Oasis, Days 11-13

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Tuesday 3rd May - Day 11 Oasis

The 5am start was pretty rough, I hadn't been up that early in weeks! We had organised a beach roster so that everyone got 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon. The usual card games and backgammon were played as we made our way to Goreme. Goreme was the craziest little town I have ever seen. As we drove in there were hundreds of little cappadocias - pointed rocks that people had lived in years ago, some people still living in a few of the more modern ones. We made a quick stop at the hot air balloon place so that those who were doing it the following morning could register and pay. I opted against the balloon ride, it just didn't jump out at me as something I really wanted to do. Jess and I decided to upgrade rather than stay in the tents as our room was a rock cave dorm which was awesome! The whole complex was made out of rock to blend in with the surroundings. We had a little bit of time to sort ourselves out, which really meant make a big mess all over my bed and enjoy not having to put a tent up. We then went to a local carpet store for dinner and a demonstration on how they made their carpets and their history. There were so many cool ones and we were constantly fed glasses of wine, obviously so we got drunk and bought some. Jess and I had noticed a carpet while we were eating dinner so we got one of the guys to show it to us. It wasn't quite what we expected but he brought out lots of similar ones for us to look at. One in particular caught my eye, it was very colourful and so different. The downfall being that it was quite a big carpet. It didn't matter that I didn't have a house to put it in, it was more that it was quite pricey and also I then needed to ship it home as there was no way I was going to be able to carry it around for the next 3 months! While I was humming and haring they kindly continued to fill my wine glass - I lost count how many I had. In the end I decided to sleep on it and if in the morning I still wanted it then I was going to go back and buy it. Jess on the other hand had 3 that took her fancy and in the end bought a table runner carpet which was very cool and not too big so she was able to carry it with ease until she sent some stuff home at a later date. Everyone else had left by this stage and gone to a local pub called Fat Boys so once we were done we headed there too. We had another glass of wine and sat outside smoking Shisha but didn't stay late as Jess had to be up early for the balloon ride. It was luxury having a proper mattress, pillow and blanket and I pretty much passed out straight away!

Wednesday 4th May - Day 12 Oasis

I vaguely woke when Jess and a few of the others got up for their balloon ride but promptly fell back to sleep.I eventually got up at 8:30am, had breakfast with everyone and waited for the balloon people to get back as we were heading off for the day sightseeing. When they did get back they raved about how cool it was which was awesome. Apparently there had been about 50 balloons in the sky when they woke up but by the time they went up there was only a handful so they pretty much had the sky to themselves. Jess showed me some pics, it looked amazing! At about 9:30am we got picked up by 2 minivans and set off for our cappadocia tour. We first went to a high point in the city to look over all the cappadocias and learn more about the history and then we went to the underground city which thousands of years ago people had lived in during the war to hide. It was huge and we only saw 15% of it. There were so many levels to it, the first level they even kept animals there. People lived down there for months on end and had devised all sorts of morbid traps to kill the enemy in case they managed to get in. The history was rather interesting. After that we stopped off at a cute little village to have lunch but I was not feeling that well so I just had a can of coke and then went to play with the little puppies at the front of the restaurant. We stopped off at another look out point to take more photos but by this time everyone was a little over it so we didn't stay long. We got back to camp at about 4:30pm. We had a few hours to relax and rejuvenate before Turkish Night. I should have had a nap but didn't, instead opting to try and sort the mess that was my backpack. At about 6pm all us girls started to get ready, deciding to get a little dressed up as we were missing a few luxuries - like looking good! We scrubbed up pretty well if I do say so myself. At 7pm we had the court session for all the fines people had occurred during the trip so far - a book had been created at the start of the trip that recorded all the stupid things people did. I was in there twice - once for not being in the book which was dumb and once for waking Pop up at 6am which had in fact been part of a bet and was so bogus but in the spirit of the game and the fact that most people's punishments were shots, I was found guilty and copped a shot. After the court session we headed to turkish night. It was rather formal with our group being the youngest people there. The tables and chairs were set out in tiered theatre style which looked down on the stage where there were performances of great local turkish dances and knife throwing. There was so much food that they just kept bringing out not to mention the unlimited bar all night. There was already 2 carafes of wine on our table so I decided to stick with that, taking another one from an empty table next to us once mine was finished - I lost count how many glasses were in each carafe but had almost 2 by the time the night was done. A belly dancer came out at one stage and picked Pop out of the group to give it a go which we later discovered had been pre arranged by Dave and Nev. It was hilarious, I videoed the whole thing! After the show everyone left but our group was allowed to stay longer to have some more drinks and have a dance. After that we made our way to Fat Boys. Some people went straight home but the majority stayed out for the night - I went home eventually around 3am.

Thursday 5th - Day 13 Oasis

Today was our last day with the group before signing off the tour to go to Lebanon. Despite my 4 hours sleep I was up early to say goodbye to Elle who was leaving the tour - she was due to finish in Syria so had arranged another short tour somewhere else. Di and Dre were also up so we chatted away until her taxi arrived. After she left Di, Dre and I decided to head into town for breakfast and a look-see around - no one else was up. We found a cute little cafe where I had a turkish tea which was a little sour and needed a good helping of sugar then we found another place to eat. I was yet to try a turkish pancake so opted for a chocolate one and an apple tea. The pancake came out smothered in what looked like half a jar of nutella. It was great at first but was way too sickly sweet so I only managed to eat 3/4 of it. We went for a wonder after breakfast which was nice as we had not really seen much of the little village. We got a little lost which was kind of the point and managed to end up standing on someones roof top - it just looked like a hill but then we saw a chimney. It started to rain at one point so we got a little wet but not too bad. By the time we got back to camp everyone else was up and eating breakfast, they were having pancakes too. I spent the rest of the afternoon packing my bag and making sure I had everything ready for Lebanon - given that we were signing off the trip and it was likely we would not be seeing fanny again we could not leave anything in the truck. Cook group made an early dinner so that we could all have a last meal together before we left which was so nice. We had a group photo on top of Fanny and then said our goodbyes to Nev as he was required to stay with the truck so it was likely the last time we would see him! All of a sudden it was time to go. Even though we were going to see most people again in a few days time it actually felt really weird to be leaving as we had travelled as a big group for the past 2 weeks! We waited at the bus stop for almost an hour before our bus finally arrived. We settled in to our seats for the 11 hour journey ahead of us. I had a window seat which initially was good as I simply put my pillow up against the window and tried to get some shut eye but the heater was right by our seat and it felt like it was on full crank so I started to overheat and sweat like nothing before. It was so uncomfortable and I tossed and turned most of the night. In the early hours I couldn't stand it any longer and asked Jess to swap with me.

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