Day 15 & 16 (Goreme)

The drive from Istanbul to Goreme saw us cross the bridge between Europe and Asia and so leave Europe behind for a few months *sob*. Along the scenery was pretty amazing with mountains surrounding us on all sides and miles after miles of uninhabited land. There was a a traffic accident on the road shortly after the heavens had opened and there was a huge volume of water flowing down the road with one section of it looking like there was a landslide coming. Pulling into Goreme was a very surreal experience. The landscape really is like something from a lunar movie so it wasn't a big surprise when one of the guys mentioned it was used in an old Star Wars movie.

We stayed in a cave hotel called Flintstones which was pretty cool once the room situation was sorted out. The rooms that were made available for us consisted of a 5 bed room for the boys and then for the girls a 4 bed room that was filled by lottery selection with everyone else being directed to a room (read dungeon) under the main reception area. The room was so dark and dank there was no way that I could stay in there – that and the fact that it was to house the remaining 10 girls (1 had been left behind in Istanbul because there were problems with her Iran visa and she needed to get it sorted out there before catching up with us). I didn't sign up for ten people to a room, so was a bit annoyed that we'd been put into a massive room AGAIN! Thankfully there were some others that were unhappy with the situation so we managed to get an upgrade to a 4 bed room but of course we had to pay for it. The remaining 6 girls got moved out of the 10 bed room into a very swish room with a jacuzzi..I dunno if they had to pay for the upgrade (in addition to being a dungeon, there was no lock on the door to secure the room) but I was glad that we'd moved regardless.

On our full day in Goreme we were up at 4.30am to go for a sunrise hot-air balloon ride and man was it worth the early start. I'd struggled with deciding to go or not because I'd done one in Phoenix late last year and I wondered whether it was worth doing it again. I decided that given the scenery would be completely different that it was worth it so went for it. Our pilot for the flight was the legendary Mike Green who took us floating within a couple of feet of the ground and up to 8000 feet to get the best view of everything there was to see in the area. It was a fantastic flight with one of the most impressive parts of it being the landing...he floated us right onto the trailer that was waiting to take the basket and balloon gear away – impressive stuff!

After the balloon we headed back to the hostel for breakfast and then Una & the other trekkers headed out walking. I was supposed to go abseiling but pulled out in favour of having a day off to relax and spend some time away from the mass group. I lay by the pool for way too long and stupidly didn't top up my sunscreen...that ended up with me burning my back to a lovely lobster red colour (3 days before the Turkey/Iran border crossing). I had a great day..weather was fab, company was fab (shout out to Michelle) and the lunch we had at Fat Boy's was fab, so fab in fact that I went back with the group later that night for dinner.

For photos from Goreme click here.