I can't believe we are travelling together again

DAY 30 A full day of bus travel, so far fantastic scenery but no opportunities for photos. The weather changed as we travelled sun and 20deg to rain and 17deg and raining and back to sun again. The town we finished our day in was called Nidge. Not a tourist town, but a nice enough town with plenty of shops and even a market winding through several streets selling clothes, fruit/veg and other miscellaneous goods. At the end of the main shopping streets you could see the snow covered mountains in the distance. The locals wander about doing their shopping and stopping for a chat here and there. We went to this place for dinner with the group which from the outside etc. looked just like a diner you would find in a small country town. The menu with pictures up in lights above the counter and laminex tables etc. but they had made fancy fabric slip covers for the chairs to add some pretend ‘class’. The food, however and the service and the price was excellent!! The Turkish bread came out hot and plenty of it, then salad also plentiful both complimentary with the ordered main meals. By the time we got to main, I was hardly needing any more food. Fantastic, would highly recommend it if I could remember the name, and if I thought anyone reading this would be heading to the same town in turkey. DAY 32 Rob’s birthday!!!! Breakfast buffet and cereal!!!great start for the day. On the bus for our tour day on the way to Goreme through the Cappadoccia region. First stop a church in a cave as per photos. Second stop, an underground city 100m down. Bowed out of that one, being that far underground with several tour groups potentially blocking the escape route worried me a little. Bought some earrings and a bag while everyone else was underground . There were plenty of touristy stalls with local people frantically trying to sell you jewellery or hand made traditional Turkish dolls for 2-3 TL (approx.$2-$3 AUD) It was also a beautiful sunny day to enjoy being above ground. Our next stop was a national park with a river. There was a restaurant (of sorts) with some tables actually on the river (see photos). The food here was also good (bread, salad, soup, main and oranges for 7TL approx $7 AUD, great value and a really nice spot. After lunch we headed towards Goreme, our final destination and stopped to enjoy the view at several strategic places along the way. Goreme is known for it’s cave houses which have been around for many years (see photos) The landscape here is incredible and some hotels etc. have actually been built into cave dwellings. Many locals still live in these cave houses which look quite strange dotted amongst the hills (again, see photos) The town is very touristy !!!!! It is almost like a ski resort town. Quite small and consists mostly of tour operators, bus companies, hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops. The other similarity is PRICE!!! Everything seems to be almost twice the usual price. The really unfortunate thing is that we are here for 2 ½ days. The largest stay in any one place on the tour! Nothing to do and everything twice the price. Due to the large and quite late lunch we had just nuts and fruit etc. for a snack dinner. We lashed out and at the insistence of the dodgiest looking Turkish man and his mate, purchased some wine (I stress untasted) off the shelf. Both men laughed hysterically as we were making the purchase , insisting it was GOOD!! That should have been our tip off that this was trouble. One of the guys had only one tooth showing in front, so his belly laugh as we were leaving was very funny and yet quietly disturbing all at the same time. Unfortunately they had good reason to laugh, the wine was turpentine!! DAY 33 After falling over outside the hotel last night ( yes I know! I forgot to mention that in yesterday’s journal) I was unable to take part in the 2 hour hike this morning (and yes, I did really want to do the hike!) We had lunch at this fantastic pide place. You get this massive pide with assorted stuff on top for 5-6 TL which is quite good for tourist town. The afternoon (as per photos) was a fantastic 2 hour quad bike ride through the valleys (see photos) This was finished off with a cup of complimentary apple tea at a Turkish lady’s house. Jess< Tony and I found a place prepared to do pancakes at dinner time because all we wanted was dessert and it was terrific.