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Cave Room
Cave Room at ShoestringThe sun began to rise and I woke from my light bus-sleep. I stared out of the window, in a fairly comatose state after only a few hours of very uncomfortable sleep to see that the scenery had changed dramatically. We had arrived in Capadocia, right in the heart of Turkey and were surrounded by strange rock formations and tall, fallus-shaped stone towers protruding from the ground like giant mushrooms sprouting from the earth. We pulled into Goreme bus station at 8am and got a lift to the Shoestring Pension, where we had booked in to stay. After a glass of apple tea and a plate of Menamen (eggs, peppers and tomatoes cooked in an earthenware pot), we headed straight to bed and tried to correct our sleep debt from the previous night.
We woke at 3pm and wondered around the compact town centre. The scenery is truly unbelievable, like something out of an episode of the Flintstones. You really have to see it to believe it. We booked a horse trek for the following day (Capadocia is referred to as the Wild West of Turkey, so we figured, why not?) and a hot air balloon ride for the day
Shoestring
Shoestring Hostel - built into the caves after that, before heading out for some dinner and a few drinks at.... the Flintstones bar - decorated with pictures of Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty et al.
Friday turned into a lazy morning, partly due to the intense heat being poured down by the sun and partly due to the hangover from last night. At 3:30pm, we were picked up from our hostel by a representitive from the Akhal Teke Horse Centre and driven to the stables. My steed was a relatively small, jet black horse called Ceylan and I did wonder that with my considerable mass on top of her, she may get a tad uncomfortable.
We headed out, first walking but gaining speed to a slow gallop as we headed accross on of the plains toward the tourist trap of the 'Fairy Chimneys'. The Fairy Chimneys are these mushroom-like sandstone falluses, hollowed out thousands of years ago and lived in by cave dwellers. Now they are one of the main draws for tourists and include a number of churches and a police station. We wandered around the chimneys on horseback before our guide, Achmet, took us out on the lesser-beaten path to see Love Valley, Rose
Goreme
Goreme - just like the Flintstone's home of Bedrock! Valley and the Red Valley. All of the above are much harder to reach by tour bus and as such, the horses make getting to see them much easier and more fun. At 6pm, we began to head back accross the plains to the stables. A slow trot, a fast trot, a slow gallop and then a fast gallop. Full speed ahead back to Akhal Teke. As we were galloping along, my right foot slid out of its stirrup. I tried to stop Ceylan but she would not respond to my rein-pulling. I began to slide to the right of my saddle. Still my steed would not respond. With a loud "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT" and a heavy thud, I fell to the floor, crumpled in a heap, managing to lift my arm to alert our guide I was ok and then leave two fingers to try and appease Adam's laughter.
Having fallen hard on my back I was in immense pain, and when I tried to stand up, I felt dizzy and faint. Achmet tried to persuade me to get back on my horse - I'm not sure whether he was joking or not. I was laying in a field in
Ceylan
Me on my (not so) trusty steed, Ceylan the middle of somewhere in Turkey, shivering cold and trying to stay awake. We waited about an hour for the minibus from the horse centre to come and pick us up and when it did, I managed to drag myself into it with the help of Adam who, despite his early laughter, was truly excellent and managed to stop me falling asleep while we waited to be picked up. We got back to our hostel and I headed straight to bed. After taking a dose of pain-killers, and with my dreams of becoming a cowboy in tatters, I slept like a baby until morning.
I woke at 7am in pain, barely able to move, but managed to drag myself to the toilet before heading back to my bed. When Adam woke up, he went to the bus station and managed to re-arrange the night bus we had booked for the evening and also managed to sweet-talk the people in the hot air balloon office into letting us re-arrange our trip for the following day. I spent most of the day face down on my bed, dosing up on strong pain-killers which an American couple in our hostel had given
Inflating Balloon
Inflating the Balloon to me. I don't know what they were but they definitely helped ease the pain.
Sunday, we woke at 4:45am and the pain in my back had become slightly more bearable. We were collected at our hostel and driven to the office of Kapadokya Balloons for a cup of tea and a flight briefing. After 20 minutes, we were driven to the launch site, where our balloon was inflated in a matter of minutes and we were ready to board our flight. I struggled to climb into the basket, but once inside felt very at ease. Our Swedish captain, Lars, who looked like an aged porn star checked all his dials and slowly, we drifted up into the air, leaving the ground crew below. Due to our early start, we were able to watch the sun rise and as it did, it cast a wonderful orange light onto the many stone formations. There is no way to steer a hot air balloon and you have to go with the direction of the wind, although you can alter the height, allowing yourself to slip into various streams of air. The adjustment of height is so accurate (up to a few
Balloon flight
Hot Air Balloon ride centimetres) that Captain Lars was able to get us very close into the rock formations and the cliffs, making the flight truly scenic and absolutely memorable. We also managed to get right above the clouds, which, enshadowed by the sun, made for some excellent photo opportunities. Capadocia is reknowned for its hot air ballooning and as such, there were a number of other balloons flying in and around us. The flight lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes and we eventually landed in a field, where we were met by the ground crew who popped open a bottle of champagne and handed slices of cake around. There is no way to truly justify this experience. It is something that will live with me till the end. The sheer grace of balloon travel is something I would recommend to anyone.
We arrived back in Goreme and, shattered from our early start, decided that the best way to stay awake would be to keep busy. We took a Dolumus (local minibus) to Kaymakli, where there is an ancient city built underground. We spent the best part of an hour walking through the narrow and low tunnels (not the best thing for someone
Balloon flight2
Hot Air Balloon ride2 of 6"3' who fell off a horse two days previously, but ...), descending about 8 floors through the gargantuan underground city, before returning to the surface. It is absolutely unbelievable how this city was built out of the rock and under the ground. The sheer size of it is mind-blowing and to think that it must have taken so many years to complete is a truly humbling experience.
We returned to Goreme in time to grab our bags and have some dinner before boarding our bus to Kayseri. We arrived into Kayseri at 21:30 and were told that our connection to Erzurum would leave at 22:00. At 22:00 - no bus. At 22:30 - no bus. At 23:00 - no bus. At 23:30 - no bus. My mood was lifted at midnight when Adam unzipped his bag and pulled out a birthday card from my Mam and Dad which he had been carrying for the last 6 weeks. 24 today and sat in a chaotic bus station - it can only get better, right? After trying to work out what the guys in the bus office were telling us, we somehow managed to meet a german-speaking Turk called Mehmet
Balloon flight3
Enjoying the ride! who helped us decipher the delay and told us where we had to be. For no reason other than to be helpful, Mehmet made sure we boarded our bus (at 00:30) and waved us off - I guess there are still some good people around!
The bus was hot and highly uncomfortable with 5 people sitting on the 4-seater back row. We stopped once while the bus was cleaned (a seemingly favourite pastime of the Turks) and when we set off at 5am, I finally managed to catch a few winks - 24 hours after waking up! We finally arrived into Erzurum at 9am and suddenly it hit - we are now, officially off the tourist trail. From here on, it is only going to get harder.
We took a taxi to the Hotel Kral, deciding to treat myslef for my birthday, the Kral is "the best hotel in town". Resembling a British 3 star hotel and at 15 pounds a night (with TV in the room), it is the lap of luxury! After checking in, we slept a few hours - until 3pm, when we got up, sorted oursleves out, showered, watched a Turkish soap with a
Capadocia
Capadocian Scenery talking Bulldog, got dressed up in our shirts (oooh!) and headed out for dinner. We dined at the Guzelyurt Restaurant, "the best restaurant in town" and had a 3-course meal, all costing less than 8 pounds. You can't really complain. We decided to have a few birthday beers, but, as Turkey is a Muslim country and the more conservative Muslims are based here, in the East, we had trouble finding a bar. The one we did find, Bar Mistral, proclaimed "we're number 1" on a sign outside. On closer inspection, with loud Turkish pop music and no other customers, we had one beer and headed back to the Kral to hop into our very comfortable beds.
Tuesday morning and after breakfast, we asked the hotel concierge about getting to the border with Georgia. He booked us on a bus and, after managing to obtain a few more US Dollars from a bank, we jumped in a taxi and headed to the bus station. Correction, what we thought was the bus station. It actually turned out to be the bus company's office, set in a suburb of the town. With over 4 hours until our bus was due to depart,
Clouds
Up above the clouds we installed ourselves in one of the local tea houses. Full of old, mustachioed, smoking, old men, they found great amusement when we asked for milk in our tea and spent a few hours trying to work out what card game we were playing, where we were from and why the hell we were drinking milky tea in their local tea house.
At 2pm, we boarded our bus, which drove us all of about 100metres to the bus station. Doh! We took our bags off, put them onto the next bus and set off on the road to Georgia. The route took us through the Dogukaradeniz Mountains, spectular, high, craggy mountains composed of layers of limestone and a fast flowing river running alongside the road. We passed Yusufelli, where we had planned to stop and do some white-water rafting, but unfortunately my back was still not up to it. We climbed up horse-shoe bends to the top of one mountain, down the other side and then back up with the spectacular views of the canyon engraining themselves in my mind for a long time to come. We finally arrived into Hopa at 9pm, where we took at taxi to
Back on the ground
Back on the ground Sarp on the Turkish side of the border. We had been warned about corrupt border guards looking for bribes on the Georgian side, but after half an hour we were through with no trouble and set our first foot onto Georgian soil - in the rain!
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Renski
non-member comment
Happy birthday for the 15th Joel. Your trip sounds amazing - good on yah for doing it. hope your back gets better soon....wonder how the horses back is doing?!?! Love reading your blogs so keep them coming. Take care, keep safe and see you soon! Rena xx