Tuesday 23 April 2013

An average week?

Let me fill you in on the highlights of the last week.

We camped it up again in Kusadasi, a seaside town with easy access to Ephesus “the best preserved classical city in the Mediterranean”, which may be the most boring description going of this breathtaking, stunning testament to Roman workmanship, and don’t forget the photogenic cats!

Calypso on the ferry across the Dardanelles
Enjoying the ferry ride
Phil
Ephesus

The Grand Theatre
A very photogenic cat!
Yvonne, Julie, Mary & Andy at Ephesus
A small gang of our travellers took it upon themselves to liberate some wood from the campsite's stock to fill Calypso’s wood locker up.  We enjoyed a large fire that evening.
Loading the wood locker
James collecting firewood
We dash out of Kusadasi, to Pamukkale.  It’s a short drive down a dual carriageway through many small towns until we turn off at the brown Pamukkale sign and the road starts to snake through smaller villages.  Finally in the distance we see the white terraces of Pamukkale which makes a great time to stop for lunch and enjoy the view.

Group at Pamukkale
Loo stop, and a photo op!
Lunch with a view
Anna & Mahala
Fi having a paddle in the thermal water
Lou
Phil
Simon and I leave the gang to enjoy the travertine pools, and the ruins of Hierapolis at the Unesco World Heritage site while we drive off to find our campsite for the night. 

It is closed.  The man who runs the place isn’t turning up.  One of his friends arrives on scooter and in broken English tells us to wait, makes some phone calls and then Ismail turns up.  He owns a hotel down the road, would we like to see it?  After some negotiations and haggling on price we thought it couldn’t hurt to take a look.  The Ozturk hotel turned out to be a delightful family fun pension with shade created by crawling ivy and trees, a roof terrace with views of the terraces and en-suite rooms, which we thought our campers would appreciate!
Mary, James & Alex, poolside at the Ozturk hotel
Our cook group whip up a culinary storm in the hotel's kitchen that evening, vegetable curry, dhal and rice.  After consuming our feast we head out to the Kaya Bar where we continue to indulge in beer, cheap wine and shisha.  The young ‘uns of the group are happy to be staying up and out till after midnight!  This is also where we reunite with Warren, it was a great relief for everyone to see him walking up the street.  He had spent two nights sleeping on buses playing catch up after having to return to Istanbul for his Uzbekistan visa.  Needless to say his was most pleased to find we were staying in a hotel and he could catch up on sleep in a bed.
Becs & Mahala
At the pub
James, Andy, Anna, Simon & Teresa enjoying a beer or two
Lou, Fi, Alex & David
James hiding behind a shisha pipe
Spike, Pernille, Becs & Yvonne
After our late night it was a slow and relaxed start to the day.  The afternoon was to be filled bathing in hot springs and mud baths for some and for others it was to be adrenalin fuelled paragliding.

Lunch before mud baths
Mud bath!
The paragliders - Phil, Andy, Julie, David, Simon, Becs, Spike & Lou
Becs getting suited up
David ready to go
Simon waiting for the right wind
A great day for paragliding
Spike and the Go Pro camera
Flying!

Pamukkale from the air
To end our delightful stay in this laidback town, Ismail and his sister cooked for us. On the menu was lentil soup followed by Kofte, chicken or fish with salad and rice.  It was a more reserved evening with everyone slipping off to bed early, ready for an early start and our first bushcamp!

We are driving towards Goreme and must stop on the way as the drive all the way there is far too long.  We start by looking down the small roads running off the main road, trying to spot a little piece of heaven away from the din of civilisation.  Eventually we spot a dirt track that looks interesting to we take it and follow it down where we find a nice space sheltered from the wind blowing across the flat plain.  We are followed to our destination by a Turkish man and his three children.  I ask if its ok to camp where we are and he very excitedly nods his head, yes!
Scenic lunch spot overlooking lakes and mountains, the best so far
Calypso and her fans
Bushcamp
As roof crew and luggage crew spring in to action we are joined by another car, again, full of Turkish men.  We continue to set up camp and start cooking the evening meal.  Spike and Andy make a great fire which is promptly sat around by our new Turkish friends and they soon offer us beers and tuck in to the bottles themselves.  They seem very happy to be part of our proceedings, making introductions in broken English.  The rest of the evening is spent singing along to glee, power ballads and dancing to the loud traditional music blasting from the Turks cars. The more beer that was consumed the more inappropriate our curious camp fire thieves hands became and the ladies started marrying themselves off to pretend husbands.  Simon managed to gain three wives in one evening.
Andy & Simon cooking up a storm - shepherds pie
I love bushcamping!  You don’t always know where you will spend the evening, or evidently who will be joining in!  It can be bizarre and wonderful and random, full of magic that you cannot plan for or always be prepared for!  That was the first of many bushcamps, and I have a good feeling that they are only going to get better.

Saturday 20 April 2013

The beginning of an epic adventure

The beginning of any adventure is a mixture of emotions for those brave enough to leave behind their home comforts, friends, family and toilet.  There are fizzles of excitement, pangs of fear, knots of anticipation and sighs of relief.  For many of our traveller’s joining us on Calypso this journey has been years in the planning and now everything that has been researched, saved up for and sacrificed has come to fruition and we are now in motion!

After a swift pre-departure meeting on the roof top terrace of our hotel we ventured out to a lovely Turkish restaurant where we all tucked in to a variety of meze’s, kebabs and baklava.  It was a great way to sit and chat and get to know the people we were to spend the next 6 months with a little better.  David mentioned how strange it was that he recognised most people and felt like he knew them before being introduced because of the many discussions that have been had on the groups FaceBook page! We finished the evening in what had become Spike's local bar for a couple more of the ubiquitous Efes beer.
David, Yvonne, Andy, Julie, Anna, Hayden, Kelly, James, Mahala
Jo, Alex, Pernille, Warren, Lou, Becs, Mary, Fi
Pernille, Spike, Simon, Phil, Lou, Teresa
Phil & Spike with the crew for this epic expedition, Simon, & Teresa
Some of our overlanders arrived in Istanbul a few days before the trip officially departed and had managed to see a lot of the sites.  The Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia, the spice market and the Grand Bazaar which are all incredibly easy to reach with the cities efficient and easy to use tram system.

The Blue Mosque by night
The Basilica Cisterns
The unusual sideways Medusa's head in the Basilica Cisterns
Fishing off the Galata Bridge
The tulip festival made Istanbul even more colourful

The Grand Bazaar
Bosphorous Bridge by night
David at the Spice Market
Pernille, Lou, Fi and Becs at the Blue Mosque
From the hustle and bustle of Istanbul trams we leave our hotel in the decidedly British weather to wait for Calypso to pick us up.
Here she comes - Calypso sporting a rather dashing new paint job!
Waiting for Calypso
Happy to be on the truck
Julie, Andy, Anna & Spike
As we made our way along the coast the roads widened and the traffic all but disappeared. We were heading to Eceabat a small coastal village with a ferry port running regular ferries across the Dardanelles to Cannukale.  Our campsite at the Boomerang Bar was perfectly situated for people who wanted to visit the Gallipoli battlefields or take the ferry across to Cannukale for shopping or walking along the waterfront to see the replica Trojan horse.  Thankfully as we reached Eceabat the clouds cleared in time for us to see the sunset and assured us that tomorrow would be a sunny day for our activities. 
First camp at the Boomerang Bar
Teresa and Simon get some assistance from a helpful campsite dog while doing the tent demonstration!
Our campsite, from a kite!
Stunning sunset
Calypso crossing the Dardanelles
It was a relaxed morning where everyone took it easy and chilled out before the tour of Gallipoli with local guide Hasan.  Everyone enjoyed a pleasant afternoon finding Hasan to be incredibly passionate and informative about Gallipoli’s history.  It was particularly good for Mahala and James who visited Gallipoli once before on Anzac Day. On this one day the peninsula becomes incredibly busy with other tourists on a special pilgrimage to the memorial site.
Anzac Memorial

David
James & Mahala
So far everyone has a great introduction to how Calypso works. They are eager to get stuck in and taking the assigned truck duties incredibly seriously!  Simon starting cleaning windows before we even reached our first campsite, Andy and Julie are keeping the bar stocked, Kelly has made helpful security announcements to ensure peoples tents don’t get infiltrated by the roaming cats, and everyone is happy to pitch in when needed, which makes for a delightful overland crew indeed!  
Our first lunch on the road
James gets to know the truck
Roof and back locker crew hard at work
So from the humble beginnings of a facebook group, this team is ready for anything, which isn't surprising if you were to know how long they have all been wanting to make this epic journey of a lifetime.  Let the journey begin!