Article Eleven
Ilgas Mountain Resort 16/17 Sept.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant last night, a buffet spread, many, many salads, dishes of fish in various sources, soup of the day and five or six hot dishes plus the choice of pasta, rice or fried rice to go with everything else…Plus mountains of this fabulous Turkish Bread. I personally, have not got past the straight loaf which is very similar to a cottage loaf…mostly crust, golden brown and creamy-white soft interior…there are four or five other varieties on offer. To night for a variation.
I was somewhat surprised to find that their soup and also the various beef/lamb/whatever stews with copious amounts of vegetables included, were in fact, a bit tasteless to me. I added salt and some table pepper and this improved matters…but was there something missing? On a second round for more soup I find a tray about four foot long and two foot wide covered with small dishes of unknown spices…people were queuing up to add various spices to their soup, stews, fish and even fruit dishes! The trick will be to find out what they all are. I recognised Cumin, powdered garlic and crushed/powdered chilli…the other twenty??? I will experiment tonight and report back!
Today is Sunday and even in Islamic countries, Sunday is a day of no work. So we surmised that there was not much point racing off to go shopping/sightseeing/supermarketing in adjacent towns if they are possibly closed. More to the point, with the cruel light of the morning, one Dragon Lady has been laid low with the galloping you-name-its. Today was declared a day of rest.
Further to my earlier addition to Article Ten, the said Dragon after numerous pills recovered somewhat to do some Ironing…the iron, correction steam-iron provided, looked like someone had played football with it. Electrical hazard screamed from it just trying to see if it could possibly work at all…no it was busted, completely with no connection for the water to bypass the electricals and no control knob. Off goes the Dragon to reception only to be accused of trying to palm off her OWN Iron at the Resort so as to get a new one!!! I don’t know what was actually said but ten minutes later, housekeeping man appeared with a brand-new steam iron and many apologies!!!
As you are all now aware...the WI/FI actually works. I have found out that my Bank accounts reconcile with my field reckoning. My investments have recovered a huge amount from where they were when we left, with the market then heading South at a great rate and, to make my day, we (my friend, neighbour and Lotto Partner Archie) have won, to date since I left, about AUD$100 in lotto with at least five weeks to go on our many tickets!
I have discovered how to fix the dog’s breakfast of sorting of my travel stories…I will attempt to fix this tomorrow having now extracted the date/time information and how to make this the sorting criteria…After we get back from our investigations of neighbouring towns in a loop of roads to/from here. Then there is the problem of adding in the Photo Galleries in their respective places. First things first, get the stories in sequence (and keep them that way) then sort out how to attach the photo galleries where they belong. None of these problems will stop any of you going to the web-site and reading the stories and/or looking at the pictures.
Note for Natasha. Please dear Lady, can you print off the stories and the photographs and pass them around to the Truck-Bar Members and Friends…Thanks Tash, I owe you.
Monday 17th Sept
Up bright and early, well, 0800 IS bright and early for a resort such as this and after a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs for me and bread, jam and coffee for the Dragon Lady we found our maps, collected some water, or cameras and set off to go back via Ilgas then down the road towards Istanbul. Somewhere along the first section we planned to take a side road which would take us up to Kastamanu – a loop of some 140 kms.
We are most surprised at how the whole landscape of Turkey looks like outback NSW or parts of the Northern Territory, like around Tennant Creek. Having travelled down the autobahn (to Istanbul) for a bout 75km we fond our aimed for chosen side road and turned into it.. Another surprise, this is almost a brand new road, in fact there are many sections still being worked upon. This road winds through numerous villages and gardens and then starts to climb!
The map says the road is straight but we found it to be switch-back upon switch-back cutting in and out over the mountains…many times steeper than the road to the Resort and very narrow with unfenced road edges above ‘drops; that simply disappear into the valleys far below. Much careful driving and cursing at any and all on-coming traffic. For safety, we simply pulled as far off the road as we could and let the traffic work its way past us! At one point I realised that if I opened the door and stepped out I would step down a hundred foot drop to the first ledge then thousands of feet drops below this ledge! Bit scary really! This was also, why we had chosen this side road, simply to avoid any roads marked with a blue, wavy line along its total or parts of its length…the wavy line indicates mountainous switch-back driving. So much for believing what the map said.
There are only a handful of people staying in the resort…about eleven private cars yet yesterday afternoon, two huge tourist busses arrive and people crowd into the complex where they disappeared for about an hour and I then noticed them coming from the restaurant and fillng every available chair in the lounge. I was already occupying one table with my laptop on the table and plugged into a floor-mounted power-point. What are they all doing here, what are they waiting for? Then I spotted the ‘weasels’ starched shirts, smart suits and flashy ties as they circulated two at a time to one group of waiting people after another…Time Share Sharks! They bait the people with the promise of a trip up the mountains with a free lunch! All they have to do is watch a short movie, listen to a brief Spiel about whatever Time-share Property is being flogged and then meet the agents who are there simply to (take-their- money) no, no, stupid, to sign them up so that the cannot escape paying for a time-share property, in full or on terms! Just like the Gold Coast, Cancun, Bali, Phuket, Chaing Mai, etc, etc.
This afternoon I hope to edit my ‘stories’ into a proper sequence, add this story and then research how I can get the photo galleries to open WITH their respective story and in correct sequence. I must down-load my camera first…ready to create another Photo Gallery!
Tomorrow, possibly the Black Sea coast and a paddle in the sea…I wonder if paddling in it will make my feet Black too?
