Georgian Feasts and Turkish Delights

It seems like our Georgian final feast was just a couple of nights ago, and yet we are already almost onto a final Turkish delight.

I think the pictures will do most of the talking about our night out in Batumi, Georgia, but we’ll share a few details.

It was decided that the evening would be a formal affair – well, as formal as you can get on an overland truck, but you’d be surprised! Toby and Paul S wanted an excuse to wear their kilts again, and I think quite a few of us enjoyed the opportunity to dress up and go outfit hunting in some of the Georgian second hand shops. You’ll be amazed what we found.

Our night was spent at a restaurant inside a (‘grounded’) ship, and we had a variety of Georgian dishes and jugs of wine throughout the night, along with live music and lots of dancing. It was a great night out and a great farewell to Georgia.

Georgian feast restaurant

Cathy, Andrew E, Jacq, Norm, Toby, Mignon, Nigel H, Paul S & Teresa

Cathy

Boogie on down! 

Nigel C and Nigel H

Nigel H, Ann S and Teresa

Nigel H, Norm, Cathy & Jacq

Paul S, Cathy, Anne W, Mignon, Jacq, Ann H & Toby

Paul S, Mignon, Toby

The crew - Simon, Teresa, Zaz and Al

Toby, Andrew E, Simon, Norm, Nigel H and Paul S

And that concluded our time in Georgia and led us on to Turkey. The final group border crossing of the trip wasn’t as long as some, but on the Turkish side very illogical, having to go ahead to certain places to pay for visas and then return to the immigration desk, along with all the other bus loads pushing to be let through. My (Al’s) South African passport also seemed to cause the officials some confusion as to the visa requirements, and while I waited to be issued with my special visa stamp (visa is FOC for South Africans but requires a different stamp) I was witness to the police dealing with a few misbehaving characters. Definitely shows you a different side of the law.

Into Turkey, gaining 2hrs which makes the sun rise early and set at about 4:30pm, we had lunch in Trabzon and then headed up to Sumela Monastery in the mist. An amazing sight, even in the mist – a monastery carved high up into a cliff face. There are still some remains of the frescoes (along with some graffiti too). A good half-hour plus to hike to, but definitely another monastery worth seeing!

A misty Sumela monastery

From there it was on to our final bushcamp en route to Cappadocia. A couple of incredible passes to get there, complete with snow. Our fire-masters made a fantastic fire, and we had a South African meal called babotie: a fruity mildly curried mince dish of Cape Malay origin. Unfortunately the bar ran out of beer early on but other hidden supplies of ‘bottle number 10’ from our Uzbekistan wine-tasting session, and the dreaded Georgian chacha were found.

We have been based in Urgup for 3 nights exploring a little of Cappadocia. Yesterday morning saw 11 of us up before dawn for a much-anticipated hot-air balloon flight. The sky was clear, the moon was almost full, frost on the ground as we sipped tea and watched the balloons being inflated. And then it was our turn to fly. Magnificent. There must have been about 50 balloons flying that day (seriously, I counted) which is apparently quite a small number for this site. It was like a balloon festival, lovely to have other balloons in the air too as it made for great pics and a surreal atmosphere, floating above it all. Definitely a highlight and definitely to be recommended. Geologically the landscape is fascinating and our pilot was very good about flying us high and low, in between all the ’fairy chimneys’.

Simon, Paul S, Nigel H, Andrew E & Jacq

The ballooners

After that we spent the day touring and exploring the area – the underground city carved into the earth, the fairy chimneys, a pottery workshop, and an awesome buffet lunch.

Today is Norm’s birthday, and a final Cappadocian feast before we hit Istanbul tomorrow. Kathmandu to Cappadocia complete, one more stop remains. And that will take us to the end of our rather epic journey. From Istanbul we will be saying good-byes and heading off on our own – some travelling a bit more, some going back to work. But there’ll be one more blog, so check-in with us again to hear about our last couple of days.