Day 28: Antalya Beach

It was a better day. As a sort of silent apology, our hotel gave us each a fried egg with our breakfast, which was not part of the standard B&B rate. A fried egg “sorry” was a big improvement over our last hotel!
Paul outside our hard-to-find hotel.

After breakfast we wandered through Antalya looking for beach towels, which we needed to visit the Antalya beach and (more importantly) for our boat cruise the next day. We walked through the winding, narrow cobblestone streets of the old part of town…and then the winding, narrow paved streets of the new part of town. Towels were surprisingly hard to find in the beach town. We finally discovered a little shop owned by and old Turkish man and woman and, with Paul’s surprisingly impressive communication skills (the man and woman did not speak English and no towels were visible in the shop), we got our beach towels.
Paul at the old Roman archway entrance to the old part of town.
Me walking on the streets of the old part of town.
Paul in the old part of town (on the way to the beach!).

On the way to the towel shop we had passed a pet shop with the cutest little golden retriever puppy sitting in a crate outside. I dragged Paul back to the pet shop after we got our towels and spent quite a few minutes staring longingly at the puppy and seriously considering exactly how difficult it would be to keep traveling with a dog…there seems to be a theme between my filthy stray friends and obsession with poor puppies in pet shops…

On the way to the beach we walked through the old town bazaar. It was so different from Egypt! No one followed us shouting prices into our ears and no one threw jewelry or scarves at us as fake “presents.” One man stopped us to try his tea, and of course we were reluctant to take anything. Nothing is free. We were pleasantly surprised when the man was just happy to chat with us and let us try the tea (especially “Turkish Viagra tea” – to clear the sinuses), even though we didn’t want to buy.

Finally we made it to the beach. We had to pay to use the beach at a restaurant located at the top of a steep hill leading down to the beach. The “beach” was a pile of rocks jutting out into the water and lounge chairs were packed onto the rocks like sardines. An inch of space between us and the people next to us is a generous estimate…I guess it wasn’t ideal, but it was the perfect relaxing day. We spent the whole afternoon lounging in the sun, reading, and swimming (and trying to avoid looking at naked leathery, old European women).
Antalya Harbor (close to the beach where we spent the day).
Lounges at the beach, packed onto the rocks.
The gorgeous view from our lounges.
Paul relaxing.
Me swimming.

In the evening we had a beer at the restaurant above the beach and watched the sunset before heading to a great dinner at the hotel next to ours.
Paul enjoying Efes and the sunset.
View of the sunset.

Paul at our dinner restaurant with one of the crazy red candelabras in the background.
We had a perfect table, right next to the pool.

Day 27: Antalya and More Nightmares

We arrived in Antalya at 7:00AM after a LONG bus ride and were completely exhausted. Luckily, Paul and I had arranged transportation from the bus station with our hotel. We hopped off the bus and looked for our ride. And looked. And looked. No one was there.

Oh well. We decided to go ahead and take a taxi. We got in the taxi and directed him to our hotel – the Otantik Butik Otel in the middle of the old part of town. Our taxi driver got us to the winding cobblestone streets of the old part of town with no problem. And then he kept driving. In circles. He drove in circles and circles, stopping several times to ask random people on the street for directions to our hotel. The meter was running the whole time. Finally we just got out and decided to use the map in Lonely Planet and walk (with our 140 lbs of luggage...not smart packing on our part). Well, we walked for about an hour and a half. The map in Lonely Planet was incorrect (again, just like our map in Petra – I want to burn that book) and no one knew where to find our hotel…although most people we asked pointed us in one direction or another, none of which were correct.

I was tempted to forget our reservation and just stay at the next hotel or hostel we saw…and then, there it was. Our hotel. Way back on a narrow pedestrian street. Paul asked the hotel what had happened and the answer from the front desk man was, “Oh, we forgot.” Seriously. Of course our room wasn’t ready, so we sat down for breakfast. Breakfast was the front desk man’s job, too. Eventually he apologized to us, brought us a free orange juice, and told us that we “must understand the hotel’s position – the car was broken.” I cannot believe the attitude at our two hotels in Turkey. No one takes responsibility for mistakes and we have to listen to lie after lie. We KNOW the car wasn’t broken. He told us the hotel forgot. And even if it was broken, the hotel made NO attempt to contact us to let us know. There was internet at the bus station, but we had no email from the hotel telling us not to wait for transportation. I wanted to throw the free orange juice in his face.

We went for a walk (at least this time it was without suitcases) to pass the time until our room was ready. We bought ice cream, and the man at the counter refused to give us the correct change. Ugh. After that we just returned to the hotel and sat waiting for our room. Half the lights are burned out, there was 1 bottom sheet and no top sheet or blanket, and other various issues that aren’t worth mentioning.

I never thought I’d get to Turkey and say, “Take me back to Egypt and Jordan!”

Day 26: Escaping Goreme

We woke up at 4:30AM, ready for Balloon Fight: Round 2. We didn’t bother waiting for the bus and walked directly to Butterfly Balloon’s office where we spoke with both the office manager who offered us a refund and flight and the owner of the company, Mustafa. It was frustrating, although not as frustrating as the night before at our hotel.

The office manager told us (and the owner, Mustafa) that she was under the stress of trying to get the sick woman away from the balloon landing site and did not remember her conversation with Paul. And then the next sentence she suddenly “remembered” that she “must have” told Paul the company would “probably” give us a refund and that we needed to talk to Mustafa. WRONG. Mustafa was at least somewhat rationale, although he fabricated parts of conversations with us too. He asked us to “look at the situation from his position.” Well, we understood his position (he wanted a full balloon of paying customers) and we asked him to look at the situation from our position. We NEVER would have agreed to get on a balloon with that company again but for the office manager of the companying assuring us that our experience was an unlucky fluke and taking the time to convince us to accept a complimentary ride. In the end, we did not fly on the balloon and we weren’t charged the cancellation fee (aka 100% of the cost). What a hassle.

We sat in our cave from 5:00AM until 9:00AM, just waiting to check the hell out. We paid our bill with limited hassles (a few minor overcharges that were not worth the argument) and lugged our heavy suitcases down the steep hill to the bus station, where we dropped our bags with the sweet attendant. I think he was especially cheerful it was the end of Ramadan and the three day festival was starting. He offered us chocolates and told us he would watch our bags. We went in search of breakfast and stopped at a cute little café owned by another nice man wishing us a happy end of Ramadan and offering us chocolates.

After breakfast we went on a hike through the infamous, humorously named “Love Valley.” There was a lot of loose gravel and steep hills, so parts of our hike were surprisingly treacherous, but we had a great time. It was definitely an interesting landscape with all the unique fairy chimneys.
Paul on the way into Love Valley.
Love Valley (and me standing next to one of the fairy chimneys).
Me in Love Valley.

On the way back we stopped in a small organic shop I had seen earlier. I had been hoping to run into it again and buy dried mulberries (which I had tried during our first tour in Cappadocia). The woman at the shop was so nice. She let us sample everything and we ended up with a bag of dried mulberries and a box of Turkish delights. YUM.
Eating dried mulberries on a public bench in the town of Goreme.

Then we went and parked ourselves in another little café with free internet. First, we ordered two apple teas…We quickly decided that after our wretched experience with the hotel and balloon company, apple tea wasn’t going to cut it. It was time for beer. We sat with our beers, played on the internet, and eventually ordered a little snack called Gozleme (aka a Turkish pancake – ours was filled with spinach and cheese). The owner of the café was great. He was happy to let us sit and use the internet whether we ordered drinks and food or not. And when a group of Turkish women sat down at the café and then left immediately without eating due to the salt content in the bread, he gave us a hilarious commentary on Turkish women: “Turkish women are impossible. They eat like Homer Simpson until they are 40. Then diet. It takes 140 years to lose all that.” I was impressed he knew Homer Simpson! Although even in Egypt one of the shopkeepers outside a temple asked us if we knew “Springfield” from the Simpsons!
The great cafe where we tried Gozleme...
And had a couple rounds of "balloon medicine."

We wandered through the little town of Goreme for the next few hours – me petting all the stray dogs and playing with local children, and Paul accepting invites into strange, old Turkish women’s homes to buy plastic evil eye bracelets. It was quite an afternoon.
Me and one of my army of strays.
A particularly mangy golden retriever...I tried to convince Paul that we should buy him a kebab. Paul refused to touch him.

Finally, 9:00PM arrived and we quickly loaded onto the overnight bus for our 10 hour ride
to Antalya. And despite our terrible experiences with the hotel, its balloon company, its travel agency, and the 1 restaurant the hotel staff recommended…we left with the impression that Goreme was a cute, small town with generally friendly people. That we were happy to leave.

Day 25: Tour 2 and The Hotel’s True Colors

I woke up early in the morning (of course, I can’t miss the call to prayer) and heard the unmistakable sound of balloons rising into the air. I almost put a pillow over my head, but instead I crept out of our cave hotel in my pajamas to get a look. It was breathtaking! So many colorful balloon floating in the sky with the beautiful landscape and sunrise in the background. I ran back to our room and pulled Paul out of our cave to get a look too. I think he was happy I woke him up…It was almost a more impressive view than the one we had from the balloon the day before.

After a little post-balloon-watching nap, we headed out for another day-long tour of the Cappadocia region. We stopped at a pretty lookout point over Goreme before boarding the bus for our hour long drive to the Ihlara Valley. The bus dropped us at the edge of the Ihlara canyon and we hiked for 7 km down into canyon and through the Ihlara valley. It was a gorgeous hike! We walked along a shady path, next to a pretty creek on our right. The view to our left switched between hills with colorful bursts of flowers and sheer cliffs. Along the hike we visited two cave churches. The frescoes were not quite as well preserved as those at the Goreme Open Air Museum, but the churches were impressive nonetheless. And it was interesting to see the evil eye painted in one of the cave frescoes. The evil eye is EVERYWHERE in Turkey.
Lookout point over Goreme.
Ihlara canyon.
Paul on our hiking path.
Paul next to the pretty creek.
More Paul hiking.

Me in front of the tall canyon wall.



Frescoe depicting the ascension of Jesus.
Evil eyes!

After our hike in the Ihlara valley, we stopped at a monastery built into the top of a massive mountain. It was fun (and a good workout!) to climb up the mountain to the monastery – it was so steep and we had to jump from one sloping section to another and scramble up stone stairs all the way to the top. The rooms and paths carved into the rocks were amazing, and we had beautiful views of the town below.
Us with the monastery in the background. We climbed almost to the top!
Us on the way up the mountain with the view of the town below.
View.
Me climbing.
Paul exploring.
Paul in one of the monastery rooms.
One of the monastery rooms. Everything was carved into the rocks by hand!

Our final stop was an old Greek village, where we visited a small underground town and an old church. The underground town was less extensive than the underground city we had visited on “Tour 1,” but it was awesome. We had to climb down a hole in the ground to get into the underground town. I felt like Alice in Wonderland! And we saw a toilet built into the rocks in one of the little rooms, which we learned was an unusual find in an underground city (usually toilets were clay pots…).
The Greek village.
Down the rabbit hole!
Paul on his way out of the underground town.

And then our actual final stop was a Jewelry shop! I thought we were in trouble at first, but luckily we weren’t offered tea, so we didn’t buy anything.

When we got back from the tour we decided to hike up to a lookout point in Goreme and watch the sunset. It was beautiful.
View from the lookout point, just before sunset.


After watching the sunset and grabbing dinner, we decided to take care of our hotel bill that evening before check out the next day…and it was not easy. The balloon ride was on our bill. Paul explained that the company had offered us a refund and convinced us to take a complimentary flight, and the hotel staff responded that the balloon company would “NEVER” offer a refund and that we had to pay for our flight scheduled for the next morning. We were not particularly excited by the idea of another balloon ride, so we told the hotel staff to just take our names off the list for the flight the next morning and remove the charge from our bill. And then all hell broke loose. The owner/manager of the hotel was called, and both the owner and the hotel staff member spent the next hour shouting over us and laughing at us as we tried to explain the situation. The owner called the balloon company in an attempt to disprove that the office manager had offered us a refund and a complimentary flight, and yet he refused to let us speak to anyone from the company. And despite claims that there was a 12-person waiting list for the balloon flight tomorrow, the owner refused to contact any of the people on the waiting list and offer our spots. It was beyond frustrating.

And the “balloon incident” was the last straw that completely turned me against the awful cave hotel. Earlier in the week Paul and I had given the hotel our laundry (and we had a lot from the first part of our trip). Several of my white shirts were returned covered in blue and yellow ink. I thought the shirts were completely ruined, but the hotel was miraculously able to fix my tie-dyed shirts so that they were white again. However, when the shirts were returned, the hotel staff implied that I had colored on my own shirts with marker and attempted to trick the hotel into cleaning the shirts for me. Insane.

I could go on and on talking about other minor issues we had with our hotel that week. Well, now we know NEVER to stay at this particular cave hotel again.

Day 24: Hot Air Ballooning

One of the biggest draws to the Cappadocia region is hot air ballooning, and we were so excited for our early morning flight! We woke up at 4:40AM (thanks to the mosque next door) and headed out for our balloon ride at 5:15AM. It was magical (at first)! We watch our balloon fill up and hopped into the basket. Our basket had 5 little compartments, 1 for our pilot, and 4 for the passengers. Each passenger compartment carried 4 people. We rose slowing into the air and floated over the pretty landscape, marveling at the fairy chimneys and caves and pigeon houses. And we saw the beautiful sunrise over the mountains. It was just perfect.

Until the woman next to us in our compartment fainted. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she sank to the bottom of our little compartment. When she woke up, she started vomiting. The poor woman. Of course we had to make an emergency landing! However, just as we were touching down and the balloon company’s cars were arriving to pick her up, she decided that she was just fine to continue on the ride. So up we went again. The compartments are extremely close quarters, and it was quite unpleasant to feel trapped inside a balloon with a sick woman puking at our feet, while her obnoxious husband knocked me in the head and pushed me into a corner so that he could take pictures of the lovely views while his wife was sprawled out sick on the floor. It was HORRIBLE. Not the peaceful and beautiful balloon ride we had pictured. I felt bad for the sick woman, but I have no idea what she was thinking when she decided to stay in the balloon, what was wrong with her obnoxious husband (who stayed for a champagne toast when we touched down, after she was driven away to the doctor), and what our pilot was thinking when he decided it was okay for her to stay in the balloon. Paul took care of the situation immediately. After the woman was safely on her way to the doctor (the consensus was she was just dehydrated), Paul talked to the office manager of the balloon company. To the company’s credit, they gave us a full refund and offered us a balloon ride on another day. We weren’t sure we wanted to give it another go, but we scheduled a ride for our last day to give us time to think on it.

Despite the horrors of our trip, we got a lot of great pictures...
Us in front of our balloon, waiting for it to inflate.
Our balloon inflating. FIRE!
Ready for takeoff!
All the beautiful balloons taking off.
The beautiful Cappadocia landscape.

The shadow of our balloon on the mountainside.


We saw a fully inflated balloon driven down the road on the back of a truck!

We walked into town in the afternoon and had a fine lunch at a little café. We had a good Turkish pizza (called pide – it had a thin crust and was cut into long thin pieces, not triangles like Italian pizza) and Turkish beer.
Post-ballooning medicine.

We had planned to walk up to a high point at the edge of town to walk through “Love Valley” and watch the sunset, but our activities for the day were just cursed. It rained for the first time on our vacation, despite the weather prediction of 0% chance of rain.

After the thunderstorm stopped, we ventured back into town for dinner at a restaurant called The Local. Paul had a steak and I ordered “beef in a pottery.” I had seen beef and chicken cooking in potteries on the street and had been itching to try it. The potteries I had seen were long narrow pots with the meat cooking inside and delicious smelling smoke wafting out into the street. So I was surprised to see a personal sized little pot arrive at our table. Our waiter had to wear heat proof gloves and take a knife to cut open the little pot. My dinner that had been cooking inside spilled out perfectly onto a bowl. I loved it. Dinner was great, so I hope the curse is broken for tomorrow…
The waiter cracking open my pottery.