Christmas in Turkey, Paintball, Cappadocia and the infamous "Dead Sea Desert"

We spent the day after my birthday (the day that I have always classed as the WORST day of any year, which turned out to be a pretty good day) wandering almost aimlessly around Aleppo, which has lived up to the description of beings a ‘pretty cool town’.  First stop was the citadel, yep another citadel! This one was set on a small hill and boasted great views of the city; most of the citadel was pretty ordinary, except the views and the impressive entry gates which contained underground passages. From there we headed through the souk (local market) in an attempt to find some grub for lunch, grub there was a plenty, but for a vegetarian and a ‘try hard vegetarian’ (Spencers attempt at humour) there was little. I wasn’t even taken by the camel carcass that had been butchered and was hanging in the narrow alley of the souk, “now there’s some spare ribs!” the poor animals head and neck were hanging from a meat hook which just did not seem strong enough for such a huge chunk of meat!

Aleppo Citadel, Syria

Spencer looks professional, Aleppo

Myself, Aleppo

Donkey in the Souk, Aleppo

We found a little bakery which served some great pastries, the standard of bakery food has improved the further  north we have travelled. After the ‘try hard vegetarian’ has picked the chicken off her pastry we continue on in the search of an internet cafe. We didn’t get very far before we were stopped by a couple of university students who needed some help with an English exercise in a workbook, we sat in a park whilst Spencer did his best with what appeared to be a pretty ordinarily written book before being offered ice cream to thank us for our efforts. Always a little wary of accepting food from strange men in foreign countries we decline but ask for directions to an internet cafe instead. They did better than just give directions, they actually walked us there, although we did wonder if they actually knew where one was or did just walk around until they found one!

After a couple of hours of sorting out issues from home and sorting out money and uploading photos and blogs and trawling through the ridiculous amount of emails which seem to accumulate between countries we headed back to our accommodation at the Spring Flower Hostel, upon which I could possibly fill a whole blog entry....but here is the condensed version...

The place was the inspiration for the television show ‘Fawlty Towers’, but Basil Fawlty at the Spring Flower Hostel is the most anal person to have ever walked the planet, and someone who is actually more security conscious than me, like even to the point where the dodgy home made soap was even locked up! And the fridge! And the only person to have the key was the manager, who doesn’t arrive at work until lunchtime! In all the random places I have stayed this year I have not seen another place with their bookshelf locked up! And not only is the book shelf locked up, they charge a fee to borrow a book! AK tried to trade an Africa lonely planet guide for a Turkey one, the bloke wanted 15 euro for the trade and the book! and the bloke put on white gloves to handle second hand backpacker books? Basils two employees both spoke little English and between them didn’t have enough brain cells to rub together,, one had been the inspiration for ‘Where’s Wally’ and the other was just a waste of space, oxygen and food! Oops! I forgot this was supposed to be the condensed version, I’ll cut to the chase...The useless bastards held my Birthday Cake remnants for hostage...well not really...but it sounded like a good story. The left over’s of my cake ended up in the fridge, which is kept locked and the manager keeps the key, and only works half days, ‘no key’ says Where’s Wally, ‘Can you get key?’ says me, ‘No manager’ says Where’s Wally....hmmm... over three hours of hostage release negotiations the cake is freed! My advice....never stay at a place where you have to ask for toilet paper each time you go to the toilet or a place where you buy internet hours and the dic^&*ads keep changing the password every hour to kick you off the net! 

The following day we had a relaxed start as the agent who was to take us across the border was not available until about 1pm to take us across (By using an agent we get a cheaper rate and supposedly an easier passage through the border) The Syria-Egypt border would be better suited to Africa, no processes or systems. You take your passport to the desk, they take it and give you a recept for it, but take so long about this and serve anyone who has pushed in, that you walk off and have to be called back for the receipt, you then carry this receipt about 400m away, through he duty free shops, past the toilets, money changers and ATM to pay for your visa, then walk the 400m back through the shops, etc etc with the visa sticker to get it stuck in your passport, then have your passport returned to you and walk the 400m back through to the shops etc etc! I needed to go to the toilet, I figured it was far too easy to spot a WC sign and be able to use it free! Hmm, well I did see the price sign on the way in $1USD, crazy, even with the strength of the Aussie Dollar currently! With no one at the desk I took my chances, the man caught me on the way out, I acted as though he was a money changer...."No, I don't need money changing", "No, no, money, thank-you", "No my husband has the money". From there we loaded back into the truck, the sun had gone down and so had the temperature, drastically! I huddled up in two jumpers, thermals, beanie, and scarf around my face and my Maasai blanket and we waited, waited and waited to get out of the border gates, another wonderful legacy of the border designer is the five lanes of traffic that must merge into one lane to exit the gates, it took us about 40 minutes. During this time, unbeknown to us, kids have tried climbing up on the cab, they swiftly had their fingers bent back, so they reverted to throwing stones at the cab, in retaliation to this Gab got out and chased them down.

After a couple of hours in the truck we make camp at a truck parking bay, Pat and Kim were on food group that night and did extremely well to get dinner on laps before an hour had passed. I look into the distance and see the burn off of a local refinery, the flame must have been 20m in the air, I wish to camp under that flame! Mark tells us how he camped in the same place last year and it was too hot for people to put their tents on the bitumen, I went to bed in my thermals and a beanie!

We have a 5.30 get-up for a 6am departure on Christmas Eve, after a few hours in the truck we stop at a town for Christmas dinner shopping and a grog roundup. We arrive in the town of Goreme in the Cappadocia region, which is an old ancient city, consisting of rock chimneys and towers which have dug out caves and houses which used to be inhabited. The landscape looks a little eerie, sort of like the outline of ghosts. We check into the nicest accommodation that Spencer and I have seen in many, many months, it’s warm and dry and has clean toilets and showers and a great lounge area with fire and free wi-fi, uh, oh! We make a ban on the overuse of Internet and start hitting the grog. (Yep the Rock Valley Pansion (Turkish word for Pension which is like a backpackers, but better) is so cool, that they even let the overland trucks drink their own grog in the bar!) I get stuck into my $1.50 for 750ml Syrian Vodka, which seems to have even less taste than normal vodka, I am worried that it is watered down, but still take my time lest it comes back and kicks me in the ass later that night. Spencer falls asleep on the couch, others wander off one by one, I head up to bed but the sound of Spencer and Burbs snoring scares me back out of the room with computer in hand for some internet time. Internet wasn’t very successful, not due to any technical error, more so the dic^&ead man who though he was super fantastic and started bagging the s*$t out of Australians, despite himself holding an Australian passport! He is a Turkish man who has lived in Australia for 7 years but who claims that ‘all Australians are racists’, ‘all Australian men are as&*%les’ ‘Australians are idiots’ and ‘anyone can get an Australian passport, they give them to everyone’ I cracked at the stage that he called me a racist and said I was scared of people from other countries moving to Australia! I yelled at the dic%#@ad and said something like “well send your Australian passport back’ etc etc (I went on for a good 3-4 minutes) loser! I have no problems with anyone from outside Australia immigrating so long as they are proud to live there! And for those of you who know me, know that I have a lot of friends who were not born in Australia. So the next morning when I wake up with the worst hangover ever (I totally blame the cheap Syrian vodka) I am still filthy cranky that some asshole would hate Australians so much, that in between vomits I attempt to tell everyone about it, later it turns out that this loser is actually the brother of the owner of this place. (I finish vomiting at 1pm....Just in time for lunch!)

Cappadocia

On account of being close to death from my affair with cheap Syrian vodka I miss breakfast and wait for Christmas lunch, Italian style. Gabs, an Italian and our driver Mark who has an Italian Nonna cook up a fantastic lunch of lasagna and ravioli. Many others (not me) help out with salad, potato salad and trifle. 

Later that night we assemble for the opening of our Secret Santa gifts, the previous day I have a sneaky feel of my gift and announced that it was a pair of donkey slippers, I was close and super impressed to see a pair of fluffy, stuffed lion slippers and a donkey fridge magnet! Thanks Kyle! Great choice, they have hardly left my feet since receiving them!

Spencer and I headed out on Boxing Day for a stroll around town and through the valleys of chimneys and rock carvings, Spencer tells me that on Christmas Eve he received an email about our unit, more issues, two of our new tenants have been into the office and told the agent that the third person has done a runner with the rent money, the agents have given then until the 6^th to pay up or the eviction process starts. I start crying, after loosing close to $4000 in rent and paying a $600 re-letting fee and $500 of advertising costs I really hoped that the tenants would stay longer than a month. Shall have to wait and see what happens, I can assure LJ Hooker that when we get back we will be closely looking into what has happened and both rental checks, background checks etc.

Myself, Goreme

Feeling pretty down in the mouth we wander almost aimlessly through the hills and meet up with Pat, Tanja and Ish and decide to walk to the next town to go wine tasting with them at the Turasan tasting centre, turned out to be a good day, with ordinary wine. I didn't particularly like any of the tastings that I had, so took a punt on the merlot, which was quite good and well enjoyed over dinner that night.

Pat, Tanja, Ish, Spencer and myself 'cheers' during wine tasting

The next day most of the group decided to go paint-balling, as a virgin paint-baller I was a little apprehensive (I have seen way too many bruises on others in the aftermath). As we had 15 people playing and only gear for 10 at once we had to play in two groups. I sat out the first game to check out exactly how it is played, after watching for half an hour I had decided that the aim of the game was to run around, crawl a bit, add in a couple of commando rolls and shoot as many people as possible. Soon enough I was kitted up and running around, crawling a bit, no commando rolls for me though...way too old for that rot....and trying to shoot as many people as possible (not so easy as the only things I have ever fired in my life have been a water pistol and a cap gun! I get hit first in the knee; it didn't hurt as much as I had expected, then instantly I am hit in the head, the culprit? Spencer! So I spend my 30 seconds out before restarting and getting hit in the head again! Another 30 seconds out and then bam, hit in the chest! More time out and I see AK running towards our flag, I hunt him down, gun in one arm firing, and maybe hit him, but at the same time he hits me a little more convincingly (it’s amazing what two hands on your gun can do) I am out again and sometime around this we win the game and start again. This time though Mark changes teams (he has his own paint-ball gun which is much more powerful and a whole lot more accurate than our dodgy guns), this makes a big difference and Son, Kim, Gabs and I are soon in dire straights. A hit on my upper chest is luckily exploded by the tyre I was hiding behind first so no pain, sometime around here I am out (again) and restart the game and shortly after realise that I am crouching behind a pile of sandbags beside Ronald (who is on the other team), he is shooting at Kim, I look at him and figure that there is a mutual truce here....hmmm. Yeah until he shoots me in the thigh at point blank range, now that hurt! After we lose the second game Spencer and I have a shoot out to use the last of our balls, I hide behind a tyre and move to a barrel before my gun runs out of gas, Mark tells me to use his gun, which is a whole lot better, after a shoot out with both of us hiding behind tyres, Spencers gun runs out of gas, if not egged on by everyone else, I may have found the compassionate side of my heart, but still seething from my head and knee shot I was out for revenge so ran behind his pile of tiles and pelted him with paint at close range. From there we headed back to the Rock Valley Pansion, Son had offered to cook tea and Ish had offered to help so I figured I would join them, it turned out to be a very interesting few hours of my day. Veggie tarts, roast veggies and salad followed by a sticky date pudding. Sounds easy? Hmm, all went according to plan, the tarts were topped with pastry leaves, salad was dressed and veggies soft when the desert sauce failed to thicken, we start a search for the corn flour, no luck, turn the truck inside out no corn flour, turn the heat up, no thicker? Hmm, I cannot understand what the issue is, I have used the same ingredients as last time, ‘maybe it’s the shape of the saucepan?’ I say...After 40 minutes of boiling I am back out at the truck searching for something else to save the situation when Ish comes running out saying “it was salt, it didn’t set because it was salt!” Instead of using 1kg of sugar I have added in 1kg of salt! It had been inadvertently purchased as sugar (it was labeled in Turkish and was the biggest grained salt I have ever seen, with the exception of rock salt!) Ish heads down the street and I head back into the kitchen laughing my ass off, he buys nutella and we try to resurrect the pudding, luck has it that it turns out a treat! I start thinking scientifically and start sprouting words such as saturated salt solution (where you cannot dissolve any more solid into water), and start saying that it is 3X more salty than the Dead Sea! The nutella desert is fantastic and I learn the lesson of taste testing as you cook! I also take  moment to check out my leg, I already have a round ring of bruising from my thigh shot!

Gab under fire during paintball

Before the war began

Myself, paint ball

I won!

The following day Son, AK, Burbs, Ish, Pat, Tanja, Spencer and I hired scooters and headed out for Derinkunu Underground City which was a good 30 odd kilometer away from Goreme. I was a little nervous that I was not going to like scooters as it has been a long time since I have been on a motorbike. The first couple of kilometers were a little wonky, but once I realized that speed equaled steadiness I was away. I even hit 90km/h at one stage! We had a few stops and had to wait for a couple of people who were still getting used to their scooters. Some of the little towns that we went through were very cool, it was also very cool where we stopped to play in some snow on the side of the road (I mean cool as in cold, but not as cold as we had expected!). Eventually we arrived at the underground city and were not disappointed, it was 50 odd meters underground and contained a wine cellar, food cellar and even a school room (although i would never want to teach in this room!) Possibly the best part of the day was realizing that I got to ride my scooter home again! It was getting late and the sin sets at about 4.30pm so there was little dilly-dallying on the way home, although we did find the time to hit some gravel roads and Spencer did take some time to get airborne over a median strip (he claims that it was the accelerator that stuck on!). We stopped at Rose Valley to watch the sunset, yep, we had actually missed sunset, but the colors in the sky just got better and better the longer we waited. From there we headed back into Goreme, not an easy ride as it was pretty dark by then. Upon returning to the shop we had our good day shattered, Ish had had a 'mishap' on his bike, caused byt eh fuel gauge not working, the man at the shop wanted 250 TL (about $170AUD) for the damage, and this is despite no condition report being completed and them having absolutely no proof that he had done the damage. i was standing around a little nervously at this stage as I had a 'little spill' on my bike, embarrassingly so it was in the main street of a town and i hadn't had an issue all day, I was hardly moving when the back tyre spun out on gravel and I couldn't hold the weight of the bike, i sort of jumped clear but got a foot stuck underneath and two very sore kneecaps where they slammed into the cobblestone roadway (oh, and a little bit of a bruised ego after several men came to help and told me to drive slowly!) The bike had started leaking fuel and the mirror was bent and there were a few scratches...hmmm, maybe i will put off buying a Harley for a little longer yet!

Myself on my scooter

Scootering! Whoo hoo!

Fisheye in the mirror

Burbs, Ish, AK, Spencer, Myself, Son, Tanja and Pat

Myself, underground city

Underground city

Sunset at Rose Valley

Scooter view sunset

Petra, Damascus, Dead Sea and some 'Untamed Donkeys'

Our first morning at Petra was freezing cold, walking through the Siq (a tunnel almost 2km through the rocks) was like a freezer. The first sight of the treasury was pretty amazing; I may have missed my first glimpse had it not been for a bus load of close to incapacitated tourists having it pointed out for a photo opportunity as it peeked through the rocks. The treasury is cut straight out of stone and is (apparently) the most famous attraction in Petra, I preferred the Monastery as it was surrounded by less people and had the sun on it for a good deal of the day, I daresay that the Treasury is the most popular as most people can just walk the couple of kilometres in!

We climbed up to the High place of Sacrifice to look over the ancient city, in all directions carvings of buildings and ruins of buildings can be seen. From there we decided to take a ‘shortcut’ down to some other sights. A man offered to guide us, we figured we were not on the right track but defiantly didn’t want a guide, not even at a ‘cheap price for you’. It took us an hour to get down the hill; we were a long way from the usual track, but kept discovering old remains and caves on the way.

The climb up tot he monastery was defiantly worth the effort of 700 steps, we saw Ronald at the top who had only counted 686 steps. On the way up we were offered many donkeys and mules to ride, the going rate for a donkey up the hill was about 4JD, about 6 Aussie dollars.

From there we wandered back down, I had my fisheye lens on and spotted a lone donkey with no apparent owner. Here started a whole new business idea...Untamed Pet Images, to be launched in 2011. I also discovered that I have a ‘donkey mode’ on my camera....errr..., well maybe just a setting that works really well for photographing donkeys with a fisheye lens! A few more sights and several donkeys later (more donkeys than sights) we arrive back at the gate exhausted, the sun has dropped and the air is bloody freezing!

The next day Spencer stays behind at camp as he does not want another day at Petra, I had paid the extra for a two day ticket (it was only 10% extra for another day) so I head off with a few others. I decide to take my fourth horse ride of my life, hoping that it is not going to turn out as bad as the first three, I was not off to a good start when I have the horse man yelling to a manager that I had told him he could not demand a tip (this is before I had even got on the horse) the horse ride is included in your ticket, and the ticket at 70 US dollars is pretty steep, I was sticking with my right to ‘consider tipping your horse handler’ as the sign said. Eventually with the managers help I convinced the man that if he did a good job I would tip him, if he continued to demand a tip I would not, the manager was right on my side and said “you are right” (love being right) so off we go, the horse handler did a great job so he got a handy tip, and hopefully learned a lesson!

From there I accosted another donkey and camel and dog and maybe even a cat and took a few pictures of Petra itself. I took a donkey ride back up the hill, after looking for the nicest looking donkey I ended up with what turned out to be a mule, but you would never know, it was so much more like a donkey, only that ‘Michael’ was strong enough to carry two people, according to the owner, who then wanted to sit on the mule behind me, ‘no thanks I have my bag’, ‘I’ll take your bag’, ‘no thanks, my husband would be very, very upset with this situation’....situation sorted, man back in his place and I’m not sharing my mule with anyone!

After another day of wandering around (this day had far more rest stops than yesterday, on account of it being my third day of walking what I estimate to be over 20km in a  day and I’m stuffed). I get back to camp, lay down for a couple of hours then we headed off to ‘Petra by Night’, which was very cool, literally cool, but not as cold as I was expecting, three jumpers, two thermals was a little bit of overkill. Petra by Night is a candle show accompanied by live traditional music, the road down into the treasury is lit by candles in paper bags, there must have been thousands of candles to light up the over 2km path.

The following day we set out earlier than expected, Kyle and Gab got the breakfast time confused and started cooking an hour earlier than needed, I was in the shower before I looked at my watch properly to see I was up an hour earlier than needed, I had just heard the movement in the kitchen and started proceedings for getting sorted. After a short drive day and I have to say a warm drive day (Kim and I jumped in the cab with the heater instead of sitting in temperatures colder than the Arctic Circle in the back). We arrived at our bush camp on the Dead Sea to be greeted with every blow fly in the world and their cousins from other planets, we were not sure if it was the rubbish left laying about on the ground or the salt that they were after. Our camp at the dead sea was 380m below sea level, a very weird feeling to know that you are that low. Over 6km lower than the top of Mt Kilimanjaro! Swimming in the dead sea was awesome, but you cannot open your eyes, the dead sea is 10 times more salty than the red sea and is over 1/3 salt. I got one tiny drop up my nostril and it stung for hours, a couple of the guys jumped in head first and suffered the effects of the salt. After a while in the salt starts to burn your skin, so we probably only spent half and hour in. Because of the salt concentration you are so buoyant that it is impossible to swim underwater, you just bob around the surface, standing upright in deep water, you whole torso floats out of the water, very cool. Scientist estimate that the Dead sea will only exist for another 50 years as it is drying out, just imagine how buoyant you would be in the dead sea in another 20 years! After getting out came the wash off procedure, washing salt water off out of a jerry can filled up that morning in icy temperatures equals not so fun. I missed washing my neck and it was stinking for a couple of hours until I realised that the salt must have got stuck in the string of my necklace. That night we were all so salty that we stuck in our sleeping bags, every time you rubbed your hair or ear salt would fall out. This was only after we actually dried, the water was that salty that it took several hours for even our hair to dry. As clothing dried it set rock hard from the salt, then when it came into contact with damp air it got wet again, the salt must have dragged the moisture back out of the air, weird!

The next morning Kay and I decide that we need to gather up some dead sea mud, apparently it fetches over 20 euro per 100g, I say that if she gets some containers I will fill them, the situation ended up with me in my knickers and t-shirt standing in water up to my butt and with my arm into the water up to my shoulder, but it was worth it, the mud is awesome! (The people responsible for cleaning the camping grounds showers possibly had a different opinion on this a couple of days later). I didn’t bother washing off as I was looking forward to my shower in Damascus, this was not to be, time ran out (days are certainly getting shorter) so we pulled up at a service station to camp on dusk. This completed my weird camping sites for 2010, ski field car park, Auckland Sailing Club car park, Old Wharf, Wellington Swimming Pool, Christchurch Airport Long Term Car Park, Long Street, and the forecourt of a service station on the outskirts of Damascus.  There was a half finished building there so we put up our tents on the tiles.

The following day we arrived at the campsite early enough for most people to dig out a weeks worth of dirty washing, (A low power line may have been harmed in the process, I say may...innocent until proven guilty) Ish and I set off in search of supplies for dinner, it turned out to be a great cook group shopping experience. Syrian people are really nice (Yeah we crossed the border into Syria the day before, just realised that I forgot to mention it) whilst searching the streets for meat we were given all sorts of food to try, in the butchery we were given free tea. Shopping for food in a new country is pretty hard when you are coping with yet another currency and not knowing the price of anything. We got the butcher to cut up 2.5kg of something that we assumed to be beef and it was going to cost almost all of the food budget, the man wouldn’t budge on the price, so we ended up with chicken. As we were walking the streets we had many people wanting their photo taken and not asking for money afterwards, we got some very cool photos with the fisheye lens.

Eventually we settle on mushroom soup, crispy chicken wraps with roasted veggies, warm egg potato and curry salad and veggie burgers. To follow this was date syrup dumplings with real cream...now these were a hit.

The following morning we headed into the old city of Damascus, and just spent the day wandering and shopping for random items, my birthday present, secret Santa gifts, jeans for Spencer, a scarf for me and some random food items, including 25 pancakes that a man absolutely refused to let us pay for! Syrian people are really very nice, right behind Sudanese people in the ranks for the nicest people in the world. After a visit to the central mosque, where I had to dress up in a robe that made me look like I was in the movie ‘Scream’ we headed towards the new city, nowhere near as interesting as the tiny alleyways of the old city.

That night most of us went for dinner at the Biggest Restaurant in the World in Damascus, at 6014 seats the Guinness Book of World Records says that it was the biggest in 2008, so not sure if it still is. It was pretty quiet on this night and we were certainly glad, there seemed to be very few processes in place, you could order off the menu or order a variety of other food not on the menu, I ordered the sweet and sour fish which was the same price as the lobster, go figure!...? It was really good food and we all received it, with the exception of Spencers entree which he didn’t need anyhow.

The following day we headed towards Palmyra, another ancient city. We wandered around there for a few hours that afternoon before setting up camp in a Bedouin tent, with a pot belly stove in the centre of the tent it was very warm, however the chimney system needed a bit of renovation as we were smoked out several times. During that day Gabs had looked at my pyramids memory card, (somewhere in the past couple of days I had lost another card of photos..., not happy jan) the one that corrupted and noted that it was doing ‘some strange stuff’, he tested the card reader and found he had issues with it too, Burbs was still adamant that it could not be the card reader and said he was so sure that he would even swap card readers, by that night Gabs had managed to recover my pyramid photos, what a great early birthday present!

The next day was my birthday, 31 already....crickey where have the last 10 years gone? We wandered up to the castle on the hill, a decent mornings climb, I took ‘donk-donk’ up (Donk-Donk is the newest addition to the gypsy wagon, he is the donkey of Shrek, what a great 31^st birthday gift.....I am certain that I am the only 31 year old female to receive a donkey as a birthday present!). First song on the truck was ‘Happy Birthday to you’ then I started the process of forgetting that it was my birthday for most of the day. We arrived in Aleppo and booked into our ‘hotel’ we are all sleeping in a partitioned area just behind the bar. We went out for dinner for my birthday a traditional Syrian restaurant where we got to sit in a private room, most people went for the set menu where you choose your mains but receive soup, salad, flat bread and dips, there was way too much food left over, only downside to the night was that as a traditional restaurant there was no alcohol! So I ask where have the last ten years gone? Still not sure, but I know that in ten years I must have changed as ten years ago  would have ran screaming out of any establishment which did not sell alcohol! Upon arriving back in the bar area of the hotel I figured something was a little strange as I see about 5 people huddling around and AK came over to take a photo of me standing on the steps and blocking my way up...hmm, I point out that it would be a bad photo as I am standing with straight arms, then I  see a shoot of flames and sparkles coming from the group, a huge chocolate birthday cake with the best candles in the world, they should actually be classified as fireworks, shooting fire 2ft into the air!