Discovering Turkey and Georgia

I skipt the fries which came with the otherwise traditional breakfast. Quite a lot of the route today was off-road. That brought me to some nice places.  Some lake, ideal to rest... also for the herder, the sheep and goats. Great views with snowy peaks in the background. Another crater, ideal for lunch. This one does still have water. Strange minarets. Somewhere I missed the right path and ended up by a dwelling site where I wasn't allowed to pass. The security guy gave me water and an apple and a "Where are you from?" Almanya . And a minute later I talked to a German engineer living in Turkey. They were drilling down to 3000 m for geothermal heat in order to produce electricity. The pace was lower today. Due to off-road, saving my knee and because I wanted to camp wild today. They advice to pitch the tent when it's getting dark. But for my rhythm that's really late. I ...

With 6 °C outside, I stayed a bit longer in mij sleeping bag, listening to the noises of the awakening village. Today I made a short tour in order to go easy on my knee. Temperatures are pretty low right now,  only 13°C during the day and 5°C at night. But clear blue sky. That means hotel, no tent tonight. It'll get warmer by the end of the week.  I found a quite chique hotel for peanuts. Because I bargained the price 30% down. It's low season, everything seems quite deserted, people are preparing and renovating... which makes it easy to haggle 😉.  This area is the beginning of Cappadocia. Selime monastery  is the largest religious cave complex in Cappadocia. All the structures were cut directly into the volcanic tuff. It was built in the 900s and is located at one end of the Ilhara Valley. Two things I visited after checking in. Luckily it was no problem at all to check in at 1pm. The Selime monastery: Then I asked one of the security guys whether it ...