Tuesday 7th October
Travelled through the Anti Taurus Mountains to Mt Nemrut and stayed at the very shabby Hotel Camping Euphrats. Today's drive was to be one of the longest, about nine hours, the last two in the dark. Had no hesitation in upgrading from camping to a double room. The room very basic but sufficient for our one night needs.
The trip started at 9.00am and to a round of well earned cheers for Geof who turned up by taxi ten minutes before the off. As I said earlier he flew home from Istanbul to play in a Gaelic football final. It seems they were winning with just a minute to go and the opposition scored beating them by one point. Nevertheless it is good to have him back he's a valued member of the family.
Before we could hit the road we had to drive back into Goreme to see if the Carte de Passage, as John Paul calls it, had arrived from the office in England. He told me without it there was no chance of entering Iran. I think someone said we also need a Mechanical Certificate for the bus. Glad to say Leighton came out of the office carrying a package.
We then resumed our progress towards Iran and travelled on only a few miles from the Syrian border. In a day we'll be skirting the border with Iraq. Lets hope we don't take any wrong turnings. The whole journey was through some beautiful countryside with a scary descent after crossing over the top at 1600 metres. We stopped for lunch on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere just of the main road. Amazingly ever vehicle that came past tooted and cheered. Then an old man riding a horse came past and gave Sue and Emmett a handful of pistachio nuts he'd picked.
As we lost the light we started to make our way up a very basic mountain road which went from a feather design of cobbles or blocks to a dirt track and then back again. If it had been yellow it would have been appropriate on our way to Oz. As I looked ahead through the bus windscreen I could just see Dorothy, tin man, lion and the scarecrow all dancing their way towards us. Eventually 8.30pm we arrived at our destination for the night; the Euphrat Hotel Campsite. I said to Leighton the Euphrates must be close by if the hotel is named after it. He replied he'd stayed in a Hotel Liffy in America. Glad to say on checking the atlas, Simone left behind, I was right, both The Euphrates and Tigress start out in this area before wending their way down into Syria and Baghdad respectively.
All met up in the hotel's restaurant for beers, food and settle our bills before we checked the rooms. The hotel manager or owner was an interesting character who embraced a strange pricing policy. To upgrade it cost just 15 lira a room, 10 for a four course evening meal and a staggering 5 lira a bottle of yes again Efes beer. In English that is £6 a room for two about 3 for a four course meal consisting of a very nice spicy lentil soup, potato salad, lamb and aubergines with rice and water melon and a sticky sweet ball that looked like a rum Baba but was very sweat and syrupy and reminded me of the deserts we get in Pakistani restaurants in England and £2.50 for the beer. Once we had all paid him he sat in front of us counting it over and over again. Everyone went to bed very early and Scooby and the party gang had an alcohol free night which was not related to the extortionately priced beer although I think the amount of money they spend on it is disproportionate to food etc. One of them admitted he had spent £500 on it between our first stop in St Gaor to the two days in Instanbul. Anne and myself were the last to go to bed. A first on this trip.
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