towards our destination. Either that or we had just joined a political movement and were speeding off to a rally of a very different kind. They drove like lunatics, switching driver on the bike at 60mph, and leading our convoy down a rocky and rapidly narrowing hard-shoulder to skip a queue, but they did show us the right way, and we gratefully paid them for their service with the universal currency of cigarettes.

Dinner with a view

Camping in the Black Sea town of Sile, we enjoyed the opportunity to cool off in the sea, despite there being a net preventing people swimming further than 10m or so from the shore, clearly in an attempt to ensure that the lifeguards had to do almost nothing all day long. Back in camp, most of us avoided the shower that smelt like it would leave you significantly less clean than when you entered, and set about building a camp fire from wood we could scavenge from around the camp. Zac headed off with a saw and returned with some wood that looked suspiciously like it may have served a structural purpose moments earlier, but it did the job and we enjoyed probably a world first of frankfurter burritos (something that really should become a regular dish).

Rolling Thunder hits Turkey

We didn’t hit the road towards Ankara until 10.30pm the next day, having spent a day doing some fairly critical admin and once again trying our best to break the car, details of which you’ll find in the next blog post… Zac finally decided that legal entry to Azerbaijan wouldn’t be a bad option, and applied for an eVisa, although we have no idea why it is actually called an eVisa, as it is just a normal visa that you apply for online i.e a visa. A packet of Marlboro Reds purchased online don’t become e-cigarettes. Anyway, we passed through Ankara at dawn (on a wonderful EU-funded motorway, incidentally) and set up camp in the outskirts in what appeared to be an old quarry that had recently been reincarnated as the village rubbish dump.

In the morning we discovered that various items had been stolen, but luckily found later in the day found that the thieves had been kind enough to return their loot and burry it deep in the car boots. A local farmer delivered us a whole bag of wonderful plums and an unidentifiable vegetable, and we then headed off concerningly in the direction of the Syrian border.

Camping wild

In Cappadocia, we treated ourselves to a sunrise hot air balloon flight over the famous valleys and rock formations in the area, waking up for the first time before it was 35 degrees plus in the tents. The first stop of the organised trip was a complimentary breakfast of wafers, chocolate cake with the density of lead, and olives, amongst other equally incompatible items. Half an hour later though, we were soaring over the town, enjoying some truly stunning views, whilst greatly appreciating the skill of the pilot who was able to manoeuvre the balloon to within touching distance of the sides of the valleys, and even land on the back of a trailer. Back on terra firma, and deciding to make the most of our detour away from the Black Sea, we visited a huge 15th century underground city, made up of at least 7 levels and once home to 30,000 inhabitants. It was already 3pm, and so we had to decline the offer of a tour from a guide who said he had been guiding at the site since he was 20 years old, and looked old enough for that to have been while it was still inhabited.

Sunrise ballooning in Cappadocia

Our final couple of days in Turkey took us through some fantastic mountain roads, where Noah threw the occasional tantrum but in general performed admirably. One day we tried to swim in a river just off the main road, but a local pulled over and warned us not to head any further down the track due to ‘terror’, accompanied by a well-acted demonstration of an automatic rifle. We hastily moved on. Camping in two beautiful wild spots, we became used to the morning alarm of the call to prayer, as well as testing the waterproofness of our tents in the first rain we’d seen in a couple of weeks. The definite highlight, however, was finding a small Turkish mountain town, where apart from a small shop, the only other facility was a curling rink. Clearly Turkey is one to watch in the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Wonderful Turkish roads