We spent the day on boats, planes, and buses. We got up at 4:30 AM, boated away from Elephantine island, and hopped in a little bus to the Aswan airport. We flew from Aswan to Cairo, Cairo to Istanbul, and Istanbul to Kayseri. At Kayseri, we hopped into another bus and headed off to our “cave hotel” in Goreme (a little town in the Cappadocia region of Turkey). We finally arrived at 9:30 PM.
Travel was, for the most part, not notable, but Paul insists I have to mention the impressive food offerings on Turkish Airlines. On our little 2 ½ hour flight from Cairo to Istanbul, we had a full lunch with a choice of chicken or beef curry and bean salad, hot rolls, and desert. The chicken was surprisingly tasty. And we got a nice soup and sandwich on our short flight to Kayseri.
We had a few little glitches along the way. We thought we had to go through customs with our bags in Istanbul, and after waiting for a while and asking several airport employees, we finally figured out that our bags were headed directly to Kayseri and we would go through customs there. When we got to Kayseri, the “international arrivals” gate was closed. We waited at “domestic arrivals.” And waited. And no bags. Finally, an airport employee gathered up all the confused international travelers and brought us back to the “international arrivals” gate where we collected our luggage. Outside the airport, we looked and looked for a sign with Paul’s name (we had arranged transport through the hotel), but there was no one. The entire airport was emptying out, we had no Turkish money, no phone, and it looked like no ride for the hour long trip to our hotel. Finally, the driver found us. His sign, which had a list of 10 or so names, was folded over so that Paul’s name was not visible. Just a few little confusions, but overall a successful day of traveling!
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