Turkey (it was a while ago, but I really couldn't be bothered.....!)

Turkey: 3rd May 2011 to 14th May 2011

Total distance travelled: 4,679km

Total days travelled: 27

Turkey accommodation breakdown:

Bushcamps: 2

Campsites: 5

Hostels: 4

We crossed into Turkey from Romania and it was the first properly interesting border crossing.  Of course, by interesting, I mean that we sat and played cards on the tarmac for about 5 hours while CJ was on the phone to the ambassador in Ankara.  Some problem to do with whether we were a truck or a bus, or perhaps they just didn’t like the look of us?

From there it was a wee drive into Istanbul, taking a wee scenic route over the Golden Horn and back again, getting stuck going the wrong way up a one way street due to a low bridge and causing traffic mayhem!

We were really lucky* to be staying in a fab hostel about 2 mins from Hagia Sofia, the great 4^th c Byzantine church/Mosque/museum, but arriving in the dark we just went for a wee meal, with the unexpected bonus of touring a partially excavated 4^th c. palace below the restaurant. 

Hagia Sofia

Hagia Sofia

Mosaic at Hagia Sofia

Hagia Sofia

Hagia Sofia

The next couple of days were spent tramping round the fantastic city of Istanbul in the rain, which ranged from drizzle to downpour.  I’d already been for a long weekend a few years ago so knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, so mostly took off by myself round some of the best places again.  Hagia Sofia wowed me even more than last time as, although more full with tourists, the interior scaffolding had all gone and you got a true sense of the amazing scale and beauty of the place.  I also revisited the Blue Mosque (beautiful), the Archaeology museum complex (fab), the mosaic museum, the Grand Bazaar, the Museum of Islamic Art, various mausoleums etc.

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Mosaic

Mausoleum

Detail from mausoleum door

Detail from mausoleum

Obelisk with Blue mosque minarets

Offspring of Hermes and Aphrodite (a hermaphrodite)

Detail from archaeology museum

A German rally

Sally (who’d lived in Turkey previously) was good enough to show me her favourite pastry shop on DivanYolu and I indulged a couple of times (when in Rome and all that).  Otherwise the food was pretty good for a veggie as long as you liked fried cheese sticks and aubergine slop which fortunately I do!

Pastries

Fried fish on the Golden Horn

Spice market

Police segways

Also, I discovered the delights of the Shisha pipe (only tobacco G’dad – nothing to worry about!) and the further delights of replacing the water with vodka (thanks Donna/Dan for that one).

Jim, telling it like it is

After a few lovely, if damp, days in Istanbul we went off to Goreme which was a bit of an epic trip.  Goreme is home to some lovely rock formations called fairy chimneys formed out of soft tuff overlaid with harder rock, but the same soft tuff allowed people to carve houses and churches out of the rock.  An added bonus was that the campsite we pulled into had a house cave which most people opted to stay in.  However, after a few days staying in the hostel (it’s an entirely different experience sharing a dorm with strangers to people you know) I opted to sleep top side in my tent.

Euro symbol fail!

Cave church

The hollowed out churches are really amazing, if slightly odd.  They’re mostly covered in murals, but they’re very naïve for only being a few hundred years old.  Erosion has also taken its toll with many of the front walls having fallen off and some of the old houses have now been converted into dovecotes.

We also went for a dawn balloon ride over the fairy chimneys which was really beautiful.  There wasn’t a lot of wind so we didn’t go very far, but the pilot was pretty skilled, managing to fly us very low over some valleys, and landing us in someone’s field.  It was nice, but it couldn’t really compare to ballooning over the Serengeti during migration.

Fairy chimneys

There were a couple of other balloons up at the same time

From there it was off to an underground city which was built for protection in times of siege.  It was really claustrophobic inside, with low tunnels connecting 5 different floors over 50m of depth.  There were some pretty big rooms carved out including churches, a temporary graveyard, a wine processing area and stables.
 

Squint hard enough and you can see Jaws...

Take a lot of drugs and you might see a camel

From there it was a few days of bush camping through the countryside (complete with decomposing cow, massive thunder and lightning, our first real bush toilet (ie hole in the ground), and a smoky campfire) before arriving for a welcome shower at a campsite on a fish farm near the Sumela monastery.

Tractor town

Bush camp

Home sweet home

Me and Denis with a whole comb of honey we bought
for just €15

We went through a couple of small country towns to pick up some food while we were bushcamping, and I found them to be strange little places.  Women don’t seem to exist (so we  caused quite a fuss) and men don’t seem to do too much – the male population seemed to be sitting around outside in their black leather drinking tea all the time.  The other thing I noticed that there were more tractor dealerships than off licences which I feel is mis prioritising (especially if you’re on the truck bar crew and need to replenish stocks for thirsty travellers!)

The Sumela monastery is perched a long walk up a steep hill and is apparently quite stunning.  However, after completing the aforementioned long walk/steep hill in the drizzle, we couldn’t see any of the outside and its dramatic clifftop location, and the inside was a little anticlimactic.

Drizzle

Drizzle (for the view without drizzle, please see link

Fresco (not really, there's some other technical name) at Sumela monastery

Little boy on school trip in silver shiny suit

Lucy

Overall impressions of Turkey are that Istanbul is fantastic, and in the rural areas there are lots of men in black leather drinking tea.  The weather was generally moist.

And so from there to Georgia (the country, not the US state for those in any doubt).

*I was possibly the only person to think that staying in a hostel was fantastic.

more photos on the way to Bulgaria

Sighisoara, Romania

with Vlad "the Impaler/Tepes" Dracula, Sighisoara, Romania

Sighisoara, Romania

Lunch at the truck, Romania

Peles castle, Romania

Romania

Peles Castle, Romania

Bucharest, Romania

Parliament, Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest, Romania

Think Glasgow City Council could do with a wee lesson from the parks dept in Bucharest

to Bulgaria

Not much in the mood for blog writing so apologies (or not so many apologies if you can't be arsed reading my posts anyway).

We are here (Russell and Sylvia from Canadialand send a satellite tag out every night).

It's been a bit of a whirlwind trip hoofing it straight down to Bulgaria, camping every night but one and usually having one day driving interspersed with one day pootling around a lovely (or not so lovely) city or somewhere in the so far very pretty countryside.

It's not like I'm not enjoying myself, but I'm really struggling with being with so many other people (not all of whom I would choose) all the bloody time, and having no freedom regarding route etc.  It's all a bit school trip/family holiday and therefore not really my kind of thing. Hopefully in a couple of weeks when we're in more interesting places and have a bit more time I'll have adjusted as it'd be a shame to bail which is what I'm currently considering.

Home for the next 6 months or so, parked up at Dover

Cologne

Cologne Dom

Padlock bridge in Cologne.  People lock padlocks and throw the keys in the river to symbolise unbreakable love or some other vomit inducing nonsense.

Cologne Dom

Cologne Dom

Cologne

Bamberg

Altes Rathous (townhall) with murals, Bamberg

Not my kind of restaurant

Bamberg

Green man, Bamberg

Prague castle

Graffiti in Prague

Prague

In the cathedral in Prague Castle

If you're going to have water spouts, why not?
Prague

Culture alive and well in Budapest

No escape!

Metal shoes to symbolise Jews trying to escape, Budapest

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest

Turda Gorge, Romania

Setting off again.....

So, I'm off again on another trip, two weeks today.  Bit exciting! 

It's with a company called Odyssey and this is the route....  

Highlights & Lowlights

See if you can guess which is which.....

• Getting punched in the face by a crusty Guatemalan man in Granada, Nicaragua
• Visiting the desert of Punta Gallinas, Colombia, the northernmost point of South America
• Meeting fantastic people including (but not limited to): 
• the lovely Lee & Tanya , 
• Drew, Vikki & Jordan, 
• Rob & the gang in Banos, 
• wee Irish Susie, 
• Scott, the nutty American film maker, 
• the Aussie boys in Utila, 
• the guys on the Salar tour, 
• John, Claire (she works on Neighbours!!) & Preety, 
• Sam & Morgan, 
• Tiburon and the gang at Rancho Mastatal, 
• Abi & Hannah, and
• crazy girls Elinor & Rachel (Medellin, Colombia)
• Climbing Volcan Baru, the highest point in Panama, and losing my toenail 3 1/2 months later
• Being bitten by an eel
• Earthquake in Banos, Ecuador
• Rio de Janiero, Brasil
• Louisa & Sarah coming out to visit me (honestly, they just came to see me, it's not like they were on holiday or anything like that!).  And Kerstin travelling with me before and after her last year in Las Malvinas (aka the Falklands).
• Diving in Cenotes, the Blue Hole (rubbish dive, but it's definitely one to tick off the list!), Honduras, the Mayan Riviera and lots other places
• Little Corn Island, Nicaragua
• ATM caves, Belize
• Food poisoning in the already depressing town of Esteli, Nicaragua
• Louisa & Sarah bringing gifts from home including Cadbury's Dairy Milk, a new rucksack, M& S undies!!!!!, and bonus points to Lou for bringing me a cold!
• La Casa Verde, Banos, Ecuador
• Four guys attempting to mug me and Kathleen in broad daylight in Cuenca, Ecuador
• Carnaval and the water fight in Barranquilla, Colombia
• Freezing cold nightbuses and gloriously long bus journeys in general
• Rice & beans, beans & rice, Gallo Pinto (translation Spotted Rooster, meaning rice & beans)
• Top quality bruising from horse riding, Delia's cooking on Estancia Juanita
• Medellin, Colombia
• Galapagos, Ecuador
• The splendour of Iguazu falls, Argentina & Brasil
• Paragliding in Mendoza
• Running into a surprising number of Scottish people: Weegie boys Martin & Mike, Andrew from the borders, Kez from Fife, Mo from the Weege,
• Star tour in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
• Gay Pride parade in Santiago, Chile
• Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
• Amazing archaeological sites all over Mexico, central America, and even in Bolivia
• Horseriding in Pucon, Chile
• Sucre, Bolivia
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Day trip to Colonia, Uruguay
• Beer, Malbec, Caipirinhas, Cuba Libras, Mojitos, Panty Rippers, even Pisco Sours, but not Fernet
• Swimming with whale sharks, Cancun, Mexico
• Crazy Texan paying street kids to follow us, but them misunderstanding and thinking they were being paid to get their friends to beat us up, Nicaragua

Argentina - the last leg

20 November

Bariloche is a really beautiful, cutesy little ski resort on a massive lake and surrounded by snow capped mountains. And I was staying in a hostel at the top of an apartment block in the middle of town so had some fantastic views.

Bariloche - view from the hostel

Ruling out the idea of a 40km cycle along the lake I got a bus instead and went for a wee wander where I got dropped off. The sun was really lovely and hot but the air and the water were really cold so no swimming!

Bariloche town centre - cutesy!

After a couple of days hanging out there, avoiding the St Bernards posing in the square and buying plenty chocolate for xmas I got another night bus up to Mendoza.

Mendoza is a really lovely town, with a great climate (at this time of year - it gets up to 45C in the summer) and is famous for its vineyards. However, being lazy, knowing nothing about wine and having been to a few vineyards on this trip already, I spent my time in Mendoza eating, drinking, sunbathing by the hostel's pool (small and definitely harbouring alien lifeforms) and going paragliding which was just amazing.

I went with this Scottish/Chilean bloke Mo I met in the hostel. We were picked up in the late afternoon and driven about halfway up one of the mountains just outside of town. Where we waited. And waited. Turns out the wind was too gusty or something. Just as I was about to give up and suggest trying in the morning instead, we were loaded back up into the jeep and driven to the top of the hill.

My feet, another paraglider, the ground!

We were doing tandem gliding which means that, once you've run off the edge of a mountain, all you have to do is sit in your little seat, try not to puke (apparently about 10% of people do, but not me!) and admire the views. It was really amazing up there, kind of like hot air ballooning in that it was really quiet and peaceful and amazing. We were probably up there for about 1/2 an hour or so before being dropped in for a really gentle landing. It was fantastic. I would recommend it to anyone and would absolutely go again.

(I don't have great photos as Mo has all the ones of me and my hard drive failed so I don't have copies of them sadly.)

And from there it was one last night bus back to Buenos Aires, where you'll be pleased to hear, I bought all
my (your) xmas presents in the really amazing Sunday markets they have here. Which meant I then had to go through my bags throwing away almost all my possessions! Such a great excuse to chuck out all the clothes I never want to see again!

So, for one last big night out I went, with a bunch of other people from the hostel, to a great drumming show called La Bomba. It's drumming like I've never heard drumming before and was truly fantastic. A great end to the trip.

I write this sitting in the sun at my hostel in BA, thinking about what to have for lunch (probably cheese & onion empanadas and perhaps some dulce de leche icecream) and dreading coming back to the snow. Whilst it'll be nice to see everyone, the thought of the real world scares me a little.

Luckily I've already got next year's trip booked.....