Day 20 Cappadocia To Ankara

Thursday March 10th.

Woke up to a new dusting of snow on the ground. We had this morning for free time to further explore Cappadocia. So, after breakfast and some computer work, I decided to go back to see if I could find my hat. Megan and Krys offered to come with me, because they knew I wanted to find it and they thought they could remember where it was. So, off we went. The weather was cold, but at least the wind had dropped and it was quite still. We walked about three kilometres back, getting lost several times in the valleys and landforms. We eventually found the spot, but couldn't see it, probably because of the snow, and as much as I looked I couldn't find a route down to it or up to it where I didn't risk falling down the cliff. So, sadly I gave up and we walked back to town.

When we got back to the hotel we packed up and got organized for our last journey. We were supposed to leave at four, but Jess and the driver opted to leave two hours earlier because Ankara had been paralysed by a snow storm the day before. We were loaded up on another minibus for the four hour drive to Ankara. The drive was actually very beautiful as we drove through some nice hilly scenery where everything was covered in snow.

We arrived early at the Ankara train station because the roads were clear and traffic was no problem. Cemil met us there, as he had left Cappadocia a day early in order to get his Egyptian visa for his next leader trip. We had dinner at the restaurant in the station and hung around there until ten when our sleeper train arrived for the trip to Istanbul.

Graham, Tess, Krys and I shared a cabin. Megan and Cemil came in and joined us as we shared a bottle of wine before bed. In the cabin there were two two person seats, facing each other. Then you could covert them to single berth beds and two more berths pulled down from the wall. So we had two sets of twin size bunk beds. We bunked down about midnight. It was not a good night of sleep, as although the beds were very comfortable and the motion was fine, the train turned out to be a milk run and stopped numerous times during the night. It was funny at one point as we drove through a town with several mosques calling for prayer. Neat effect as we drove past.