Day 28: Cold Turkey

Place: Sunset Cave Hotel, Goreme in Turkey

Time: 23:20

The day leading up to the minute I arrived in Goreme is an absolute blur and the majestic beauty of this little town overshadows every experience leading up to our arrival.

It was about 19:15 when Mustafa, a young good-looking Turkish guy, found us at the Goreme bus terminal through pure blessing. Literally as I got off the bus, he approached me and asked if I needed any help, I said that we were headed to the Sunset Cave Hotel to which he replied, “Oh that’s my hotel. Come with me to the office to put your bags down while I get someone to come pick you up.”

Now this sounds ‘too good to be true’ you might say, but it is just another one of the examples of how great God is and the how he opens so many doors.

We got to the Hotel to check in and immediately fell in love and booked for 3 nights instead of 2. Hasan, the owner, and who also happens to be the deputy mayor of Goreme upgraded us to the deluxe double suite and we were escorted up to our room. It was a steep climb to the top room, but once we dropped our bags and looked over our shoulders we saw the most beautiful and most unimaginable sunset, which I can only describe as ‘something out of a fairytale book’.

But this is how our day ended; let me tell you about how it began.

We woke up at about 07h30 this morning in Adana, where we scoffed down a simple breakfast of bread with jam and honey, didn’t even bother to wash it down with the terrible coffee and tea and grabbed our luggage to get to the Otobus (pronounced Autobus) garage, more commonly known as the Central Bus Station 2 hours before climbing into our reserved seats on route to Goreme. We were exited to start the journey and arrive the Cappadocia region. However, that was not the plan, somewhere along the line, our reservation was incorrect or just not done. This may not sound like a ‘trainsmash’, but there was only one bus for today and it was FULL.  I could hear Craig make a long FFFFFFFF-sound in his head with disbelief. No-one spoke a word of English there and we were disheartened for about a minute and I then asked Craig to call the only Turkish speaking person I know out of desperation, our wonderful hotel owner at the Five Fingers in Girne, North Cyprus. Craig called Arif and explained the situation to him; he was then handed over to the man at the bus counter in an attempt to come up with any solution. Turns out, there was a bus going to Kayseri which is another bus trip of about 1.5hours from Goreme. Without hesitation, we booked it and thought to ourselves that we would at least be that much closer to our destination this way. We had to wait until 12h30, but that’s no problem when you have wi-fi, doner kebabs and a cup of Turkish coffee (I opted for the pepsi though). We did a lot of research on how often busses run from Kayseri to Goreme and tried to come up with various back up plans, and praying that we didn’t need to get an expensive taxi or waste a nights accommodation anywhere other than Goreme.

12h30 came and before we knew it we were on the Kent bus and waiting to leave for Kayseri. These buses are ‘jacked’ with tv’s and a selection of movies, none useful to us as they are all dubbed in Turkish but we were super stoked that we had ‘bus hostesses’ which brought us coffee, tea, water or pepsi….whichever we liked.  As we were getting cosy in our seats, the host came and asked Craig and I to switch seats, oddly enough the only reason must have been is that a Turkish man did or could not sit next to me and preferred Craig. Im not sure if it is a sex thing or a smell thing, but either way I was stoked as I now got to sit next to the window with my favourite shoulder (cushion) on the otherside.

The drive was scenic and very different to how I imagined. There were huge mountains capped in snow with small farms and villages below. The cities remind me so much of Korea. They are tall apartment blocks stacked closely and no homes with gardens to my surprise.

As I got off the bus I heard an old bald man screaming Goreme, I looked at him and raised my hand. He hurried me and told me to follow him as there was a bus leaving straight away. I grabbed Craig and we followed the man. All the buses were full, but he led us to where we could buy tickets, we did and had another wait, again nothing a kebab, tea and pepsi cant remedy J

Third (and hopefully) last bus of the day which ended with our meeting of Mustafa and where we are now- ‘somewhere out of this world’.

Cant wait to jog, explore and take loads of pics to show you tomorrow.

Sleep tight and God Bless