Bulgaria was brief and cold. The cities were not the greatest, but the astounding natural beauty and the night in the hotel more than made up for the rest.

Turkey has so far been one of the most magical places. In the 3 weeks we have spent here it has brought exhilaration, anxiety, fear, wonder and frustration to mention but a few of the emotions that this country evoked in us.

Let us start with the border crossing. Not an altogether unpleasant experience. The most remarkable thing about it was the fact that it was incredibly efficient, as far as borders go that is. Let me briefly run you through the experience. From the off you realise that Turkey take the whole border business quite seriously. I say this because of the sheer size of the border crossing. I have seen towns smaller than this border crossing. It looked more like an international airport with all its lanes and broad roads leading into and out of the control points. Getting to your allotted checkpoint takes at least five minutes that is without traffic, it is just that far from the Bulgarian side to Turkish side. Eventually we got there, Silvie opens her window and hands the friendly official our passports. He takes a quick glance and then directs us to the visa office, with the instructions to return to him once we have the needed visa. Sounds simple enough, however, there is yet another checkpoint in front of us and cars behind us. So we have to go forward. The lady at the next checkpoint informs us that we will need to get separate third party insurance for Big Red, as our Green Card does not cover Turkey. We knew this beforehand so we were not alarmed. She simply directed us to another office with the same instructions to return to her as well as the first official. We parked Big Red up and went first to office number 92 for our visas. These were $15 dollars each. The official had to look up how much to charge us. He said he had worked at that border for the past six years and had never seen a South African passport. That was a cool feeling, going where no South African had gone before. Anyway he found the price we gave him the money and he gave us a sticker. Now off to get car insurance. It was once again a very simple process. We handed over our passports and V5. He put our details into a computer and told us to pay $53 for a month’s insurance. We forked over the cash and he handed us our new insurance certificate. So armed with our visas and insurance we headed straight to the respective officials. They checked and stamped where was needed and sent us on our merry way.

Thinking that things were going far too smoothly I decided to make things slightly more interesting. I called the customs official to come over and inspect the car. You see I couldn’t go through a border without Silvie blowing a gasket at me. She did laugh at me afterwards though. Reason being, before we got to the border I had told Silvie that we are not to load out the car if they wanted to inspect it. “If they want to inspect the boxes they can get them out themselves.” The official just stood back and I was diligently packing out the back. Unfortunately the guy was pretty laid back and I only had to unload two boxes before he got bored and sent us on our way. Great success!

I still felt far too relaxed and not trusting the peace. Wish I had shoved that feeling away because it wasn’t five minutes later that we were surrounded by soldiers with automatic weapons. OOPS!

This is how that whole episode unfolded: As you all might know, Silvie and I are avid bird watchers and Turkey is a massive birding destination. We were very excited at the prospect of seeing a host of new birds. It so happened that shortly after coming through the border I noticed some very interesting birds circling in the distance. I was pleasantly surprised to find a great little dirt road that seemed to lead straight to them. On impulse I decided to hare down the track towards them. Both Silvie and I commented on the fantastic quality of this little track. If only we knew the reason then! Onward we charged. In a short time we were close enough so I jumped out the car with my binoculars to identify out first European Black Storks. Feeling very chuffed with myself I climbed back in the truck and resumed scanning the surroundings for some more lifers. The first thing I saw was a woodpecker, which I did not manage identify, the next was a soldier staring down the barrel of his automatic rifle at me. Not a great feeling because I immediately realised just why that little dirt path was in such great shape. I had managed to drive us right up to a border outpost in a military zone and the soldier on duty was not very pleased with it. In hindsight it is a pretty funny story to tell. At the time I was absolutely bricking it. My first thought was to simply smile, wave and then drive off. He clearly had other ideas, with the use of his loud speakers he ordered me turn off the engine and remain where I was. The bricks grew bigger and the butterflies in my stomach tuned into a herd of wild horses. I just knew Silvie was going to be very angry at me for this. It was then that I noticed the armed soldier running towards us. The fixed bayonet at the end of his enormous assault rifle didn’t really make me feel much better. He walked around the truck glancing at all the stickers  and proceeded to stand in front of of the car with his rifle at the ready position. He didn’t seem the chatty type, but I had to give it a go. I had to explain why I was there. He soon signalled me to keep quite. I managed to show him the bird book and the binoculars, he seemed to understand but he still told me to be quite. Meanwhile the soldier on the tower was having a frantic conversation over the radio with his superiors. I had a firm suspicion we might have been the cause of his distress, much as he was the cause of ours. It wasn’t long before the questions started booming through the speaker system. The first was “Where are you from?” when I responded “South Africa” it really seemed to confuse him. More questions, but his English wasn’t too good, and even though Silvie was trying to get some choice phrases out of the guide book to try and get us out of this situation. I refrained from using any of the phrases in the fear that I might offend guy with the assault rifle. We did manage to establish that I was just a stupid tourist bird watching in the wrong place. He seamed impressed when I showed him the birds which had caused the whole misunderstanding in the bird book. The birds themselves even flew by, probably to mock me a short time later. It made no difference as we still had to wait for his superiors to arrive. Arrive they did, in the form of two military trucks. The one was full of armed troops. The other was carrying two very stern looking officers. Up galloped the horses into my heart. They demanded our passports and asked us a couple of question. You know; “Who are you?” “Where have you come from?”  Luckily they ended up not being quite as bad as they first looked. Personally I don’t think anybody could suspect a big red car, full of colourful stickers of anything sinister. Well I hoped that much at least. Once it was established that we were harmless tourists he asked us if would like to go. We gesticulated with much verve that we definitely wanted to “just go straight”. So we did.

After this little episode we decided to retreat to the nearest campsite and just relax for a bit. Fortunately there was what seemed to be an abandoned campsite not far from where we encountered the soldiers. As soon as we got to the campsite we knocked and tried to get some bodies attention. We figured they must have stepped out and decided to set up camp and settle it in the morning. You could see the place must have been successful at one point, as it had a massive pool and even a super tube. However, it seemed that the owners were in the process of renovating the place. All that was fine except the fact that the showers were solar powered and it was an overcast day. Brrrrrrrrrrr! The excitement doesn’t end there. The next morning, we decided to get up early so that we could get to Istanbul. It was at least 300km to go. The campsite owners had other ideas. When we got to the gates they were securely locked with a big old padlock. What made it worse was that no matter how much we knocked and called there was simply no answer. We decided to make a cup of coffee and listen to our beloved audio books. All the while we were devising plans on how to cut the lock or break the gate. After about two hours of waiting around and exploring the campsite. We noticed movement in the main house. It transpired that the owner had severely burnt her hands and was taking heavy sedatives. She hadn’t noticed us come in and had no idea where the big vehicle, which was parked outside her front door, had come from. Much to our relief she was friendly, so we paid and were shortly on our way.

Our next campsite was a real little gem. We were parked not 20m from the Mediterranean see. They even had warm showers. However they were manky and the water was salty. Not a worry. It was dirt cheap and the view was amazing. Besides we had been shopping and decided to have a beer and pizza night. What a pleasure.

Off to Istanbul via the Black sea. A big part of the trip is to see things that we, with all likelihood, would never have an opportunity to see again. It was this thought that made us go and see the Black Sea Coast. There is no way that we could give it a fair appraisal from the tiny piece of it we saw. However what we did see was terribly disappointing. The campsite we were at probably added to this. It was over priced and solar showers just aren’t the best idea when the weather is poor. Brrrrr again. Ironically the town we were staying in was called Solar. Ha,ha.

For Istanbul we change the rules a bit. We decided to stay in the city for once.and made our way to a hostel. When we made the decision it seemed a perfectly good idea, which I suppose did turn out okay. One word though. TRAFFIC. There is a saying that goes. “Once bitten, twice shy.” My dad always says that with me it’s “Twice bitten, once shy.” You would have thought that after spending four hours stuck in Paris traffic we would never go into the heart of any city. Never mind a city which is notorious for terrible traffic. What do you know? There we were smack in the centre of town doing about half a kilometre an hour. Strangely it didn’t seem to bother either of us. We were so relaxed that we were content to just sit and take in the sites. Not a bad idea, seen as the pedestrians had to slow down to take a better look at our vehicle. As much fun as this was, after three hours we decided to look for parking and actually find the hostel.

One of the major sites we wanted to see in Istanbul was the Blue mosque. It happened that we were parked only 500 metres away from it and only realised the next day. That day we spent wondering around the old part of the city. Even though we had spent three hours in traffic it was still comparatively early so we had time to see some of the great sites. Blue Mosque, Ayasofya and the Grand Bazaar to mention a few. We walked part of the way we had driven through earlier to a bridge that was bristling with fisherman. Quite a site with hundreds of fishermen packed close on a bridge. We had the intention of buying some fresh fish at the market, but were soon put off by the sites and smells. On the way back to the car we decided to go back via a different route. This was fortunate because we went right through one of the old markets. This is where we bought our first real Turkish coffee. Yum. Being in a good mood we decided to spoil ourselves. That evening we frequented one of the lovely Turkish restaurants we had passed earlier in the day. What a treat! I had the Istanbul Kebab. This is skewered lamb and mushroom served on a flaming plate. It was very saucy and I managed to eat what seemed to be an entire loaf of bread with it. Silvie had the Antalya Kebab. Very much like the Kebabs you get in the UK, but this is just meat in a tomato base served with a massive dollop of yogurt. Super yum! The local red wine was also sampled.

After this it was back to the car to get our stuff and check on Big Red. As for the hostel it was okay I suppose. We have not stayed in many hostels before and this was the first time Silvie and I had shared a room in a hostel.  Unfortunately there was only one bed and it was a rickety double bunk with no side rails. Adventure sleeping!

The next morning was great. We had our first Mediterranean breakfast. It consisted of a boiled egg, cucumber slices, tomato wedges, olives and bread. I prefer full English thank you very much! The breakfast was a side issue as the breakfast terrace had an incredible view. As you are cracking your teeth on the olive pits or picking egg shell out of your bread, you can see the Mediterranean on the one side and the Ayasofya on the other. Extraordinary!

After a couple of wonderfully relaxed days, it was about time to get the stress levels nice and high again. So off we went to find the Syrian Consulate in Istanbul. Little did we know that this would be the start of a two week struggle to get our Syrian visas.  I was super annoyed at one point as I just could not find parking. In exasperation I had left Silvie with the truck and decided to walk to the consulate. I couldn’t find it so I asked a bloke on a scooter if he knew where it was. Instead of directing me he indicated for me to hop onto the back of his scooter which I did. Without pause the guy drove straight up a one way street, hooting and swerving in between the oncoming traffic. Exhilarating! I did need new pants afterward and no it wasn’t grease. He did get me there eventually. It was a waste of time though. The people there were useless. I would later find this to be a trend with Syrian consulate officials. I did have a bit of a Hollywood moment though, grabbing some forms and storming out of the office..

This whole experience had put me in a foul mood, so we proceeded to head out of Istanbul and go camping. The Bosphorus Coast is extremely built up hence we ended up driving 300km to a spot in the mountains where we decided to wild camp. It seemed idyllic, that was of course until we heard the strange animal calls emanating from the night sky.  In the morning we discovered that the countryside is covered with packs of roving wild dogs. This discovery was made while we were walking down the mountain, doing a spot of birding. I had looked up to check the car. Only to see the silhouettes of six or seven large dogs surrounding the car. What made it even more interesting was that they seemed to be coming down the same path as we had. For those of you who know me. I am not a fan of big dogs. So the prospect of facing a pack of wild beasts did not fill my heart with glee. I prepared for the worst and surrounded myself with rocks that I would be able to hurl at the enemy. They never arrived so we walked back to the car totally unmolested. I felt a bit silly. The view from the car was brilliant though. My fear was not totally unfounded. While we were packing up we heard a couple of the dogs tearing each other apart. I was pretty glad to be out of there.

We drove a further 350km to Ankara. We stopped and did a bit of birding along the way. The landscape in Turkey is out of this world. The colours of some of the mountain ranges would not look out of place in an alien comic book.

It was in Ankara that the hunt for our Syrian visas started in earnest. We weren’t even going to try here. It ended up being very fortunate that we did. The official ruling from the Syrian Consulate is that they are not allowed to issue visas in Turkey, unless you are a resident. Otherwise you have to apply in your own country. When I started to protest and ask questions of the official in Ankara, they guy simple shut the window on us. That brought a swift end to the conversation. At first I was too angry to think straight, but after a couple of biscuits and some chocolate moose I had an idea. I knew our only hope was to contact the South African Embassy there in Ankara. Thankfully they are brilliant people. They couldn’t do enough for us. When we went to the embassy, the main guy there, Sarel, even came out to have a chat with us. We had to fill in some forms and have our fingerprints taken. This is so that our identities could be confirmed. Sarel contacted his counterpart in the Syrian Consulate and arranged for our visas to issued there in Ankara. Man was I looking forward to seeing the face of that rude guy at the Syrian Consulate.  I reckon the Courty’s would concur.

It was around this time that Silvie and I realised that it doesn’t really matter if it takes a day or two weeks. We were on the trip of our lives and we had nothing chasing us. Besides it was here in Ankara, at the Ulusan Hotel, that we met a wonderful family of overlanders. Sim, his wife Jill and their three daughters ______, ______ and _____ have embarked on a world journey from the UK through Europe, the Middle East, India, Australia and then finally across America back home. Wow! Here we were feeling proud of ourselves for driving through Africa. What makes their journey even more interesting is that they are busking the Beatles to raise money for charity. Very cool!!! We even spent one evening at the Kaya Camp in Gorome singing Beatle songs. Well, I didn’t sing but I do play a mean egg.

On the subject of Gorome; most people would recognise it as Capadoccia or the Fairy Chimneys. This place all but blows one’s mind. It takes a conscious effort to make yourself believe the things your eyes are seeing. All the pictures and write ups about Cappadocia can not quite prepare you for how breath taking the landscape really is. We were in fact lucky that we arrived at Cappadocia in the evening. The first sight we had of this magical place was in the morning, when the better part of thirty hot air balloons took off over the alien canyons that are Goreme Milli Park. With the added bonus that our friends, the family we had met, were there to meet us. We spent an indulgent four nights at the magnificent Kaya Camp. This place not only has one of the best views ever, but it also has the best showers we have come upon thus far. We spent the days either walking or driving around the area. Marvelling at the extraordinary landscape and wonders that unfolded at each corner you turned.  I even had the opportunity to indulge in some teaching and guiding when we took Sim and his family to go see the Red Valley. I have never been in a classroom that could compare to that.

It was on the morning of our fifth day in Cappadocia that we decided to make a reluctant departure from our friends and the fascinating Goreme region. The reasoning was that there was far too much to still be seen and we needed to be back in Ankara to pick up our visa. It was with this in mind that we head south to Mt. Demirkazik. This is the second highest mountain in the region and a great birding spot as well.

Over the years leading up to the actual trip, I dreamt of finding secluded places of incredible beauty. It was near the summit of Mt. Demirkazik that we found just such a place. What we had happened upon was a deserted camping sight near the peak of the mountain. There was snow on the peak and even a mountain lake. We knew it was secluded because it had taken us more than three hours driving up a very rough mountain trail. Our Cooper ST tyres were more than up to the task, despite the sharp shale and jagged rocks, there was no damage to the tread or the side walls. I was very impressed. We spent two days in this wonderful place. We even got a handful of lifers to make it just that little bit better. The only negative to this location was the fact that it was almost three thousand meters above sea level. This made the evenings decidedly chilli and the days really short. So we made a move towards Ankara a day early. This ended up being a great decision.

Seeing the expression on that Syrian officials face, was every bit as good as I had hoped. It was astounding to see how quickly the guys at the consulate had changed their tune since the last time we had been there. Getting the visa was now just a matter of getting a slip from the official and then heading off to the local bank to pay the 45 euros each for the visas. You take your receipt and your passport to the consulate. He tells you to come back at two o’clock. We did all that and got our visas. Hooray!!!!!

We waved a final goodbuy to Ankara and headed straight south to a town called Tuzla. This is a great spot for birding. The unfortunate part is that it is 450km from Ankara. What made it worse was that we had left at 5pm after a shower and a early supper. This meant that we only arrived at our destination at about 1 o;clock in the morning. Did I mention that driving at night is meant to be a no-no. Oops. However, we did see a Barn owl. When we got to said village there was nothing open, as you could well imagine, so we set up our tent on the beach and fell asleep to the sound of the lapping waves of the Mediterranean.

At sunrise we got up and did some birding. The area lived up to our expectation as we had five lifers before breakfast. After breakfast we keyed in our next destination into our trusty GPS and set off merrily on our way. As things go the route we had selected petered out after about three hours of driving. We were forced to turn around, but being slightly impulsive by nature, I decided to take the first dirt track that looked like it was heading towards the Med and for once my impulse paid off. After losing about half of the paint off the car to the overhanging thorn threes we ended up on a deserted beach with miles and miles of white sand to either side.  It felt like we were the only people left on earth and this was own private beach. It wasn’t long and we were in the water soaking up the sun and having a generally fabulous time. Having had a good swim I decided to collect some dry driftwood for a braai and Silvie tidied the car a bit and got things ready for making a potbread number 5. I had collected a whole heap of wood so decided to try my hand at baking bread. It turned out great, even if I have to say so myself. However the meat we had bought was never meant to be roasted on an open fire. To say it was ‘tough as all hell’ would be a gross understatement. Nevertheless, Silvs had made a nice veggie dish and together with the bread, I at least was full. Before everyone gets to depressed, it wasn’t all moonshine and roses. I had had the great idea to try out my rear facing spotlight. It worked a treat and we ate our meal in light. Unfortunately it also managed to attract every living mosquito in a thirty kilometre radius. It was ridiculous. At one point we I thought they would smother the light completely. We had to make a very hast retreat to the confines of the car. It was eerie, and more than just slightly scary, having the windows covered by mosquitoes. For those of you that don’t know, this particular part of the world still has malaria. So it was not happy times. The only saving grace is that I had Silvie there to entertain me with her frantic attempts to kill all the mosquitos that had managed to enter the car with us. More importantly though is that she seems to have blood that attract mozzies like no other. I felt quite safe. Eventually we did manage to make it into the tent, with only half the mosquitos following us in. Silvie continued her quest to kill the mozzies and they, in turn, tried to suck her dry. At the end it was a stale mate and we settled down to what we thought would be a reasonably peaceful night’s rest. Oh, no we did not. It was about two hours later when the mother of all storms broke out above our heads.  It sound and felt as if the wind was going to tear the tent right off the car. However that was not what was worrying me the most. We had camped very close to the sea. It is the Med and I have never seen a wave on it. Just as our luck would have it this ferocious wind was blowing the waves ever closer to our car. We just had to get out of there. In no time at all we had chucked most of our stuff into the car and headed for the dunes. At least the mosquitos were gone, but now our car was full of sand. The wind did not ease, but at least it was slightly less violent in the dunes and the chances of being swept out to sea were greatly diminished. So we managed to snatch a couple of hours of sleep.

The next morning we were please to find that our Howling Moon tent had withstood the gale force wind.  After spending a couple of hours trying to get most of the sand out of the car and off all our things we headed to our final birding area in Turkey. The place is called Birecik. It is known for its Northern Bald Ibis. We did get to see them, unfortunately they were in a cage to prevent them from migrating so we could not count them as lifers. We did manage to see a couple of other great birds though. However, it was not the birding, the hotel we stayed at, or the restaurants we ate at that we will remember with the fondest memory, but the fishing. Yes, both Silvie and I caught our first fish for the trip on the Euphrates River. Even better is that we were able to make some chips and pan fry our catch. We felt like true people of the wild, with added luxuries of course.

By now it was the 1st of November and the time to leave Turkey had finally arrived. We said our goodbyes to the people at the restaurant where we had camped and headed for the border. We knew that we had to get dollars so we stopped at the bank right at the border. As I had mentioned, it was the first of the month so the bank was totally crowded. I made peace with the fact and stood in the queue for an hour, only to be told that the bank does not have any dollars. So our first black market dealings were made. We were lead, by the bank official mind you, across the street to the local mobile phone shop. He indicated the exchange rate on a calculator. I was happy, not that I had much choice, and bought as many dollars as I could.

The border crossing itself was different to anything we had come across thus far on the trip. It is done exactly how they do it in Africa. You go to a window and place your passports on a large pile of passports waiting to be stamped. Once that is done you go to the next window, along with your car papers to get a stamp for your car in your passport, this was a first for me. With the Turkish side done it is off to the Syrian side.

I’ll leave it at that for the Turkey adventure.  We came away with the feeling that this country was definitely the gateway to the East and a view of things to come.