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Published: April 14th 2011
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After the busy day of site seeing the day before I decided to skip the carpet museum and take some time to sleep in and recover during some of our last down time of the tour. After a nice slow morning Stacey, Tash, Fred, Ian,Claire and I went off on our own to see the open air museum. The open air museum was basically a collection of about 30 old churches that were dug into the rock face, they varied in age, size, and decoration with some of them being very exquisite and some off them being little more than a hole dug in a rock. This site would have been more impressive if we hadn't spent the last 28 days looking at some of the most amazing and ancient sites in the world. Once we were done Ian and Claire went off and did their own thing while we headed to the tourist shop strip and did some shopping before stopping in an Aussie cafe for a latte and to let our feet take a rest. Once everyone had made their donation to the local tourist shop we went off to fatboys a local pug for a drink and snack
Church 1
This church still had many colors left. before heading off to the hotel to pack our luggage for the last time as an intrepid customer. Before we knew it it was time to take the bus to the train station in Ankara which is the capital of Turkey I was surprised to learn that because I had always assumed Istanbul was the capital. That night we took the third and last sleeper train of our trip this time it was four people per cabin Stacey and Tash went to sleep as soon as we were settled in on the train and that left Amy and I to polish off a small bottle of vodka and than wonder down to the bar car on the train for some more drinks with Terry and Fred. You could sense no one wanted it to the be last night of the trip so we stayed up later than we would have normally and had a nice talk over drinks mostly reminiscing about the trip.
The last day seemed to go by even faster, once we got off the train it was straight to the ferry that would take us down the river and within walking distance of our drop off
Church1b
This is the same church as the previous one.Very nice. hotel. The ferry ride itself was uneventful but it was nice to get a sort of tour of the city as we went down the river. As soon as we docked from the ferry our group started shrinking with Sue and Kris the first two to leave taking a taxi to their next destination hotel, we said our good byes and they were off. It was a fair walk from the ferry to the restaurant we ate breakfast at especially because all of us were lugging our luggage through town along small sidewalks filled with people going to work. The breakfast was at a restaurant on the sidewalk that gem recommended and the food was quite good even though it was an unwanted introduction to the fact everything is more expensive in Istanbul. During breakfast I took the time to chat with Fred as he was going straight to the airport from the restaurant. Fred has been an inspiration this whole trip never a mean thing to say and never a complaint out of his mouth, not to mention the fact at 70 years old he was the last one to sleep and the first one up on many nights.
At this point the Intrepid trip basically ended with Terry, Helen, Ian and Claire all saying their goodbyes in the hotel lobby. Amy and Tash spent the afternoon on a walking tour with Gem while Stacey went to find a hair salon and I tried to take a nap in a very noisy day room at the end point hotel. After giving up on getting any sleep Stacey and I were off to explore the city and eventually find some lunch. We settled n a little Italian restaurant with both of us agreeing we were sick of donairs or other street vendor food. After lunch and checking into our hotel room and checking our email we met up again with Tash, Amy and Gem for dinner and drinks. While the meal itself was uneventful the walk back was, just as Stacey was bitching at Gem for walking too fast she slipped and fell on a small ledge on the sidewalk twisting her ankle and giving us our first real injury on the trip. After climbing mount Sinai, Nemrut and the many places we walked and hiked in Petra it is quite lucky \ funny that it was an uneven sidewalk
in Istanbul that finally took out someone's ankle. Determined to not let the injury ruin her night Stacey Tash and I decided to get drunk in our hotel room. I must admit I was surprised Amy didn't join us but we partied on. Halfway through the night Stacey's ankle got worse so we called than walked to Ian's hotel where he checked out her ankle and bandaged it up informing us it most likely wasn't a break. Since Tash had a room in Ians hotel we switched our party to that hotel and over the course of the next few hours we drank inside, outside,met the owner of the carpet shop next door played catch with a his dog and I ran down the street for some late night McDonalds until finally we surrendered and I walked while Stacey wobbled back to our hotel.
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