9 and 10 May – Goreme and Goreme to A.S.I. (Turkey)

On the 9th some of the group went ballooning and said that they enjoyed themselves. They flew over the valley where most of the cave houses and stone works were, which is what is done every morning. Someone worked out that the ballooning companies took £200,000 every morning as up to 100 balloons could be in the air at the same time. Apparently 60 to 80 balloons was the norm.

The manager of the camping site organised to take as many as wanted to a family carpet shop in town and give us a meal without anyone having to buy a carpet in return. We were given a talk about the different types of carpets which was very interesting. Carpets are a regional thing distinctive in colour and design to regions or families. The old ways of making a carpet are falling away due to the years required to hand-make one in a village when the machined carpet only takes a fraction of time to make. The owner of the shop had old spinning wheels and old carpets which he collected for himself and were not for sale.

A very old spinning wheel

Tent decoration

There were a number of different wall hangings about the place and I was interested in them as they look similar to ones used in Papua New Guinea. Like there the tribal people would leave the hills and travel to the coast to pick the cowry shells to decorate the work. The ones I saw were used by the tribesmen to hang at the entrance to their tents so as to ward away evil spirits. Derek did buy one carpet! (and which his wife eventually approved).

In the evening most of the group went to a ‘Turkish Evening’, which we paid for. This was held in a cave restaurant and the building was really something to see, similar to a covered in Roman amphitheatre. There was plenty of food and as much drink as one wanted, all in the price. Of the 200 people there I think that I was the only one to ask for fish, which ended up being a whole grill trout, and it was glorious to eat (I have simple pleasures). The wine was like water but the others said that the vodka was aright  A good night was had by all even if the girls and some of the younger blokes carried on a party in a bar in town after all the festivities in the restaurant had finished.

My tent again

Sunset over Goreme

I liked the swirl of the dress

A dancer

Bob is the big bloke

Various dancers with Bob

Stephanie and Libby

The entrance to the dining area

Wall carving

The debris at the end of the evening

There were a number of these balanced rocks about the place but this was the only one I was able to photograph

On 10 May we travelled all day with nothing much to do when we stopped. In the morning we stopped to have a drink and rest when some men who worked in a tyre repair shop noticed that one of the truck tyres was flat. They did not do it! This was repaired but not before some of us went to the local ironmongers to buy long nails to use as tent pegs and some thick plastic to use as a ground sheet as the places we were next to stay at were said to be very rocky. Twelve 8 inch nails cost 30p and the very thick plastic about 70p, both of which were to be worth the cost later. (Last of the big spenders, that’s me!)

Travelling more or less all day on the highway D815 we all noticed the number of high rise blocks of flats being built when there was plenty of open space around the area. Many of the flats and houses were empty with some looking as if they had been started then the builders had walked away leaving them unfinished. One mountain pass was 1940 metres (5800 feet) high . Most of the houses seen today had roofs of corrugated tin sheet, something not seen so much of up to now. Also, logs cut down in the forest are debarked by hand before being taken to the mills or sold on the side of the road.

We stopped about 1700 hours up a track near, what we found out later, was an Army tank training area. The place was called Akaryakit Satis Istasydna (thus A.S.I). The ground was extremely stony and this was the first instance of being thankful for the nails as pegs. The thin aluminium pegs supplied with the tent would have been useless in these conditions. Two fires were lit, one to heat the water for tea/coffee and the other for the barbecue and cooking. While this was going on two men appeared,  the chief of the nearby village and his son. There was no problem with us camping on his land, he just wanted to see what was going on. The chief had two sons and one daughter, the one with him had a photographic shop in London and his other children lived in France and Germany. They made it very clear that they were Turkish Kurds (of which there were many in the area) and not Muslim. I asked what they were going to grow in the stone ploughed land, thinking perhaps grape vines, and was told that they were going to grow Christmas trees. The Chief made it very clear, through his son, that they celebrated Christmas. My beard was a great attraction to the Chief and he kept hugging and kissing me!

There was snow still about

That tent again

The chief and me

Me and the flowers

I have noticed that there is a mark or two on some of the photographs. It is not something on the lens, it appears to be dirt inside the camera. I cannot do anything about this until we stop in Kathmandu for a week or so and in the meanwhile I will use an old camera I brought with me for a situation such as this.

 rp