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Since the football was starting, I thought it would be best to go somewhere familiar so we could relax and be unburdened by the need to explore. The place was Cappadocia. We had passed through here on our last trip around 18 months ago (I had watched a bit of football with the locals then, so I knew I was in good hands). On the first day we made the effort to explore a few parts we hadn’t previously seen, but by 11am the heat was just too much, the sun was too bright to take decent pictures and all I could think about was England v France that evening (and still over 10hrs to wait!).

I was confident England would win the game and bet any Turks in the bar who were foolish enough to accept…

Nice set piece position…Dickham crosses… Lampard - GOAL! (Well deserved too!).

The waiter brings over a couple of beers courtesy of the humble looking French blokes in the corner. When Rooney earned the penalty it was game over, no question - dickhead had other ideas!

The last few minutes of the game, as they say, are history - all a bit of a drunken haze really, but why was I still in a good mood? Well because history will say they won - I know better. The always hospitable Turks refused to accept their prize from me, they knew who’d won the game - they felt embarrassed taking my money on the strength of such a freak occurrence. So after much haggling we agreed that I should at least be able to buy them a beer each. I suppose decorum states I should buy a couple for those French bastards in the corner, but with some free advice ‘you won the battle, but we’ll win the war!’

The next three days I spent hanging out by the pool in the glorious sunshine with a drink in my hand, reading, listening to music and thinking about the evenings entertainment…football.



If you haven’t visited Cappadocia, it is worthwhile. I can’t be bothered to explain (see pic.). But you’ll not see anything like this anywhere in the world (except of course for the one in Iran [sshh!].



For the next few weeks football would take centre stage in our holiday planning. Couldn’t risk going anywhere that might not show the footy, so no off the beaten track stuff just yet! Even though from now on we would be leaving the world of mass tourism and entering North Eastern Turkey. The guidebook calls it a big slice of the ‘real’ Turkey, but after our last trip around South Eastern Turkey (aka. Kurdistan), this conglomerate of peoples and cultures is anything but one nation and no more real than any big tourist on the South West coast. The Turkish nation was created some 80 years ago with the goal of emulating the ‘progressive west’ and doing away with the ways of old. So a suitable definition for this region is neither ‘real’ nor even ‘Turkey’.



Trabzon was the next stop - big city with lots of Televisions (one in the hotel room will make doubly sure). We took a day trip to visit the beautiful Sumela monastery built on the side of a sheer cliff high above a raging river in the semi-Alpine mountains, but after 20 minutes my mind was elsewhere ‘If Sweden can beat Italy … a draw is bad… 0-0 is better than a score draw… Denmark needs to beat Bulgaria by at least three goals… If England plays Greece…’



Trabzon was actually quite lively, as Turkey’s largest Black Sea port it receives goods from Russia and the surrounding ex-soviet countries. Totally lost, we found some pretty good markets hidden away, where you can buy all sorts of cheap contraband. After shipping, the biggest industry in town seems to be prostitution. I have never seen so many ‘hotels’ in the same area in my whole life (there must be at least 200 to 300 along a one km. stretch). The ladies are mainly from Russia, most have blonde hair and are dubbed ‘Natasha’s’ by the locals. However since prostitution is illegal the ladies don’t solicit themselves on the streets at night where they would be arrested immediately. Everything is done behind closed doors in the many ‘hotels’. In the daytime you will see them everywhere around town doing what they do when not working. I was accosted by three middle-aged ‘ladies’ before they realised my girlfriend was a few paces behind. They were comically rough, and a little scary; wearing far too much makeup, in a vain attempt to distinguish themselves from the local kebab man. They would have made a prize-winning photograph; but being beaten up by three middle aged Russian brasses is not on my things-to-do-before-I-die list (almost worth it though!).



From sub-tropical Trabzon, to the Alpine village of Ayder. I’d seen pictures of Switzerland on people’s office and living room walls all over Turkey and the Middle East and used to think it was a little odd (surely the Islamic dream of paradise can’t be Switzerland?) Now I know they weren’t pictures of Switzerland at all but HERE! (They even have brown cows with bells for god sake!) The Kackar mountains are a real treat - At just under 4,000m the mountains are high enough to be challenging; we decided against the trans-kackar trek over the pass due to the snow (too early in the season) and the risk of no TV on the other side! An overnight trek was the way to go - up to the foot of the pass and back. We camped at 2800 on an island of grass and spring flowers surrounded by snow. After our afternoon meal I decided to do a little independent exploration without the burden of my backpack. I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about the mountains. I’ve done a bit of hiking here-and-there but never in the snow. I left with the shirt on my back, a pair of sunglasses and a camera, and after about an hour exploring the mist came rushing in like the fallout from the WTC collapse. It was real dense fog, and I couldn’t see more than 5 metres in front of me - no problem there I thought - OK, I have snow that goes up hill, down hill or the snow that remains level! I trudged around in the snow for half an hour getting more and more disorientated. Then thought maybe I should be taking this a little more seriously; but this just made me all the more excited. ‘If you slide down the glacier on your ass, does it make it more or less exciting if you can’t see anything as you plummet to your death?’ I knew from the altimeter on my watch that I was 300 metres higher than where we camped - if I could just get a glimpse of the sun I could at least work out the direction I had to walk. I found my way to the edge of a steep glacier but as I couldn’t see anything I didn’t know if I should descend. I continued along the ridge for a while until I found somewhere half decent. Since the fog wasn’t clearing, going down was probably the best bet, even if it was into a completely different valley. (Even though I remembered my ‘SAS survival guide’s´ advice is to find shelter until visibility improves - Oh and NEVER drink your own urine!) After about an hour of trial and error I made it down through the snow and granite boulders to a point where there was at least some vegetation, then to the valley floor and back up for tea. Shame, I was getting excited there - bit of an anticlimax really.

Next day we returned to Ayder and watched England’s formidable thrashing of Croatia, followed by the Scandinavians ingeniously contrived plot to screw the Italians! - Anything but an anticlimax!



So here I am in Ayder - the Islamic vision of Paradise, hitching around the little villages by day and watching football at night. Now excitedly waiting for England to dance past Portugal this evening, and then tomorrow I will leave this wonderful place because my trip begins for real; I’m off to Georgia!

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