Dogubeyazit

After spending a night in a dodgy hotel in Ercis on 18 February (where the beds were great, the shower was great until someone pulled the electric plug of the water heater, but the shared toilet was VILE), we arrived yesterday in Dogubeyazit, near the Iranian border.

We only drove 135 km yesterday (the 19th of Feb) but had some awesome scenery along the way. Beautiful plains and mountains, all covered in snow.  Our highest point during this drive was 2,601 metres!!  That's the highest we've been with the Beast on this trip so far.  We also stopped to look at some waterfalls which were totally gorgeous.

Dogubeyazit is a dusty frontier town which looks like something out of a space-cowboy movie.  Very entertaining.  Our hotel has one good thing going for it - it has off-street parking!  The shower is also HOT!  Craig is doing some greasing under the Beast as I'm writing this.  Fortunately the Beast has behaved well so far on this trip, with the only exception being the battery terminals, which came loose because (a) they've always been loose and (b) we've been driving on some dodgy roads (on- and off- road)!!! Craig just checked all the roofrack, rooftent and awning bolts, and one has come loose, so that will be a job for the morning, during daylight.

Speaking of dodgy roads, the roads in Turkey have generally been really good, but as we've moved closer to the border, they've become steadily worse.  I wonder if it's because the tourism industry in south-eastern Anatolia is not nearly what it is in the rest of the country.  Or maybe just because it's mainly Kurdish people who live in this part of the country ...

Today we drove out to where Noah's Ark is supposedly resting, but although we followed the signs and found the information centre, we saw no trace of it.  After reviewing some images of "Noah's Ark" on the internet, it seems that we actually DID see it!!! At least, what they claim to be the Ark, and it was just another one of many elongated indentations in the rocks.  In fact, we may well have seen 2 or 3 other Arks on the drive, all looking pretty much exactly the same!  The drive there was lovely (on-road in Turkey is often off-road, as this road was), and the views of Mount Ararat and Baby Ararat were gorgeous.  Then we headed up the mountain behind Dogubeyazit to visit the Ishak Pasha Palace which was stunning, and the views from there towards Dogubeyazit and the surrounding mountains were awesome.

Here's some more photos to admire ...

The Beast at the top of Nemrut Dagi

The Beast on the ferry

The bridge which is being built to replace said ferry

Views across Lake Van

The waterfalls at Muradiye

The Beast and Craig with Mount Ararat and Baby Ararat in the background

Ishak Pasha Palace

The mosque above the Palace

Mirne in the dungeons

The main square in the Palace

Part of the grain stores

The mosque inside the Palace, and the tomb of Ishak Pasha

Beautiful stonework

Love the lion

The main meeting room in the harem

Nemrut Dagi and Ercis

So, yesterday we left Kahramanmaras full of excitement for our trip to the national park, Nemrut Dagi. On the way out of town, Craig stopped to check the tyre pressure, and had the Beast washed as well -- lots and lots of dust and mud ...

Several hours later we were approaching Nemrut Dagi, but couldn't find any road-signs to direct us to entrances.  After faffing around for an hour or more, we finally managed to program our sat-nav to one of the entrance points on the mountain.  However, when we got to the entrance gate, there was no-one there.  So we drove on in.

Headed up towards the summit of the mountain, to view the Nemrut Dagi "heads".  Turns out that we took the entrance which had a road of about 14 km of DIRT.  That's right - off-roading in a huge way. Apparently at some point someone thought that there was some bitumen, so in fact the DIRT road was supposedly "paved" ... right.  We saw little evidence of any bitumen or paving of any kind!  It was straight up, so the dirt road was basically switch-backs up the mountain, on loose rocks and gravel.  It gave me some anxious moments, but of course Craig just put the diff-lock on, and charged the Beast up that bloody mountain!  (Edit by Craig:  This also had the side-effect of making the freshly washed Beast absolutely filthy again!)

So, guess what?  We get about 3/4 of the way up there, and we meet a man in a white mini-van (there are 1000's of them in Turkey) who speaks English and tells us that the summit is closed (because of snow) and we cannot get to the heads.  But, he says, we can turn right at the junction and make it to Karabut and overnight there in a hotel or pension.  By this time it's very late in the afternoon, and we wanted to be off the road, in a hotel or pension, before dark.  The last 0.5 km or so, before we reached the junction, was through snow.  We even met a bunch of Turkish men, sitting around, watching their friends toboggan through the snow.  We made it to Karabut, and spent the night in a very over-priced pension.  We ate food which we had in the Beast -- in the fridge, and bread and such - even had chocolate pudding for dessert.  However, I was super unimpressed this morning when the owner/operator woke me at 7.10 am by bashing on the bedroom door asking when we were leaving!!!! Sooooooo unimpressed.

As a result of being woken early, we were on the road by 8.30 am.  Our early start was lost when we came upon a ferry crossing.  Waiting for the ferry, then the loading of the vehicles (we had to reverse on), then the crossing of the water, took about 1 hour.  The Turks are in the process of building a bridge, which when finished, will reduce the crossing time to about 1 minute!!

We drove through a large-ish town during the morning (wide road - 4 lanes) where all the locals were herding their sheep across the road, off for their day's grazing.  During the day we saw sheep crossing the road, as well goats, cows, donkeys, and of course the usual dogs and cats.  Lots of livestock!

We have decided to head for the border -- Turkey/Iran -- as we've had enough of Turkey for a while!  So tonight, after 512 km of driving today, and being on the road from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm (after dark), we are in another dodgy hotel, where we have our own shower, but share the toilet -- yikes!  We drove past some amazing scenery today, including mountains, plains, gorges, valleys, plains and lakes. Totally awesome!  Tonight we're in Ercis, and tomorrow we'll head to the border-town of Dogubeyazit.

Driving, and a bit of excitement

Yesterday was a day of driving.  We covered the 350km from Goreme to Kahramanmaras, but the weather was a bit grey and overcast so no real scenery to speak of.  We did hit our highest altitude so far - 1906m above sea level.

When we got to Kahramanmaras we booked into our hotel and headed out for some exploring and food.  Found an awesome little Kebab shop, had soup, bread, salad, kebabs and drinks all for under 7 euros.  We then went to a nice ice cream shop and had some of the famous donduma (ice cream).  Delicious!!

After we returned to the hotel we had a bit of excitement.  Barely had we locked the door when there was a rather loud explosion!  I went out to the street, questioned a police officer, and was told that there had been a bomb go off outside a supermarket just up the road from our hotel.  I went back inside, only to hear a second explosion!  I went back out, and discovered that all was clear, they were opening the street again.

You never know what's going to happen next I guess.

Now, a quick video.  We have seen a lot of these trucks, in just this situation.  This one's especially for our good friend Elwyn:

2 days in Goreme

We have spent the last 2 days here in Goreme, living in a cave!  It has been pretty cool, but costly, so we are moving on today.  Our destination will be Kahramanmaras, the ice-cream capital of Turkey.  Yummy.  While here we have done some exploring of the underground cities in the region.

Our first day we went to the Goreme Underground Museum, where we got an idea of how the locals had lived hundreds of years ago, and continue to live (to an extent) today.  Their homes and churches were cut out of the rock faces in the famous fairy chimneys of the region.  They lived as they do today, but did not build structures.  Many modern houses in the area still have back rooms which are cut into the rock, so things haven't changed a huge amount really!

There are a lot of these houses and churches cut into the rock chimneys

Craig in front of one of the houses

Graves in one of the churches

Mirne in front of some houses

They weren't very tall back then (not now, either)

All of the churches were full of graves

The dining table in the refectory

Lots and lots of houses

Some of the graves are still occupied

Some amazing carvings

Some carvings are even in colour

Yesterday we drove south to the truly underground city of Derinkuyu.  It was very claustrophobic, and the spaces were extremely tight.  We had to walk crouched over for most of it, and at one stage were almost crawling on our toes and fingertips up the "stairs".  Mirne got quite affected by it all, and had to return to the surface at around the half-way point.  I continued on, and saw all that was open to the public.  It is amazing that hundreds of years ago they lived down here for up to 6 months at a time when there was a threat on the surface, and they were never discovered by the invading forces that came through the region.  20,000 people at a time, in these crowded conditions!  There is also a tunnel some 8km (5miles) long connecting Derinkuyu to the neighbouring underground city of Kaymakli.  Unfortunately, it was practically impossible to take photos down there, as the light was so poor.

When we got back to Goreme, we could see that there were a number of balloons being launched so we headed off in search of the launch site.  It was quite amazing to watch so many being lifted into the sky from the same place.  How they managed to do it without colliding was impressive, though there was at least one close call.

Yes, it was very windy!

Catching up on the photos (again)

We thought it was about time I downloaded more photos from the camera, so here goes!

Xanthos:

View of the amphitheatre from the agora

One of the massive sarcophagi found here

Patara:

The massive triumphal arch at the entrance

The council rooms have been restored by the Turkish government, using the original stones with very little modern material added where necessary.  Absolutely amazing.  They are currently restoring the amphitheatre, so this will be an incredible site when the work is finished.

Just one of the beautiful beaches along the Mediterranean coast:

Myra:

Many carvings of theatrical masks were found here (as opposed to carvings of actual peoples faces at other sites)

The rock-cut tombs of the Lyceans are amazing

Like little buildings for the dead

Cut into the entire mountainside

The amphitheatre here is also undergoing restoration

The Church of Saint Nicholas (yes, that's right, we went to the Santa Claus church):

Santa himself

Beautiful mosaics on the floors

His sarcophagus, which was broken into and the bones carted off to a church somewhere in Greece

The church was full of natural light

Ceiling painting of the ages of man

More ceiling paintings

Saint Nick again

The main room was huge

Olympos:

The ruins of Olympos are in a beautiful river valley

Sea turtles nest here, and apparently you must not hunting (or fishing)

There is a beautiful beach at the end of the valley

The ruins themselves are in poor shape

They are being reclaimed by the jungle faster than they are being cleared and restored

Beautiful mosaics being left in the open and exposed to moss damage

Some scenery from the top of a mountain:

Kilistra:

Houses (and a church) cut into the rock faces

Some of the houses from a distance

Sultanhani (a caravanserai):

One side from the outside

Some of the detailed carving in the entrance

The outside area, complete with mosque

The inside area

They used the inside in winter, outside in summer - both are huge

The arches in the outside part, for camels to overnight

The front of the building

The Ihlara Valley (we think it's more of a gorge than a valley):

Saint George and the dragon

Roof paintings inside a rock-cut church

A view along the valley

The village of Belisirma

Craig found a cat - who then wouldn't leave and had to be patted and fed tasty morsels during our meal

We ate in the middle of the river

Our dining room from above

People still live in half-cave houses

Another rock-cut church

View along the Ihlara Valley

Linseed oil press inside one of the caves

Our last church in the valley

Cappadocia:

What is Cappadocia without hot air balloons?

The fairy chimneys