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Published: September 4th 2008
Uzungol
A nice lake we visited “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf,
mountains ,
and then find somewhere where I can rest in peace and quiet…
somewhere where I can finish my book”
- Bilbo - The Fellowship of the Ring
We spent the last 10 days in the Kachkar Mountains and Eastern Turkey. We will let the photos tell the travel story and Hagit will describe how it is to travel with a toddler
Traveling with Liya
A year ago, I talked to a friend who traveled with their 7 month old to London. She explained the difference between traveling as a couple to traveling as a threesome. She said it is a different trip. The baby needs to crawl just when you want to visit a museum, he wants to go to the park but you want to walk through the bazaar…
Full of thoughts and hesitation we decided going to turkey with Liya. Yaron suggested leaving her with our parents but I didn’t consider it.
In preparation I took Liya to her doctor to get some prescriptions for the trip and to weigh her. Usually she is very thin and is on the
Cam Pass
2540m on the way to Kars from Atrvin 1st percentile of weight. The doctor told me that she doesn’t expect her to gain weight, but asked that she does not to loose some. I took it as a goal!
Before leaving Israel I thought about stuff like: what will she eat, how will she cooperate in very long drives every day (4-6 hours), how will it be similar or different to our previous trip?
After half of the trip over I can say we enjoy traveling with Liya very much. It is very different than traveling just the two of us but it feels good. Waking up in the morning when she stretches herself between us smiling to us and coming for a hug and kiss.
Watching her bond to Yaron, that I think until now she saw him only 2-3 hours a day during week days. We are glad to report that she is still growing up in the trip but now we have much more time to see how she understands a little more every day.
It took 2-3 days until we found the right rhythm for traveling with her. As we wake up we let her play for an hour (we carefully choose guest-houses that
are clean and safe enough for her to be on the floor). Then she gets tired and we can start driving for 2-3 hours. When coming to a new “home” afternoon, we again allow her time to play with her familiar toys we brought with us: a night doll called “BUBA RUTI” , a wake up doll called “PINGY” (who is actually our first grandson but that’s a long story…), 3 noisy toys and two books she likes (both by Miriam Rot). The familiar objects help her relax and comfort her and are the constant in a changing world for her. At evening, before shower, we watch with her on the laptop one of her favorite DVDs.
The interesting thing is, that she too found a new rhythm. In the first few days she cried in the shower since at home she takes a bath. But now she looks more comfortable and interested in the shower playing with the water then she was in the bath. In the first days she found it difficult to fall asleep. She is used to falling asleep in her bed alone and now she was surrounded by all the other stuff and could not
Sumela Monastery
Old Greek Orthodox monastery from on the side of a high mountain. The view after a 20 min climb from the car see her bed. After a few days she understood her place is between us and accepts it happily. We just put her between us and she randomly chooses one of us to hug and fall asleep on.
When we reach rural areas and she finds sheep, dogs and cats we are happy and take her to look at the attraction. We are constantly searching for things that will make her smile and get her interested. Sometimes she can be interested in an empty bottle for ½ an hour.
So, yes, it is different traveling with her… we wake up whenever she does, so we don’t need a alarm clock 😊 We stop the car when she really gets tired of being in her baby chair, we go to eat dinner early even if not that hungry yet so we can get back to the hotel early enough that she can relax, take a shower, play a little and go to bad. No more late drinks for us
But I cannot think of something we are really missing and that we can’t do because of Liya or of a place we wanted to see but gave up…. So far. we
On the way to Kars
we drove for hours and we were the only ones on the road except for some local tractors are doing everything we planed to, visiting every rural city we want, taking long drives, having a lot of fun together, feeling a lot of love to each other and knowing we must be doing something good here. The kid is smiling, eating, playing, having good time and so do we
other headlines this week
- Total distance traveled this week - 1850km
- Most of the places we stay in have WiFi and bringing the laptop has been a great success.
- We use 5 different maps - 2 on the Laptop (the Turkish ministry of transport map and the www.mapofturkey.info - both of which downloaded so we can use them on the go). 1 map in our Lonely Planet. 1 printed map by “rough-guide” we bought before the trip and the map we got from Avis when renting the car. ALL maps show the road between Yusufeli and Ispir as a good road. In practice
the first 40km took us 1:45hr because it was no more then a winding dirt road with no room for more then 1 car in the 2-way road with the danger of cars from the
Detour from the Artvin to Kars road
we went ½ hr off road to see this Old Georgian church ruins (called the Tibet church) other side in every turn
- We found where the Israeli Nachnieli (נחליאלי - Wagtail) goes to in the summer. We found him right here in north-eastern turkey having a cool time until his winter vacation in Israel.
- There is so much water here we thought of bringing the Kineret here for 10 min so she can fill up but on 2nd thought we decided against it because the Kineret might like it too much here, wear a sweater and stay and then what will we do?
- All the hotels we sleep in are simple ones mainly for Turkish people so there is not much of a “backpackers” scene in eastern turkey. One notable exception is “Karahan Pansiyon” in Barhal where we spent 3 night in. with travelers from around the world, a common recreation room, common lunches and dinners and a good mountain atmosphere in the air.
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- The tourist season in the Kachkar ends on the 31st of august. in the last few days we saw no Turkish vacationers and almost no foreign travelers. We retunred yesterday to Uzongol, the first place we visited 10 days ago, and the place was
Detour from the Artvin to Kars road
our detour brought us to a wonderful rural area disserted and most hotels and restaurants were closed when we arrived. So we will leave this place now for another destination….
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anonymous
non-member comment
sign
lol, the sign on the on the road says that there is a construction site and you should wear a helmet.