Daily Updates (Week 3-ish)

Apologies for the delay in latest updates, run out of time sometimes.

Day 18 (Istanbul - Ankara - Geçitli)

Mostly a driving day. As an aside we've noticed that agriculture dominates the European (and now Asian) landscape. There is not much land outside of cities and towns that is not tilled, and mostly it was wheat at the start of our trip to be slowly and mostly replaced by sunflowers the further east we traveled. Fascinating to watch. And we have been amazed about the amount of sunflowers grown. Surely Europe must be the world's biggest producer of sunflowers oil? Haven't checked but it seems certain.

Anyway, we spent the morning mucking around in Istanbul so Alyssa could get her Canadian visa sorted. At the visa centre she was told to call and make an appointment and the earliest would be tomorrow so she was feeling pretty defeated (cause we were leaving that day) until she went back in to tell them she couldn't call and so the lady told her to wait and they just did it there and then. Our adopted patron saint, St Christopher, was clearly assisting.

Because of the late leave we didn'thave time to make it to Cappodocia (our ultimate destination) so we booked a campsite on a large lake at Geçitli, via a quick stop in Ankara. Our path took us through some quiet villages which was cool to see, with kids excitedly waving as we drove past. Towards dusk we actually saw a number of shepherds moving their flocks to wherever they planned to bed down for the night. Was pretty cool (actually took a photo of one of the shepherd's on his donkey as we drove past in photo below but you can't really make it out).

The kind gentlemen who owned the campsite at Geçitli also ran a fish restaurant out of his house and invited us to eat there but the girls weren't keen on fish so we skipped it.

Day 19 (Geçitli - Gerome/Cappodocia)

Woke up to see a beautiful still lake with a fisherman out plying his trade.

We didn't hang long though as we were keen to get to Cappodocia - famous for its castles, crazy rock formations, and ballooning above it. It didn't disappoint, the landscape and views were amazing.

We climbed the main 'castle' in the region, Uchisar castle, which is essentially a rock spite that they carved rooms out of and over time became the defensive structures of the area. There are a number of these around the region and made for a fascinating walk through.

Not Uchisar castle. I missed the photo of it from down below, but I took this from Uchisar and shows how they dug out rooms and doors into the rock.

We took a drive to Love Valley where all the rocks look like phallus (looked cool but you can't even tell in the photo) before we went and had a really lovely dinner at a local restaurant. Tried the local red wine (really good) and the locally brewed beer (also really good). 3 happy campers (albeit with lighter wallets) then headed into Goreme to meet some other rally teams. Super fun night, especially a team of Kiwis called Baaad_Decisions. They were classic. We offered them a lift back to their campground because Sage hadn't been drinking and we stuffed 7 bodies into Kermit, who took it like a champ. No photos unfortunately.

Day 20 (Cappodocia - Kemaliye Karanlik/Dark Canyon - Bağıştaş)

This was an awesome day. We all took our balloon ride in one of the most renowned places in the world for balloon rides. It became famous for the amazing rock formations you could see from the air but now half the spectacle is the number of balloons in the air.

This doesn't even do it justice

Plus a whole bunch of other photos.

After this awesome experience we headed off the another famous (although little visited) thing called the 'Stone Road' in the 'Dark Canyon'. This road was carved out of the rock by hand by locals who started building it in 1870. It is as high as 600m above the Euphrates river which it winds beside.

Kermit, the Euphrates, the Stone Road and the Dark Canyon all in one

Funnily enough we ran across a couple of other rally teams coming the other way (including our friends Baaad_Decisions) but only one other car the whole time we drove the canyon. Turkish people don't seem to be keen on this place - to be fair it is a bit in the middle of nowhere although the hotels around the canyon seemed to be bustling.

We opted for a free camp a couple of hours down the track towards tomorrow's destination - Trabzon. It wasn't the best option. There was a couple of cow carcasses that hadn't quite finished rotting and once the wind died off in the evening our camp was filled with rot stench. Not exciting. Ah well, the price you pay for free accommodation I guess... It was on a pretty lake however, with lots of water birds around (and no mozzies) so that was a partial offset.

Day 21 (Bağıştaş - Trabzon - Rize)

This was a bit of a travel day. Made some coffee/tea and got on the road.

Our plan was to hard to Trabzon, see a famous monastery we had been told about there, and then get accommodation near the top of a road called the D915, our plan for the next day.

We got to Trabzon only to discover the monastery we wanted to see was an hour back down the road we had come in on. After 4 hours driving none of us had the heart to do an extra 2 hour round-trip to see the monastery. Which was a real shame because Google says this is what we missed out on.

So we went and had a picnic in a nice park by the Black Sea, where we made ourselves fresh egg salad sangas.

We then got some accommodation in Rize near the head of rhe D915 and went to settle in.

Our hostess at the accomodarion was the most amazing and friendly lady. She ended up getting us a fan, bringing us a bowl of fruit, doing our laundry for us, bringing us a tray full of every drink imaginable. Such a cutie as Olivia would say. Got some nice pics of sunset over the Black Sea from our accommodation.

Day 22 (Rize - unknown road - D915 - unknown town - Trabzon)

Wow. What a day.

The Mongol Rally states that the reason for making participants buy old small cars better suited for a short drive down to church, rather than driving halfway across the world, is so that you do break down, you do interact with locals, and you have an adventure. Nothing illustrated the truth of this more than the day we had today.

It started rather auspiciously, with one of the best meals we have had in Turkey. We got 3 traditional Turkish breakfast dishes - a dish that is butter and a local cheese melted and mixed together, a type of dumpling covered in yoghurt and chilli oil, and a kind of scrambled egg with chilli, capsicum and tomato. All 3 insanely delicious and very different. This meal deserves its own photo.

We then headed off to the D915, a road famous for spectacular views. Once on it, Jason turned off navigation because he figured we would just stay on the road. This was a mistake. A mistake only realised more than an hour past where we were supposed to turn as our cobbled road steadily dwindled down to a goat track. This mistake felt reasonably fortuitous though as the scenery along this road was still brilliant. Eg

Once realising our error, we backtracked and started the D915 with a climb up a huge mountain. Unfortunately weather had come in by this time and we were soon in the clouds. Not the amazing vistas we were hoping for but Sage loved it and we stopped and made ourselves coffee and hot chocolate on the top of the mountain range sans vista.

We then started down the mountain range, only to have the weather clear a bit and catch some of the magical views.

One thing other ralliers had alerted us to is that driving the D915 south to north was better as the road was paved the entire way. Driving north to south (as we did) meant a lot of dirt road driving. This couldn't really be helped because of our trip to Trabzon but this meant we were on some pretty rough road and had gone through some decent potholes.

We could hear something scraping along the ground and so we stopped to check and found part of our bumper bar had torn off and was trailing along under the car - worse, it was covered in oil! A quick check revealed the sump had a decent hole in it and oil was coming out fairly quickly - more stream than drip! We checked oil levels and were nearly out so filled it up with oil we had and blasted off down the road hoping to find a mechanic. About 20ks down the road we came across a group of what appeared to be auto shops and so we pulled in. Jason approached a young man out the front with Google translate in hand, only to be told he didn't need it as the gentleman was Swiss and could speak English (his parents were originally from the village and he was back visiting). This guy then asked his friend (who ran the car detailing business we had pulled up in front of) if he could fix it. The guy said it was possible but he didn't have the part and he said it would probably be better to just truck the car back to Trabzon (2 hrs) and have it fixed there. So he started calling around on our behalf to get quotes when another guy pulled up in a car and asked in English if we needed any help. We said we were being sorted but appreciated the offer so he gave us a beer and told us he would come back to look at the car as he was a mechanic also. 5 min later he came back and had a look. He felt the local mechanic could probably do it so walked us down to another business a few doors down to ask. The mechanic in the shop initially said that he and his crew were done for the day (we later learned that this was because they had a wedding on) but our new friend encouraged them to do it, explaining our situation, and the guy ended up agreeing.

Kermit has done himself a mischief

Our new friends also asked if we wanted to get protection (a sump guard) added so it didn't happen again. Alyssa had been hassling Jason to do this, as the roads in Kazakhstan are notoriously bad and many teams were doing so in an effort to avoid what had just happened to us. Jason had resisted as he felt it was a 'deal with it if it happens' scenario. Like now. Anyway given what had just happened on a fairly mild road (we know there is much worse to come), we agreed to have the sump protection added. Off came the sump, which then had the hole welded up. No leaks showed after welding but he decided to add some more weld for good measure. He then disappeared for a little bit while about 10 locals bustled about doing different things to the car (I think only about 3 people were employees) before returning with a decent piece of steel to go on to the car as protection.

Our new IED and sump protection being fitted

Our man set to work with a saw to cut to shape as well as adding air and runoff holes to the piece of steel. He was proud enough of his work to even sign it! Given the on-the-spot fabrication skills, we felt it was a piece of art too!

Not every day you get a signed sump guard!

Our friend who had been doing all the translating and providing friendly and helpful advice (both to us and the mechanic) then asked if we would like to go to see a Turkish wedding and shoot guns! One of the mechanics best friends was getting married and he said it would be no problem if we also went. So work suddenly stopped and the mechanic took off with us in our new friends car in hot pursuit. We stopped to grab a shotgun and then booked it to the town square to wait for the wedding convoy. While we waited our mechanic took us on a tour of the village abd we got this pic with our friend on the river.

We noticed a family of storks on the mosque and the guys told us that this is actually the emblem of the village, so we snapped a pic. They've lived there for 25 years apparently.

Our mechanic then kindly bought the girls ice cream before we headed back in time to join the car convoy where everyone follows the bride back to her home. Then close friends of the groom dance out the front of the house whilst everyone starts shooting guns in the air. Our friend passed his shotgun to Jason and told him to shoot in the air, which he promptly did, only to deafen everyone within 10m. Was quite the experience though. After a bit we headed back to the mechanic shop, shared some tequila shots, watched more shooting, finished applying our new tank plating, and booked off into the night to honks and cheers. What a day.

A very small example of the lots of shooting that happened.

We made it back to Trabonz where we had a beer debrief before bed.

Day 23 (Trabonz - Rize - Tbilisi)

Woke up and Jason went to find a print shop to print the car insurance for Georgia but nothing was open so we got going towards the Georgian border as we had been told there could be long delays.

Stopped in Rize for some baklava place the girls had looked up and got printing done and some souvenir shopping. And then off to the border.

Georgian border is a bit weird. They make any passengers hop out and go through separate immigration and customs to the car driver. So Jason said sayonara to the girls and went through the Turkish checkpoint wkthout issue. Was about to go through the first Georgian checkpoint when something was said over a loudspeaker and a police guy told me to park off to the side and go back to pay my fines (any unpaid tolls or speeding fines are found and charged before you leave). Jason thought he'd somehow dodged it, but alas. To his surprise and joy however, the total of tolls and fines was only 220 TL (about $8). This was good considering we were never sure what were actually speed cameras and Turkish people ignored the speed limit signs anyway, so we had as well.

That small delay to pay fines aside, things were looking rosey and it looked like Jason would be through the border in about 30min as he waited in line for the 2nd checkpoint. That is until a guy pointed at him and directed him to come out of the line and drive into a separate warehouse off to the side. There happened to be another rallier, also selected for special treatment, but he was none the wiser as to why we had been put in the naughty bin. Bernard (other rallier) told Jason he'd been there about half an hour already and didn't know what it was about.

Finally one of the police guys comes over and takes photos of all of our cars and we figure out they are taking photos of any stickers or writing, assuming to make sure it's not offensive. Anyway, our police guy sends off all his pics and tells us that he will let us know as soon as he gets an answer from head office. 2 hours later the 2 gents who had their cars photographed with mine were told they could go. No word on Kermit though.

More ralliiers arrived and were detoured to the shed.

After 6 hours, somebody finally checked our stickers were inoffensive and we got the greenlight.

Jason picked up Alyssa and Sage and we stopped down the road for a quick swim in the Black Sea. The beach was packed with swimmers but there was plenty of garbage in the water whuch didnt make having a lengthy splash appealing so we had a dip to cool off and got going.

Just a quick note here: Georgians are the craziest drivers we have seen so far. They overtake with oncoming trucks forced to brake to avoid a head on - any part of the road or verge is considered a usable lane. And their roads are bad. We actually drove along a viaduct that has actual large holes in it where you could see the road below. Eg

It's just a wee hole to the road below, nothing to fear (and one of the many wild dogs that just cruise around.

Jason then made the not so great decision to pick up this old guy who needed a lift and drive him home, despite not knowing where his home was, or where it was in relation to where we needed to go. We had no reception so Google translate was mostly not working which made the situation a real drag as we didnt even know what we had signed up for. Long and the short was, we ended up driving 20min in the wrong direction, were forced to wait about 20min while he faffed around picking us some knobbly old pears from his tree to say thanks, and then 20min drive back to where we needed to go. With a four and half hour drive ahead of us, it wasn't ideal.

To add to the drama we got pulled over by the police and given our first fine (apparently not indicating a left turn at a roundabout). Given the way Georgans drive is completely chaotic, we felt pretty hard done by. We especially noted at the very next roundabout, not one Georgian person put on their left blinker to turn left. So Jason also felt it was unlikely he would not have blinkered anyway so when they said the cost we assumed they were telling us the bribe amount required. Jason went to grab his wallet and started to pull out cash until he was berated for even considering such a thing and that the fine must be paid at a bank! OK then. No bribing in Georgia then. At least not these guys.

We finally got into Tbilisi at 2 am only to not be able to find our accomodarion. It was not where Google maps took us. As the host had provided a video showing exactly how to get in, we could see we were not in the right place. It felt too late to text the host (although Tbilisi was very much alive at 2 am, we were actually in various traffic jams coming in) so we spent at least half an hour driving around until we eventually and luckily recognised the place in the video a few streets over from where Google maps wanted us to be. In bed by 3 am. Huzzah.

Day 24 (Tbilisi)

We had a bit of a sleep in (some more than others) and then walked to some cool antique and trash/treasure type markets called the 'Dry Markets'. Lots of cool stuff to look at. Jason bought a hand made leather belt to replace the one he had lost somewhere along the way for 85 GL, after some haggling. The merchant started at 150.

We then walked to old town and had out first experience of Georgian food. So good.

We walled further into the old town, had a drink at a bar and then retired for the afternoon. There is a heatwave in Georgia atm and walking around was pretty oppressive.

It was Autos birthday today so after a nana nap we went and found some traditional Chinese to celebrate. Scott would order honey chicken usually but we had to make do with lemon chicken and some other well chosen dishes. Yum!

Day 25 (Tbilisi)

Today we went in to the old part of town to go the botanic gardens. We thought that might be a good place tp hide from the heat wave Georgia is experiencing at the moment. On our way passed the Chreli Abano, the ancient thermal baths of Georgia. They look cool and the thermal spring still runs down through the middle of the city.

We climbed through the Botanic Gardens, past an impressive waterfall and to the Narikala Fortress and the 'Mother of Georgia' monument, both overlooking the city and offering awesome views. Georgia is actually well known for its wines even though we don't really get them on Australia, so Jason had to try the wine-flavoured ice cream. We all thought it was pretty good.

We got back to the car and beat a hasty retreat from the heat. Some homemade dinner, a siesta, and a few Margarita's out the front of our house (like proper Georgians) later we went out to join some other teams in Tbilisi for a beer. Caught up with about 10 teams, including some old friends (12 Kiwis calling themselves the Sick Cats). Was a very fun night, except for the walk home at 4 am.

Day 26 (Tbilisi)

A late wake up to homemade shackshuka was what the doctor ordered. We then went in search of a spare wheel at the local disassemblers market. They don't really have wreckers like we do, people just pull apart a few cars of the same variety and then you wander along a long street of these individuals that have those parts on display. A long search looked to delvwr only for the guy to tell us the wheel wouldn't work for our car and that it would scrape (despite being matching size and amount of lugs). I am not sure the guy was correct bit anyway our search was futile except that a guy made some calls and gave us an address where we would be able to get one so we will head there tomorrow.

Jason and Sage were sent out to get recovery burgers for Alyssa and that pretty much covers the day. We were all happy to have a chill day doing not much.