A whistle-stop top tour of Turkey

Not sure when this will get uploaded but I'm writing it sat in a queue at the Turkey-Georgia border. Before we got here we had heard stories of 6 hour waits and seeing the queue we aren't really expecting much better. We also heard tales of people chatting to border guards and getting through in express time as it's a 'rally'. Maybe this works if you speak Turkish but with our 7 or 8 words they just looked at us like we were idiots. Anyway, to top it off it has now started raining so our kickabout in the road has been brought to a swift end and I'm writing this instead sat in my ever so comfy drivers seat. Cal said that it wouldn't rain for the whole rally and, even though I know he's usually wrong, it was nice whilst it lasted as this is definitely a rally low point.

In contrast though the last few days have been pretty incredible. Leaving Istanbul and our third team member, Yas, felt like a massive shame after the great time we'd had there; and it was always going to be hard for the rest of Turkey to impress me as much. But much like Cal I was very wrong. On Tuesday we set off from Istanbul for Cappadocia. Expecting 750km of boring motorway driving, we were very neatly treated to exactly this. Fortunately though we stumbled across Lake Tuz; a massive salt lake in the middle of Turkey, which dries up into a huge salt flat in the summer.

'Some salt, some shorts, and some dubious tan lines'

After a brief stop here we powered on and made good time to Cappadocia, an area famous for its landscape and 'fairy chimneys'. As a bit of a once in a lifetime thing we stayed in one of the caves it is also famous for; this may sound like roughing it but I'll come clean now that the 'cave' is essentially a proper hotel just built into the stone. But it was cheap and as we were getting up at 4am to watch the balloons rise it was a little treat to ourselves.

As 4am starts go I have to say this was probably the most worthwhile one I've ever done. Watching the hot air balloons rise up and out of the valley over the stone town was certainly a morning I won't forget in a hurry. With another 700km plus stint coming up though 4 hours sleep was not enough though, so a quick 2 hour nap followed by breakfast was necessary before hitting the road again.

'Turns out some things are worth getting up at 4am for'

Driving north again was largely uneventful, save for us all accidentally flirting with a Turkish waitress in the evening. Using our best Turkish Yas taught us we tried to tell her that the food was very good; or 'cok guzel' in Turkish we had been told. After she left quite quickly giggling and blushing I remembered that this can also mean 'very pretty'. Either way she seemed to take it quite well and signed all the cars afterwards.

'She didn't put down her number though'

We then stayed near the border and got here at midday-ish. It is now 3:30pm and since it has started raining the border guards seem to have packed up and gone inside and we have barely moved. If we ever get into Georgia maybe I'll upload this. If not, and you are finding this in my iPhone notes, then I've obviously died of boredom; so please tell the world that I love everything about Turkey apart from its borders.