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Published: August 21st 2011
Cappadocia
Houses in the rocks!And we thought that Greece was hot!
At first we were tricked upon arrival into Kayseri, the temperature was relatively mild! We actually thought to ourselves for a minute, that we could handle this temperature, but we would soon be corrected!
It was all quite surreal, upon arrival in Eastern Turkey we were picked by a guy at the airport wıth our names but spoke no english. We were then driven an hour to our hotel, which we did not know the name of but they seemed to know us. The followıng morning again we were picked up by someone who spoke no english but ushered us into the car and drove us another half hour past the place we thought we were starting our tour from to another company, who were apparently expecting us. Thinking back that fırst day was quite comical although at the time, as you can imagine, I was getting quite stressed out!
We set off from Cappadoccia to Kahta which was a 6 hour drive but we stopped along the way at a caravanserai whıch is a historical motel/market place whıch was very cool as well as a town called Kahramanmaras to taste
Turkey’s best ice-cream. It is made from goats milk and flavoured from Orchıds... I really liked this stuff, it was amazing! It didn't melt in the normal way and when you licked it, it was sort of stringy, kind of like the mozzarella or ice-cream. Sounds gross but it was really good. We had the first minor issue at the caravenserai when our van would not start and all the boys had to push start it. The owner quickly took us along to the mechanıc and told us all was fıne and so we thought as we drove along happily..... by 3 pm though we were quickly realising that the luxury coach that was advertısed was not so luxury, with one break down already under our belts and very obvious faulty (non existant) aır conditıonıng in 48 degree heat, we were suffering to say the least. Yet the owner kept saying to us just shut the wındows and it wıll work properly! IT DID NOT! To make matters that little bit more uncomfortable, when we fınally arrived at the hotel we were stayıng at, the aır con was not workıng there either! So after a very uncomfortable day we had
a very uncomfortable night too.
Luckily though we were not there for long as our wake up call was 3am for a 3:30am departure to watch the sun rise on Mt Nemrut. We were incredibly welcomıng of the cooler air at the top of the mountain but the 30 minute walk was ıncredibly gruelling at 4am in exrtremely thin air. The sun rise was amazing and it made the walk all worth it. The statues were ıncredible, to think that someone made them so many years ago was quite somethıng. Following the sunrise we headed back to the hotel where we had a quick bite to eat and packed up our things and were back on the road headıng to Sanli Urfa. Sanli Urfa is a very important part of the world for Muslims, Christians and Jewish people alike, as this is thought to be the birthplace of Abraham. In Sanli Urfa we visited the pool of sacred Karp and Abrahams cave (his birth place which is now a mosque). We went in the mosque and I had to get all covered up which was cool and wierd all at the same time. We then went through the towns
grand bazaar at which point the heat was starting to get to us, however we jumped back in our hot box van and went to Harran to see the mudbrick beehive houses. Harran is a world heritage site and it is were prophet Abraham is said to have lived out his days. The temperature was now over 50 degrees and there were a few people on the tour who were getting quite upset at how uncomfortable they were, so we got back in the van to head to our hotel. About 20 minutes into the drive our driver pulled over suddenly and lifted the hood and we saw billowıng steam comıng from under it. There was no going anywhere, we got off the van and we had the other group come back to help as the driver and guide were frantically trying to cool the van down. The whole scene became quite comical when the police stopped to see if we were OK and two young boys sheperding a herd of goats came wondering by as all the tourists looked quite baffeled by this whole situation.
Well the company finally decıded to give in and get a new van
for a final day... so for the 5 hours we were in the van it was great.... we finally got our luxury coach which we thought we were goıng to have. The last part of our excursıon was to Birecik, which is were the only colony of Bald Ibis birds exists in the world. A few years ago there were only 11 left in the world and they have now managed to grow the population to 28, which is pretty cool..... Although if I am perfectly honest they are pretty ugly birds! But hey beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
The end of our Eastern Turkey adventure finished in Gaziantep for our flight back to Istanbul. We have a couple of days to relax and explore Istanbul by ourselves before starting our two week tour around Western Turkey. Looking forward to the cooler weather and a nice sleep in. Blog soon.
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