September 8 Urgup to Gaziantep

I forgot to mention that we also visited a winery and had taste of their red and white wine yesterday. Neither was great but nor were they bad. I preferred the red.

Today, as mentioned, at thatwas primarily a driving day and not a particulary interesting one 5 at that. I napped several times enroute. I didn't take any photographs although I saw a few places where I might have had we been able to stop the van. They always seemed to crop up when we were on a major highway with little or not shoulder on which to pull over and stop. While we were having lunch a truck full of sheep pulled in but it left just before we finished and before I had a chance to retrieve my camera. Dumb not to always have it with me. Had we been able to pull over I would have shot some of the landscape which was much different that that in Cappadocia. Here it was mountainous or, at least, very hilly and there was a great deal more vegetation and greenery. Much of the greenery was coniferous of which there almost none in Cappadocia. Anothewr shot I would have taken was of a semi nomadic sheepherding family camping in tents not far removed from their grazing flock.

At the first place we stopped for tea for Omer and Mehmet (second smoke break) I decided it was time to try the Turkish coffee (first coffee in months). Contrary to what I had been told it wa snot particularly bitter and wasn't much different the Starbuck's expresso. What I didn't expect was the two cm of grounds in the bottom of the cup and almost imbibed them by mistake as I was draining the cup. Expensive tiny cup of coffee at $3.00+ I thought. I haven't yet tried the ubiquitous tea but promised that I will get around to that. I should have had some of the apple or citron tea at the monestary yesterday! Oh yes, at that cafe/truck stop I had to pay .5 turkish lire ($0.37) to use the washroom. Haven't paid for that in years and since I wasn't really in need it was hardly worth it. After that I waited until I got to my hotel..... Cheapskate or what......

We stopped for lunch at another truck stop (usually a sign of good food). I chose lamb shish (as in shishkebap) which turned out to be very tasty but also extremely tough. Along with it they served a tomato cucumber salad with oil and lemon juice dressing (do I hear a familiar refrain here?) which I enjoyed. There were also roasted peppers and sliced red onion and unlimited bread and foccacia. When I say unlimited bread I do mean umlimited. The bread was served in a waste paper sized bucket and the foccacia was on a separate plate. From what i have observed first hand and what Omer has told me Turks love their bread (to say the least). Watching Mehmet eat absolutely confirms that observation. He eats a minimum of six large pieces of bread at every meal and consumes most everything in sight in record time. On top of that he is a really cool guy though he speaks little English. All of that meal cost me about $7.50 CDN. I couldn't finish it all (let alone the bread lol).

Our next stop further along was at a famous ice cream shop where, for the first time ever, I ate ice cream with a knife and fork. It was so hard that there was no other way to do it. It was fantastic ice cream. Omer claims, probably with some exageration, that they package it so well that you can leave it out of the freezer for two days and it will still be fine.

We finally arrived in Gaziantep around 5:00 pm. By then I was too tired and hot (both hot and humid here) to do any more so I checked into the hotel while Omer and Mehmet went off to refill my Raki supply (it will be difficult or impossible to get in the next few days as we visit more "conservative towns". I really can't say that i am all that impressed with these boutique style hotels which are alsways rustic and out of the way. Omer asked me if I preferred luxury restaurants and I replied that I did not but I think perhaps I do when it ocmes to hotels. To satisfy me they at least need restaurants, elevators, air conditioning, internet access and smoking rooms. This one at least has three of those features. I can smoke, it has wireless net access and it does have air conditioning though it took me a while to find it and to get it to operate. The cave hotel in Urgup, though nice to look at, managed only one of the five.

Oh yes I discovered on Gacebook that one of the women who wa son the southeast Asia tour with me is also in Turkey. She is in the south while I am in the east. What a coincidence!

Tomorrow we only have to drive about 2.5 hours to our next stop so it should be a much easier day.

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