Turkey

A few weeks passed since our last message, our journey through Turkey was indeed quite intense and far from Internet connections.
So, after a stressful day in Sochi (RUS) waiting for our boat stuck by bad weather on the Black Sea, it finally arrived and took us to Trabzon (on the north western coast of Turkey). This time was only stressful because it was the last day on our transit Visa and if the boat didn’t make it on time we would have to evacuate Russia by night as soon as we could via the Ukrainian boarder. Luckily enough we arrived to Turkey without problems spending one nice night at sea, waking up surrounded by dolphins and beautiful sunshine.
Trabzon immediately gave us a good sensation of vacation; it is a little city full of life, markets, Durum places, friendly and welcoming people , no more police robbery and the mountains all around make a beautiful landscape.
We spent our first night close to a little monastery in the altitude with Peter and Brigitte our Austrian friends that we met in Sochi and that will travel to Georgia (with their Toyota Land Cruiser) with a similar mind than ours. It was very nice to meet you Peter and Brigitte; you made us want to discover the Sahara! All the best to you and hope to see you some other time on the road!
After the beautiful Monastery of Sumela (perched on a huge rock cliff) we headed East and South towards the lake of Van. Just beside it there is a old volcano with a caldera and a very nice lake inside. Perfect place to spot White-throated Robins but mid-September is already too late and they were probably all gone so it became a perfect place to take some relaxing time and a swim in the lake.
Further South and slowly starting our way West we climbed the famous mountain of Nemrut Dagi where the top is covered by an incredible Greek sanctuary composed of different terraces where huge statues of different gods standing there for centuries.
This was not my first visit to Turkey as a came here nearly 20 years ago with few of my birdwatchers friends. From that first trip I remembered that there was one place that I could not miss: the town of Birecik on the Euphrates river. Once again this place became one of the highlight of our trip. Close to the Bald Ibis sanctuary we met and were invited to spend some time with a Turkish family of farmers. We had a lovely time with them and in their simplicity and generosity gave us an incredible lesson of hospitality and friendship.
That area is also a great birding spot and even if many interesting birds were gone to Africa or India in this season, this time I manage to observe the splendid White-throated Kingfisher and many White-spectacled Bulbuls that we lamely missed 20 years ago!
To save some time and kilometers we started to head North towards Ankara but in an attempt to take a short cut through a mountain pass we got thrown in a survival search for a way down this very high mountains on very small rocky tracks. The scenery was breathtaking though and we camped in splendid places above the timber lane. It took us one full day to reach the other side and the first paved road that would allow us to reach the Cappadocia.
Cappadocia was the most touristic place that we had visited here in Turkey, but it is a place that we could not have missed. It was very splendid and impressive to witness history and see how people can adapt to their environment and protect their religious belief. We spend here few days camping in gorgeous canyons and visiting every carved rocks and underground cities.
From there we took our way back to Europe through Ankara and Istanbul. At first we thought to stop in Istanbul for at least a couple of days but we were forced to face the fact that our car is not made for big cities full of traffic, small and crowded streets with almost no possibility to park legally where we wanted to. From there we still had a long road ahead of us before the end of our trip and we had already spent our last Turkish Lira randomly (on some ice cream) so we decided to leave town and go straight to the Bulgarian border that we passed in about 30 minutes (it’s nice when you are used to spend several hours like at other border).

There are a few things that we are wondering about this country though:

- What is the need to have and build even more petrol station everywhere? No kidding, at every village or town it is not rare to find 4, 5 or more station one after the other. All this to sell diesel for a stupid price of about 1,5€/liter.

- Isn’t there any conscience of pollution in this country? Why all villages look like wide open dump and garbage is just abandoned everywhere? Even shepherds in the mountain don’t feel bad throwing plastic bags, paper, bottles or other shit all around their camp… Any answer to this?

- Why are kids (from about 6 to 14 years old) so obnoxious? Real pain in the ass these little brats! The worst is when they come around you in groups, trying to open your doors, making fun of you, begging, kicking the car, attaching ropes at our rear bumper, spitting on you etc… Younger that those, they are really cute and older, they are really wise, educated and very nice to meet and talk to. So what’s up with these young teenagers?

- Cappadocia is on the list of the UNESCO world heritage so isn’t there anybody controlling this area after this? Really, the place is incredible and beautiful but why many of the caves and carved houses in the rock are used as littering sites, graffiti walls or car parking spots for many locals?

After all we can say that our trip to Turkey (Renault 12 country!) was selective as we avoid most of the touristic places and all of the western coast but our time there was very nice and we enjoyed very much discovering the genuine Turkey.