Multi-pitch Meteora

1/5 - 1/8

So we checked our maps, checked the times, bought a ticket to Larissa from Istanbul leaving at 16:30. We figured that if the bus arrived in Athens around midday we'd get to Larissa in the morning, find onward transport to Meteora and everything would be shiny. Didn't quite work as planned.

Istanbuuul!

12/30 - 1/5

In Istanbul we stayed with Metin and Yasemin, another wonderful Couchsurfing experience. They treated us like family, and assured us we'd always have a home in Istanbul if we were to return. Really, it's hospitality like that that made our stay in Turkey so special. For New Year's Eve a few of their friends came round, we all got very drunk, a few us a little stoned and a good time was had by all. Chilled.

No Turkey in Turkey at Christmas

12/24 - 12/29

So apparently Turks only eat turkey at New Year, and despite being all excited at the pun I didn't plan ahead and couldn't find any turkey for Christmas, oh well.

Evan and Gamze's party was awesome, as was chatting to a couple of other culture-crossed couples. There seemed to be a surprising number of similarities between Turk/American and Japanese/Brit culture clashes, as both Japan and Turkey are quite traditional and conservative when it comes to marriage.

Pamukkale is amazing.

12/23 - 12/24

Inspired by Jami's remarks about Pamukkale we decided to visit it and we're very glad we did. A truly amazing place, one of the most beautiful, bizarre natural wonders we've ever seen. Walking up toward the big white fluffy mass on the horizon we had no idea what to expect. Passing through the ticket barrier we were confused by the order to remove our shoes 100m further down the path. The ground was freezing cold, with a thin layer of icy rainwater running across it, but as we progressed along the travertine the water warmed up to the point where we our feet weren't painfully numb any more and we could appreciate the vistas that opened up.

Kalkan, Kas tries and Fethiye isn't given a chance.

12/15 - 12/22

Having never travelled with a mobile phone before I was all excited at the prospect of the extra connectivity that the phone given to me by Simon in the UK would provide. After three messages sent over the course of a day failed to arrive at Altan's phone until an hour after we were meant to meet I was less excited, but resolved to buy local SIM cards everywhere we went. That's worked out OK for us so far, as some countries give them away and local numbers are much cheaper to use. In Turkey however, we got royally ripped off for the card, and two weeks later got disconnected for not registering our phone.

Turkish delight #1: Ayran is good for the gut.

12/12 - 12/14

Turkey was full of unexpected delights, though we didn't much care for the lokum. Before we even got there we had plenty of adventure, looking for a midnight tram that didn't exist in central Manchester, dozing until 4am in a quite corner of the airport until woken by some astoundingly noisy staff skiving off work and finally taking off in a broken plane that had to circle Manchester for 5 hours to burn off enough fuel to land, get fixed, refueled and take off again. During that last escapade the passenger next to us was utterly terrified and even cried "How can you sleep?" at us at one point, but we were both too shattered to worry.