YESTERDAY… Packing up early I left my campsite in the forest and I hit the road, but had to stop in Isparta as my front tyre felt weird. It was half pressure. I pumped it back to normal and waited to see if it was still at normal pressure. If it wasn’t the plan was to whip the wheel off and replace the inner tube with my spare. The pressure held so I got back on the road – with around 30 minutes of cool riding wasted. There was lots of speed-traps today. You will see a police car at the side of the road facing you. They have a speed camera inside, and then about 1km down the road there will be a police checkpoint to pull you over. I was lucky today – mainly because the roads don’t encourage travelling too fast. Because of the heat and the age of the roads there are generally two grooves worn into the road by car and truck tyres, so you simply choose a track and try to stay inside the grove. Its fun at first but gets a bit wearing after a while.
I was heading east to Göreme, which is more or less slap bang in the middle of Turkey in the Cappadocia region. It was a journey of around 500kms, and it reminded me very much of Mauritania and the Western Sahara because trying to find shade for a break can be difficult. I stopped a couple of times for a break when I was lucky enough to find a tree next to the road. I find that I can travel for around two to three hours, then after that I need to stop hourly to let my backside cool down. Buying the sheepskin wasn’t for softness but to give me a layer between the plastic saddle and my riding trousers. I was going to bring my gel-pad for this trip but decided not to. I wish I had now because the Honda comfort saddle is not very comfortable for a day’s riding.
Anyway, I got to Göreme after an uneventful ride. The Panorama Camping site is about ten minutes walk from the town centre and although all the pitches are gravel, it does have a swimming pool. It’s £18 a night, which seems to be standard in Turkey.
TODAY… Göreme is an ancient city where the landscape is full of huge conical shaped rocks which people burrowed into the cones to make homes. Today most of these conical rocks contain hotels, but besides seeing the huge cones, most people come here for the balloon rides over the strange landscape. I had said to myself ‘NO’ but during the evening I relented and booked myself on a balloon flight. If you go to the tourist agencies to book you will pay extra. Just google balloon rides and very soon you will see lots of deals, some as much as £120 because they include a pickup by a luxury mini-bus plus breakfast. I found a flight for £55 and was still picked up by an air conditioned mini-bus AND was provided with a breakfast – a brown bag containing a drink, a croissant and some biscuits. Most probably the same as an expensive booking, so don’t book the first flight you see or the most expensive: there are always cheaper deals.
I set my alarm for 3.30am but I actually woke up at 3am, which meant I had time for a brew. At 4am I was picked up outside the campsite by a minibus and driven out of town – for a balloon ride. Driving about 5km outside the town I was amazed to see lots and lots of mini-busses, all heading in the same direction and lightening up the dark sky with their headlights. It was eerie. Soon we reached a plateaux with at least 100 balloons, and somehow amidst the chaos the driver stopped at OUR balloon. At 5am the balloons started to take off in some kind of orchestrated and controlled sequance. We rose ever so slowly and before I knew it we were soaring high above the ground. It was so smooth and stable, and there was no sensation of movement. A few moments later the sun rose over the horizon, and it was spectacular – seeing the sunrise and a hundred balloons as far as the eye could see. The pilot took us up, then down over the rocky pinnacles below, then up again and then we landed smoothly with a slight bump an hour later. It was an hour of sheer bliss and worth every penny.
I was back at the campsite by 6.45, had another brew then a doze and then around 9am I headed south to Derinkuyu to see the Kaymakli underground city which was about a 30 minute ride away. Built around 8 to 7 BC, there are approximately 9km of tunnels over 8 levels. A central shaft with a well at the bottom was used to haul items up or down, but the shaft also acted as a ventilator, drawing fresh air down the shaft. The Phrygians who started the tunnelling underground chose to live here so they could keep cool in summer and warm in winter. It was deepened further during the Roman era as it was easy to protect from marauding Arab raiders, and surprisingly, there were people still living in this underground city until the early 20th century. Amazing. Utterly amazing.
