23rd May 2008
Today we were allowed to sleep in until around 10am, thankfully after a big Turkish night. Boy do I mean big, after managing to score the bottom bunk finally, I ended up waking up in the cave on the top bunk anyway. I just woke up thinking, how the hell did I get up here in the state I was in last night, in the dark? No idea. The showers are also across the courtyard and when I walked across to get to them, I didn’t even realise that I was still in the same clothes from the night before, I came out of the dorm to be greeted with raucous laughter. Classy. This amused the passengers no end, thankfully my boss wasn’t about.
Today we were being shown northern Cappadocia, we were all less than enthusiastic, due to sore heads and hang overs from Turkish night, but it had to be done. We were taken and introduced to loads of people around Göreme, the people we book the hot air balloons through, yet another carpet shop and a really nice restaurant, where we were fed and basically none of us ate. So tired. We were then packed onto the bus and taken to Imagination Valley where the rock formations all look like different things. There’s a hand and a camel and people dancing. We were also shown the famous volcanic fairy chimneys and taken to the Göreme open air museum. We were the taken wine tasting…again, which basically turned my stomach.
After our short North tour, we were taken and introduced to the guys who hire out quad bikes and motor bikes to our passengers and Vanessa organised for us to have a go on some quad bikes. I did manage to tell her I don’t have a licence, but apparently you don’t need one so Ce la ve. I was ok at first, but it all kind of when pear shaped when my bikes engine stopped half way up a hill and I rolled it, and Paul had to pull it off me as it landed on top of my leg. Fun. I was still sore from my fall in Olympos and now I have hit my head pretty hard. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour I decided not to get back on the obviously faulty Quad bike. However, the guy who took me back to the bike place insisted on driving like a maniac, which I would normally have loved, but I was a little shaken up to say the least.
I got back to the bike place and walked to Moulin Rouge (one of the souvenir shops we like) and had an Efes with Burak and Zafer and told them what happened. Then Vanessa arrived and cleaned me up with wet wipes as I had a few grazes and scratches. Everyone else got back and we went back to the cave and got dressed for dinner. We were going out for pottery kebabs. That was heaps fun. A pottery kebab comes out in a pottery jar that you have to crack with a knife. I managed to get mine to crack open in three swings. Cat got two goes as it was her birthday and they managed to get a pair of earrings into the jar.
After dinner, we were all a bit tired to Nigel, Paul, Cat and I went to Pacha Bar for a few hours and had a few drinks and played pool. For once I made this awesome shot at pool (one of Nigel and Cats balls was blocking my shot directly over the pocket and I sunk my ball without sinking theirs) and everyone saw it! We crawled home from Pacha Bar at about 11pm and went off to bed in the cave.