My "Saharagelber" 300TD

In the morning while having breakfast there was a Landcruiser approaching us. A real desertman stepped out of the car and warned us, there could be landmines out there he told us in french. He told us it would be better to leave.I understood those mines were only lying in the border areas. I promised Melissa it was safe, so now it turned into a tense situation. We had to go back to the road and follow our own tracks as good as possible. We did not wander around anymore and I was rethinking about where I read what and how I could have make this mistake, and was this indeed true? The thing is, this man left after he told us it would be better to leave, so there were obviously no other (bad) intentions or wanting-to-sell-carpet stuff. After we calmed down we left the place.

Our romantic place under the stars (and between the landmines).

All alone

A heavily armoured woodlouse, probably for the landmines

Rough coastline.

Transatlantic route

We only drove to Dahkla today, about 130kms. We swam in the sea, saw a big ship wreck which you sometimes see when you drive via the transatlantic coastal route. Entering Dahkla is beautiful, a very nice and strange scenery, a combination of sand dunes and sea water.
We had dinner in Dahkla, which was quite good. The personnel wasn’t to happy, but we could understand, living here pretty much sucks I guess.

I can see for miles and miles.. (The Byrds)

Another anonymous place in the Western Sahara. Well, as Morocco want people to live over here, you don’t pay any tax over here, hoping that they this way attract some people to settle over here.

There is nothing to do, a place in the middle of nowhere. After dinner we found a camping and asked if we could stay for the night.
An old man was there with a cute dog, he told us we could stay for free. I know that trick, no way! We had to know. To cut this long story short, He did not know and he wanted me to call the owner, who was not there. I called this man and asked what they would charge for us and sleepling in the nomad thent, including breakfast in the morning. After asking many times, the owner continued to say it was up to me, if I wanted to pay. I got tired of it and we hung up, all right, we pay something tomorrow and it should be all right I told Melissa.
May be it actually IS true this time, I don’t know. Meanwhile the old friendly man made us some tea, we sat in a big in a real saharan atmosphere. We decided to sleep in a real sahara tent. There was no other person around here, it’s a camping before you enter Dahkla on your right.

Colourful seaplants

Cooling off in the sahara

Today we departed for the sahara, we saw some wild mules and an amount of nice birds. It was a long trip today we had already seen the big dunes. Furthermore the area consisted of great plains with stones. I found out the car was leaking motor oil today, which was strange and I hoped this would hold for the rest of the trip, I have to keep an eye of this. During the trip we did not see a lot of cars, and the cars we saw were mainly Mercedeses. Lots of W123 taxi’s but also loads of W201′s and W124′s.
That night we arrived at the camping ‘Le Bedouin’. After you see the sign ‘Le Bedouin’ you drive for about 5kms over a piste and then you arrive at the camping, there is practically nothing but sand and stones over there. It is windy and small place but very clean.
You just park on the sand and during the day you can stroll around.

The Cactus, a real die-hard able to survive in the dry sahara

Melissa being excited. Fort Bou-Jerif

Endless roads

Are we there Yet?

Bird watching

Some nice part with a small lake and greenery

The dunes, Sahara

Our favorite time of the day: cappucino with a bit of Amaretto while driving and enjoying the surrounding views.

The official beginning of the Western-Sahara

The camels

A camel with the sea in the background

Spooky..

This morning we strolled over the camping and breathed in the atmosphere of traveller who all have great destinations. Some stay in Morocco, and lots are heading for the sahara, some are travelling through the whole African continent and some are just travelling the world in a couple of years.
Today we drove to Tan-Tan, we saw this camping on our Michelin map. After some driving we found out we had taken the wrong direction, we had some bad roads but it was worth taking these road, as the environment over here is pretty nice.

Our place, not too good, directly in the sun, but it was just for one night, as we will continue for the Sahara now!

Americans, so BIG TRUCK, ‘nough said

An Unimog truck, also way too big if you ask me.

Yeah, what to say about this? Higher as an average house! Just the biggest truck I’ve seen, 6 wheel drive MAN truck. Higher price than an average house too, must be around 250000/300000 dollars I guess, including living room, bathroom, and so on.

Old firearms Mercedes overland truck, 1/100 of the price of the MAN 6×6 overland truck I think.

We had to take some stony and sandy pistes. We finally arrived at Fort Bou Jerif, in fact this really was an Oasis! It is a great bastion which is really a recommendation, it’s in the middle of nowhere. We had some great dinner over there, it was good food which made this place really a perfect one. After dinner we sat outside below the starry sky, from this place you can see a massive amount of stars.

Coast line

Their filosofy: If it’s able to drive, it’s not too much to carry on the roof.

W123 Taxi, Agadir, Morocco

W114 taxi, Agadir

Taxis in one of the duty-free, sandy villages in the western sahara. In various parts in Morocco they have their own color, as in other african countries. Here you see the often used white/blue combination and the sandy brown color, which is the same color as they were originally in Germany. Most of the time they use the 240d’s with manual gearbox.

On the Transatlantic route. Here you see the W123′s where 7 people are stuffed in the car, sharing the taxi costs to cross the sahara via the transatlantic road. Most of the time they use the 240d’s with manual gearbox.

W123, queen of the saharan highway

Very motivating with 40-something degrees celcius

Another queen of the sahara, all stations are Peugeots of the 504 type, and not the T-modell of the Mercedes W123 somehow.

Around Tan-Tan, a stony part of the Sahara

Around Tan-Tan

Camping in the open at Fort-Bou Jerif

I went to the embassy very early and took a freezing cold shower, so I immediately woke up completely.
When we I came the man from yesterday told us to come back at 2pm. I felt miserable, I saw ourselves sitting and wait here for days, everytime another story. I told him we were promised to pick the visa up today at 8 am. This man told me to wait and called someone else.
The man from yesterday came towards me and was friendly. I decide to play fair and gave them the receipt, and just told them sorry. I had to be honest. He was very friendly and accepted my excuses. 2 minutes later I was outside again with the visa, Yes!
Ramon felt better today and we went off into the direction of the Sahara! During a stop we sat down next to a river and ate a good lunch. Some guy walked towards us and started kissing and hugging us. Melissa told hem to go away but he decided to stay and beg for our water.
It looked like he was drunk or something but we did not smell any alcohol. With some hassle we pushed him away, because clearly he did not understand that his company was not wanted. Finally he left us and crossed this river by just walking through it.

There are many shipwrecks along the coast.

Road to Essaouira, along the moroccon west coast.

Salt winning

We continued to Essaouira which was a very nice route to drive. A nice coast line, salt winnings and nice farmlands. With 100743km on the meter we arrived at the camping. There were quite some overlanders over there, among them were some pretty big trucks.
I think there was one of those trucks from Klaus Darr, a big 4wd MAN truck, comlete with bathroom, living room and kitchen. I think it’s way too big, you can only drive on the bigger roads and it’s not so easy to just go into the bush. It would be nice though, to have some comfort when you depart for a couple of years. There was an old fire truck too, the well known Mercedes truck from the sixties which is still manufactured in South Africa. It probably costed 1/80 of the price of these big overlander trucks and will probably do too for a trip of a couple of years.

On our way to the Sahara

As you probably know, I take through-the-wind-shield pictures every now and then.

A short stop for a picnic

In the morning we thanked our parking lot guards and we left, apparently they were expeciting a present besides our payment. We headed on for Azrou, there should be berber monkeys over there. We did an alternative road again, very small and sometimes bad roads.

The streets in Ouezzane

We then passed very small villages, where people have nothing besides each other and houses of mud. They’ve got their goats and sheep and work on the land. There were no cars or mopeds arond, the kids ran through the village to catch a glimpse of this yellow car moving though their village. We had spend quite some time on the small roads, sometimes halting so Melissa and Ramon could do a search for bones, which they collect. At one stop a boy walked towards us and wanted to chat, he was able to speak english, which happenend more times in the east of Morocco I found out.

Along the route through the rif mountains.

Conserving the hey with clay. In the back you see they let trees grow again on the hills, after years and years of cutting trees, big areas in Morocco are completely treeless and just sand and stones.

Houses in the tiniest villages.

At he end of the day we enter Ifrane, a very wealthy place often called the ‘Geneva of Morocco’. A decadent place with villa’s and a respectable university and lots of greenery.
We then drove some time after a smellly truck I decided to overtake it, then, while we were on the left side of the road we saw a roadblock, of course we had to stop and a severe looking police officer wanted us to pay 400DH. I thought he just made that up and refused to pay. This did not please him and he did not want to give my license back, he got mad and yelled at us that it was prohibited to overtake on that part. In fact he was right, but I refused to pay and made a scene of it. He walked towards the other officers to tell them I did not want to pay. They stood there talking for a while and then he came back, he told us because of the little boy in the back, he gave my license back and we could go on. I was stunned, I turned the key and thanked him and drove away, we were pretty much delighted. Darn, this was close! We saved about 80 Euro’s!

Driving through the plains

Looking for skulls and bones of animals, one of Melissa’s interests.

The plains

Big tree in Azrou

In the beginning of the evening we found a nice camping in Azrou. It’s a very nice camping in Morocco, which is very rare. This place is really a recommendation! I think it’s the only camping in Azrou, close to a big old tree of 800 years old, where there should live berber monkeys.
There was another dutch couple on the camping we spoke to. We chatted with them for a while and then had our dinner, a nice meal pepared by Melissa. Then we arranged a nice place for Ramon to sleep and we sat outside for quite a while and decided to stay here at this relaxing place. We sat outside and enjoyed the place very much.
Equipped with a rooftent, good chairs, a waterfilter and waterbags, good torches, a jumpstarter and even a table this time! It started to look like we’ve become professional campers.
At a certain moment we saw one of the people walk out the thet, this french guy, a father of a family walked towards the edge of the camping. ‘What is this guy doing?’ Melissa asked. ‘The toilets are the other direction, he won’t do what I think he will do, or does he?’.
Indeed, he used his torch to find himself a place and when somewhere behind the trees his torch went out. ‘No way!’ I said. ‘This filthy freak is going to shit over there, where Ramon was playing this afternoon’. I just couldn’t imagine she was right, the distance between the toilets was practically the same as the distance he walked right now. ‘Use the lamp!’ Melissa said. I took my torch and shone in his direction and then turned it off. He was still standing. I turned it on and kept the torch on this time. He started walking again, knowing he was ‘in the picture’
Slowly he walked back to his tent stood there for a sec and then walked towards the toilets. ‘Darn, you were right’ I said to Melissa. ‘Those awkward french people!’ we laughed.
We sat there for a while at our spot and enjoyed our first night on the camping. The ideas about we what we also could have done made us even laugh more, like the idea that we would wait for him to poop and then start flashing the light and making noises, oh well, our type of humor I guess

After a long and very interesting day, Ramon could go to sleep.

From now on, it’s only half a day to arrive in Algeciras, where the boat departs to Africa (Morocco)! Still not bad, with this very inefficient way of driving-sleeping-driving

I had slept perfectly well! I slept on the ground for 8 hours, not too much people around and it was a very quiet place. We alread saw a lot of moroccan people who were of course heading to Morocco.

Roads much travelled..

Coastal Highway of south Spain

Today we took the boat to Ceuta. In Algeciras we were able to find some tickets at the counter. The meter showed 98368km, so it’s about 2200km from Almere to Algeciras. Before departure a moroccon guy walked around with white pieces of paper we had to fill in, then he charged us 2 euro’s after filling it in. Nice trick dude! But no, we already know how it works around here, it’s not the first time. He walked away disappointedly. These papers were just the pieces of paper you need to fill in when crossing the border, but that’s not somehing to pay for. I was shocked to hear the price of the ferry with our car: 286 Euros roundtrip! The price was for vehicles with a maximum height of 1.90m, and we’re abit above it but we got through it, otherwise it was even more expensive!

Port of Algeciras

The powerferry to Morocco

Then the boat arrived in Ceuta after 35 minutes, we knew the situation at the border so we try to look as we were home, so they didn’t bother us with all that crap that we need help and about ‘vague and difficult formalities’. After some time we were done, even the car was not inspected at all. We’re in W123 paradise again! W123′s all around the place here, It’s still the same as back in 98, when we visited Morocco too, but now we’re driving in a W123 ourselves too.
We took some pictures of the well known spot, after entering Morocco, all those blue W123 taxis standing on the big parking place. Through the whole of Morocco you’ll find W123′s. That quality monster is used as a Taxi all-over, but it’s also a much used family car.
Out of the bigger cities it’s the car you see most I guess.

You don’t need a station to transport a refridgerator.

The taxi standing place in Ceuta

After that we stopped for a swim, Ramon was amazed about the difference between Europe and Morocco. We saw the moroccan women swim with their clothes on, which was a strange thing to see. While leaving, I circumvented a crazy man who wanted to charge us for parking somewhere on the sand.

Ceuta, Tarred roads, but not too much pebbles in it, so it sounds like you drive in a parking place and you don’t have too much grip

No drinking water and electricity in the room? Take it with you

We continued to cosy Chefchaouen today and stayed in Hotel Sahara, next to the old medina. We could park the car in front of the hotel, so we could see it. Then we went to the room, to avoid the heat and to take a nap (I was still tremendously tired).
We wanted to filter some water so we took the jumpstarter with us and the filter and the waterbags. After the nap we went for a walk and a meal into the medina and then walked through the tiny streets of lovely Chefchaouen. The first day in Morocco pleased us all.

Typical moroccon door

All kinds of color for painting stony surfaces

Around 3am we were close to St Sebastian, there we filled her up and went on, but in fact I was pretty tired again. ‘I’ll never do it this way again!’ I thought. Until now travelling was never so slow as this time. Somewhere around 3 o’clock we stopped at a parking along the highway again,
Set up the rooftent again and went to bed. After some terrible hours of sleep again I was disappointed. The whole night people stopped and talked so loud as if they meant to wake us up or something. A truck was standing with its engine running, probably to sleep with the airco on.

A bad night of rest, people were making noise all night. A silly trucker had his airco on all night, so HE was able to sleep.

In the morning a W123 stood next to us. Destination: Morocco! Lots of the moroccan people still use the W123, often they sell them up there.

Great! I told Melissa I did not expect to arrive in Africa soon if I was not able to get any rest. Somewhere around 10:30am we woke up, luckily there was a shower in the restaurant and we freshed ourselves.

Hitting lots of kilometers

Even more kilometers

…

Ramon, was very relaxed, 10 years old and already a good traveller, not complaining and cheerful all the time. At 7pm, 540km further (200km north of Cordoba) we bought some food for us and for the Benz (38L vegetable oil, then the shelves were empty) at a small supermarket and cooked ourselves some dinnner, a great spinach soup ‘a la Melissa’.

A stop somewhere in Spain

Having a break

Enjoying a nice meal Melissa made: Spinach soup!

At 10pm we departed again for some hours and then again, I was tired of getting tired, but as we’re not in a hurry and safetey is important, we stopped again and I threw my sleeping bag on the ground and again tried to get some sleep, it was around midnight and we were already close to the coast of the south of Spain.

Taking a nap..

Departure 00:30 – Almere 96386km

Tonight is the night, we’re leaving, and a miracle, we’re finished with everything. The days before were like hell, but we ended up finished.
The last couple of days were quite stressful, buy all necessary books (Sahara overland, maps, Lonely Planets etc), insurances, carte grise, visa, vaccinations and things like that. The stress raised as the departure date approached. It was only yesterday that I arranged my international drivers license and international car papers.
At midnight we went off, in our Benz which was about to be both our transport and our home. Melissa and Ramon were sitting in the car and this remembered me of myself, sitting as a young boy in the back of my fathers car, when we went off for the holiday. Back then, I was jealous at my dad cause he was behind the wheel, now I am myself I started the engine and she started spinning. Running like a clock, 96386km on the meter. This year she had already hit 13000kms from the travels to Turkey and France this year.
We’re all in a fine travelmood, curious about what to expect. Saying goodbye to our families was difficult, but the only thing we can think of right now is adventure, so this makes it easier to bare. After some minutes we entered the high way, it was already very dark and we drove a hole in the night. I feel comfortable, driving in this very strong diesel from Stuttgart, and I’m sure she will make it all the way to Africa and back.
At 6:15 we were south of Paris and I made my first stop. We then continued for another hour to get some sleep. I set up the rooftent and tried to get some sleep, unfortunately I only slept for three hours. We filled our waterbags and tested our waterfilter and left the ‘Aire’ again.

At the Aire we’d set up the rooftent for a short nap.

The filtered water is awesome, we smelled the water before which contained chlorine but when we drank it was just perfect, no nasty tastes. This is succes number one, filtering water yourself, we save us buying bottles and we save the environment by not buying plastic bottles all the time.

At mid day we were back on the road again, we’re eating kilometers, but at a peaceful speed around 110km/h. Once in a while we see buzzards circling above the fields. Sometimes I’m listening to for example the Rolling Stones and Metalica on the Ipod while Melissa and Ramon are asleep. I enjoy the drive in the W123, the meters point to values I expect and the nice 5 ciilnder diesel runs smoothly. Not bad, 23 years old and driving like new, in fact, it is of course nearly new. In fact, I feel even more secure than being in a new plastic car, with all kind of electronics which can spoil your journey, as I found out when I drove to Sicily, Italia, in a brand new BMW cabrio and the coolfan steering unit broke down. A simple mechanic can’t help you. We ended up with a cool fan of a Fiat Uno, which was fitted badly and as a result the complete car was shaking while driving, let alone the disturbing noise. Of course this happend in a weekend of festivals on the farthest point of our trip, close to the Etna, oh well.

On the road: Nice (paid) highways in France.

Close to Bordeaux we stopped again, I was pretty tired (again) and so we had a long stop. Next time I really need to rest a bit more before departing for a long journey. After some rest we went on and passed the border of Spain in the evening, we kept on rolling..

The waterfilter is already a succes!

Today is the last day before departure to Africa. Lots of things needed to be arranged, at the last moment, that is today, I had to arrange the international drivers license, and the international car insurance at the ANWB yet (8 minutes before closing time, oef!). The tension rises, tomorrow we will really depart, after three weeks of preparing lots and lots of things. Until the last day before departure I had to work and besides that I had to do lots of things, so I did not have to much sleep and did 13-16 hours a day of working and preparing. Not a good condition to start a big trip like this.
Especially the preparation of the all the things for the car took lots and lots of time. Particularly the lifting of the Saharagelber costed too much time, I did not have the right stuff to do it, so I’ve been busy wrestling with the shocker and the coil springs for hours and hours.

Take away the dogs, always a bit difficult.

Important stuff for the trip, eg the waterfilter, the compressor, and some tools

This needs to fit in

And it easily fits. We like to travel as light as possible.

The Saharagelber is raised pretty much and well equipped with heavy duty shockers and coil springs. Only the rear shocker weren’t available, they just don’t exist for the T-model. I hope they will last at least this trip, I am not sure what to expect, but I’ve tried to prepare as good as possible.
It looks like we’ve finished bright on time, today we had pleasant evening with our families as we will be away for a long time. Melissa is now preparing the last things, mainly food and other stuff from our (immense) todo list. I’ve just put all the camera batteries in the chargers and now I’m done and tired, I am going to sleep now…

Ready for take off.

In the morning we departed at approximately 10:00. We first drove through Budva to see if we could get some foord for the Benz: vegetable oil for our route back. We also had to find some food for ourselves too
We found a supermarket and I saw they had vegetable oil too. I walked towards an employee and asked if they had 150 bottles for me? After that awkward look, they told me they had this in stock and they started collecting them from the stockroom. I paid at the cashier and outside they were already waiting with 15 boxes of bottles. I started putting them in the car and drove to a parking lot where I started to fill her up. Melissa checked out the neighbourhood to see if the coast was clear, cause we had no idea what the police had to say about this. An inhabitant from the flat who passed by stopped and stared at what I was throwing in that old yellow Mercedes from the Netherlands.
We started talking. He is perplex about the fact that I am just filling her up with straight vegetable oil. He wanted to know everything about it, and this was easy as he was a good german speaker because he had worked in Germany for a couple of years.
After filling up we started our journey back. We drove along the coastline of Croatia, after the first half we decided to take the tolroute for the second part. We drove through Croatia today and 150km south of Zagreb (Slovenia) we stopped to have a break.
I calculated what we had driven today but that was not much, only 550km. Because of the coastal route, which is in fact very slow. I filled the Benz up again and a bit later we entered Slovenia. Melissa was tired and went to bed (read: pushing the seat backwards). I kept on driving and driving and it all went very well, after another 400kms we were in Stuttgart. It was already 7:15u, I had driven the whole night. I drove another hour and decided to get some sleep, I had done 23 hours of driving today.
We were around Karlsruhe, and drove 1400km today, despite three border crossings and the all the back roads we had and the coastal route in Croatia, not bad at all.

After a great night of sleep we had enough rest, after our great adventure from yesterday. The hotel beds slept perfectly and we slept as long as we could. As I recollect, we drove for 14 hours or yesterday. We ate some breakfast and from the balcony we had a view on a couple of houses and the big street, where our street was a detraction of. Many times we saw and heard honking vehicles driving by, a lot of them fit with decoration, obviously they were part of some wedding. This went on and on, therefor we thought it was some sort of national wedding day or something. After we paid the hotel we walked around a little bit, the city looked much more wealthier and western. We tried to find some bread an fruit. We were stunned by the difference, in Korce, the south of Albania it is so much more different then in this place, where there was no waste lying around, the people look less poor and the cars seemed to be in a better shape too. But still nearly only Mercedes of course
After we cleaned up the car and checked all the fluids we continued in the direction of Shkoder. After 3 kms or something I decided to pull over. I heard the shockers crack and squeak lot, as if we were riding an old horse wagon.
This is probably the result of yesterday. For hours they were loaded and had to shock extremely intense. I took the jack out of the car and lifted it up. I inspected the car for some time and I saw nothing special, only a minor oil sweating close to the oil pump, which is a gasket which need to be replaced in the future, so no problem at all.

With 78645km on the odometer we continue in the direction of Shkoder. The roads are way better around here. Along the way we stopped and made a cup of coffee (cappucino with a little bit of Amaretto). Then with the mugs in our hand, we enjoyed the beautiful landscapes and sights around us. Albania is so beautiful, we can’t say it too often.
All the way to Shkoder, which is 200km up north from where we departed today, we look around us and were amazed all the way. The cities, people, nature, the cars, the mountains etc. It’s all so different.
At the end of the day we left Albania but it will be in our minds forever. It’s definitely one of the most beautiful countries we’ve been to.

At the border it all went easy, there was an english speaking official who was eager to ask us about how we experienced Albania and why we wanted to visit it and of course how Holland is like. He also talked about our famous EK in 88
The friendly man was very interested.
Early in the evening we entered Montenegro (former Yougoslavia). The first area we arrived in looked a bit like asia, stunningly beautiful! Lot’s of lakes, mixed with mongrove trees and mountains with their feet residing in the lakes. with the sun setting the scene was complete.
We stopped in Budva and found a simple hotel, but cheap. We couldn’t eat over there so we took the cooking stuff to our room, as we were already used to.
Our room had a balcony and an old shower, but it was okay, as long as we could sleep well it was fine with us.

We departed very late from the camping in Refina today at 13:00. Away from Athens and up north. The landscape was stunningly beautiful today, very nice mountains and nice tracks cutting through it. The inland of Greece is marvellous.
Unfortunately we got stuck a lot in the traffic today because of police checkpoints, as it appeared to us. It looked like they were looking for someone. We drove most of the day and were surprised about the beauty of the Greek inland. It’s magnificent green and lush vegetation. We were wondering why only the greek island are so popular, because we’ve been on many islands of Greece but this was so much more beautiful in our opinion. The greek inland seems to be undiscovered by tourist, they all go to one of the islands. In the evening we were looking around for a hotel. We were in a small village which looked very creepy. There were a lot of empty houses and villas. It look kind of deserted to us. We drove around but didn’t see anything here, a place where we would be able to sleep. At a certain point we saw a house on the hill so we went to this place. I parked the car and walked around. It was a kind of hotel, at least it looked like it. Melissa and I walked in to the place and suddenly it felt silent.
“Yes, indeed, customers..” I answered him in my thoughts. There were some old people sitting there, chatting with each other, like they probably did every evening the last 20 years. The owner was friendly but didn’t understand any other language than greek.
We managed to make clear we wanted to stay for the night. He seemed to have a room available. We walked to the room which was reachable from outside, a kind of motel so to speak. When he opened the door we were looking at a very tidy room, it only smelled like it wasn’t used for a long time, it was pretty humid too. Alltogether it was clean, which was most important. We arranged a price and paid for the room directly, this way we could leave whenever we wanted.
There was no hot water, so that will be freezing cold shower tomorrow. We cooked ourselves a great dinner and gave the stray dog outside a bit too.

I woke up from the voice through the speakers, announcing our arrival in an hour of the port of Athens, Piraeus. We got ourselves some coffee. We left the ferry and drove through Piraeus to Athens. In Athens we paid a visit to the Acropolis. Unfortunately the Acropolis was shrouded in scaffolding. But we were able to walk around and check out the musea over there.
Luckily it was not high season so we were able to see it pretty good. Then after this not too long visit to Athens we continued to go inland. We drove a bit out of Athens in northern direction.
We found ourselves a nice camping in the evening in Rafina, which was far enough from Athens to be quiet. It sounded promising too: ‘On the beach’. When I arranged a place I entered the campsite, there was hardly anyone around. It was indeed on the beach, only you had to be a professional cliffhanger to descend the 80ms of rocks. We had some nice dinner tonight and enjoyed the peace and rest after busy Athens. We enjoyed being together and had a joyful cosy evening. After that we creeped in to the Mercedes again for a long night sleep.

Today we started driving again, this time with Melissa. We drove between the tiny villages again and saw a lot of the rural part of Rhodes, where no tourists came.
We then tried a dirt road which was quite fun. I took a very small fork and a minture later we drove over the mountains of Rhodes over very stony small roads, but still okay enough to drive.
We then saw a skull of a goat which was in perfect condition. After that we went up and up and in a couple of minutes we were overlooking a big part of the island. The last part was very steep and small. After some fund driving here and enjoying the scenerey we went down again, and when we were on flat terrain we passed some military vehicles, big machines were parked on our left side, and in front of us a closed gate emerged, but the gatekeeper was on -our- side of the closed gate. The guy laughed friendly when he saw us coming and openend the gate for us.
Somehow we were driving on militairy ground for a long time. I guess we had missed something

We continued our trip and drove through some very small villages here, they all looked interested, obviously they don’t see too many tourists here.
Then we forked from the tarred roads again and took a dirt road. This was one pretty small and we were not sure if it was leading to something. I drove beween the bushes and then came on some grass land. I tried to see if it was leading to somewhere but that was hard to see. I just stepped in the car again and told the other we will have to see if it’s leading to somewhere.
So we drove further and then Melissa asked me to back a little bit. She didn’t want to tell us what she thought she’d seen. Because she said it was too weird to think about it.
I drove backwards and we were curious about what we were going to see, or not. “Yes!, there it is, I’m afraid I was right….” We were looking at a skull, lying in the grass.
We were all perplex. It was not a skull of an animal, it was a human skull which we had found here. As Melissa’s knowledge about skulls is pretty good (that’s why she saw this in a glimpse too) she could tell us it was lying here for only 1-2 years. We were stunned, “How the hell…..?” We didn’t know what to say, but it looked like a movie. The size of the skull was obviously from a child, so that made this situation even worse. This mean the child was probably murdered and was dumped over here. If a child was playing it would be more likeley she/he was found because the aread was known where the child usually plays. It was still guesswork, but it could be child murder. We all agreed to call the police and show them the way to the skull, because this had to be investigated. We were all feelling weird about this. We went back to the village and had to find out what the phone number of the police was. We called the police and waited for one hour before they got here. When they were there we drove back through the bushes and over the field and stopped. It had to be here somewhere. It took a while before we found it back again, because it was dark. We left our names and numbers and they asked if we some of us could come over to the police station tomorrow.

Today Henk and Esther and I took the car and planned to have a look how Rhodes looked like. Melissa decided to stay in the room. So we went for a nice tour and we decided to start with the inland in the southern part from Rhodes. Soon we forked from the main road and drove over smaller gravel and sandy roads. After a while we wanted to cross a bridge but this one was close, so we branched off again and came across a river. So we had to find out if the Benz was able to do this, after some investigation I thought I would be able to cross. Esther was curious and Henk thought it wasn’t too smart. But there we went and it all went fine! We were all proud on the Saharagelber. Then the road went through the hills and mountains and we got some great views. We were all alone over there and found out that the inland of southern Rhodes is very, very beautiful! Now and then we had some hard parts, with a lot of mud, and all the time the W123 managed to go through it. Henk and Esther were amazed, about what this car is able to go through, a lot of parts looked impossible but all the time we got through it.
We saw lots of butterflies, great mountain views, a wild river, nice birds and a beautiful green environment.
Then we came across a very muddy part, which was pretty long too. Henk and Esther knew it for sure, “This is way too tricky!” . This looked indeed a bit hard for the car, furthermore we had a problem if we got stock, because noone was driving here, we didn’t see a car around here. We stood there but I did not want to go back. I walked back and forth over the part and tried to think how I should go, via the left or right side, or even the middle. Adrenalin was running through my body, “I -think- it should be possible” I thought, but yeah, -wat if- I get stuck? What are my options then? Well, we’re in the woods, so in that case it will be a lot of work but it should be possible.
I told them I wanted to try, they were surprised and curious what would happen. It was time to give it a shot, and so I did. I drove a bit back and tried to drive exactly as I planned, because there were stones I had to be careful for these too. It went all okay, the Benz just kept going, the Saharagelber kept on slogging through the mud until she was on firmer ground again.
Henk and Esther roard enthusiastically. Happy and excited we got in the the car again and drove further. Sometimes we had some more difficult mud parts but it all went okay.
This was fun! As we continued we saw a snake crossing the dirt road. We stopped to try to find it but we didn’t see it anymore. Then we decided to continue to the south and sit somewhere and relax, having something to eat. We continued the path but our road let to an dead end, a steep slope of sand and stones made us stop. Again, I was thinking if it would be possible or not, Henk and Esther didn’t know but now trusted me that I probably know what’s possible or not. Together with Henk I removed some big stones because I thought it would be possible to drive over it, but at least we had to remove the nasty big stones. After that, I gave it a shot, it was quite spectacular, at least from the inside, the start on the hood had risen in the sky at the moment I took the slope, the Benz continued with enough grip on the rear tyres and pushed us up untill we were on the flat part again. Again we cheered, we did the trick again!
Then we were on a tarred road again and drove to the next little village where we parked the car and had something to eat. Henk and Esther loved the W123 from now on, the Mercedes gained a lot of respect from them today. They were even talking about getting one too
After that we drove a bit more around and then back. We had to pay a visit to the office for checking in on the boat on tuesday in Rhodes City. It was not easy to find and we drove a bit around, I dropped Melissa when we saw where it was and then I had to park the car somewhere. In Rhodes city there is a lot of traffic at the end of the day. When I finally was able and got back Melissa told me the boat broke down. We were not able to go back to Turkey, and the fun part was that they couldn’t tell us when it would be fixed again, it could take one day, but two weeks might also be possible they told us. Great, there we are, not able to continue our trip through Turkey. So we sat down on a terrace thinking about our options. Waiting was not a smart thing to do, it could take weeks… The travel agency offered us to go with their otherferry line, which goes to Athens. That option was probably the best one, but also meant we were not able to go back to Turkey. We thought about the option to spend some more time in Albania which made us very happy too, because we were so curious about Albania. We did not know about what we needed for Albania but then we will find out when we’re at the border. So, we agreed to go to Athens tomorrow night, that’s the first possibility we have. We didn’t have to pay anything extra because of the broken ferry, so that’s done properly.

We departed very early, the owner tried to rip us off by asking way too much and he put on his ‘I am very surprised’ face, but it didn’t help. The deal was made and I did not want to pay twice as much now. I ignored further arguments and stepped in the car. He waved goodbye and openend the gate, no further problems or whatsoever. We were bright on time for the ferry, it was a very small one where only four cars were able to enter. May this was why its so expensive. “Stop thinking about that!” I screamed to myself in my head.
After we had this relaxed sunny boat trip we disembarked in the port of Rhodes. When I drove the car from the ferry on the dock we were very surprised to see some of our dutch friends!
They wanted to surprise us, and succeeded! Such a surprise to see them in front of us here! They told us they planned to be here 2 weeks and this week they wanted to help at the clinic too.
So, first get through all the official stuff here and then we can start to enjoy Rhodes.

Then the disaster began. We had to take EVERYTHIING out of the car, which would be a hell of a job.
I never had to do this before and now we really had to do it, so it seemed. But the worst part was, we had to carry everything inside, we had to take everything out of the car and walk inside to the moving belt.
I tried to deal with one of the customhouse officials to just check the stuff by the car. This would take a very long time. This official was very mad, he started to scream at us and did not want to talk with us. Melissa got very mad at him but that didn’t help of course, there was no room for discussion or any deal, we had to take everything out.
Because of the medicine we were expecting problems and that they would take it. We had to cool down and just do it, otherwise we could not expect too much from them in a positive way anymore. But it did not matter, when we were waiting at the belt they were inspecting the medicines when they passed. ‘What’s this!?’ They asked.
We explained this were needles, tranquillizers, some sterile instruments, rubber handgloves and so on. We explained that this was for a animal clinic.
The sullen officials called another official and they told us we had to have paperwork for this and for that, otherwise they would destroy it. So, we started calling vets in Holland, we started callling the animal clinic in Rhodes, but it all didn’t help, when we we close to get what we needed they thought of more we had to arrange. This greek arrogance and hate towards people getting from Turkey (because that was mainly the problem we heard later) provided no room for us to arrange anything. It took us hours and we ended up with nothing. We had to leave the stuff here. This sucked big time, this was so valuable for the clinic, worth a couple of hundred dollars. DAPS told us already that the greek authorities were very much against their foundation, which was purely based on arrogance: People from western Europe who were trying to help the stray animals in -their- country. DAPS is trying to castrate all the stray animals on Rhodes, to stop the ever expanding amount of animals walking over the streets, which is very dangerous for them as many of the greek people over there are kicking and poisoning them or driving them over. This took us the whole afternoon and without any result. They at least gave us 8 days to arrange all the paperwork, but we more or less knew chances are that they would destroy it anyway. We left late in the afternoon and decided to enjoy the rest of the day. We drove via a Lidl (Yes, they have one at Rhodes too! ) to do some shopping and getting some fuel.
Some gypsies were hanging around at the parking lot of the Lidl, trying to get the coins of the shopping trollies when people brought them back, or just some food.
We decided to buy some stuff for them in the Lidl that they could eat.
Then we paid a visit to the DAPS clinic, where the vets were working hard at the moment we came in. They showed us their work and we talked about how we could help them the coming week. We then tried to find a place where we could stay. Some other volunteers who worked there knew a place and we managed to stay there for 10 Euros a day, quite a good price.
Our own one room appartment, and it looked very nice. Quite a luxury comparing to what we were used to.

Today we had a day of rest. In the afternoon we went to Marmaris, checking if boats were going to Rhodos which were able to take the car. In the centre of Marmaris we heard some strange things, at different places they told us it was not possible anymore to take your car on the boat to Rhodos, this ferry wasn’t going. I had to find a place where I could park the car and go without it. This was a very bad idea, we wouldn’t leave the car here with all the stuff in it, and also it is very impractical. We also brought a lot of medicine (three or four plastic bags) for DAPS, the foundation we were planning to help the coming week. We had to try other agencies, see if it was really true, we suspected them to just offer us what they could and desperately wanted to have customers even when they had to tell us we couldn’t bring our car. After a while we found an agency which told us that it was possible, although very expensive.
I had to pay 350 Euro’s only for the car, round-trip! For this very small distance! But, then, we were lucky because we could take the boat the next day. So we booked, bummer that it costed so much for an distance of practically nothing, but so be it. We went back to our private campsite and relaxed for the rest of the day. In the evening the owner gave us some fresh milk and salad. I think this man tried to live from all his own supply, gardening and the cow which was walking around here. This cow broke loose earlier today and walked over the campsite
Melissa was able to get enough rest now. We spend most of the time relaxing and reading.

After a good 10 hours of sleep we woke up. Finally we had some good sleep, the W123 seats are a very good sleep! We only had to drive for half an hour today, because we were already close to Marmaris. Early in the morning were driving around looking for a campsite. In a short while we found a sign along the road. We started to follow it but it seemed to be far away, we didn’t see a sign for a long time. But, especially that we wanted to find it even more, because it might be not too crowded then. After a while we had to go off the road over a stony track.
Driving over this route took another 10 minutes or something, but then we arrived at a place where they were building some rooms, and there was some building material outside.
I stepped out of the car and walked towards the freshly build appartment rooms. Someone was walking towards me and asked what he could do for me. I told him we would like to stay here for a while, but if that would be possible. He called the owner of this place. He told me we were the first visitors of this place and we were very welcome, he told us one of the rooms was ready to use but that they are still building and fixing the other rooms. I told them that was no problem fo rme and I asked if we could stay between the trees with our own car.
This was no problem, so I parked the car and there we were, finally some rest. This place is really awesome. We had our private beach and were standing quite relaxed between the trees, overlooking the bay which was wonderful, we’re all alone and have this great view. Melissa could get some rest now and we will spend some time here.
The rest of the day we rested here, reading, walking around and I checked up the car, because the waterheater refused to work lately. That night we slept in the back of the car, with the liftback open

After our great breakfast at the pension, which was included we were about to explore the environment together. After my orientation yesterday I knew a bit already to start with today.

Based on tips in the Loneley planet and on the map we had received from our friendly pension owner we had quite a full program for today. We took more than one hundred pictures today, this illustrates how stunningly beautiful Cappadocia is, at least according to us. In fact one cannot describe it really, I’ll show pictures of it, they can illustrate Cappadocia way better then my words.
We planned to explore at least the various cave valleys, like the yellow, rose and the red valley and the cave houses. There was also a church with various images carved in the volcanic stone. We’ve put the Benz away and walked through this area for quite some time, enjoying it, we were alone all the time, I wonder how it is in the high season.

After our exploration in these valleys we went to an ancient city which was carved out of a very big rock. When we got there some guy started to talk to us and wanted to know if we would climb that rock and he offered to guide us. We didn’t, and we also didn’t want to buy his turtle carved out of stone, and went on, this guy following us. Melis wanted to stay down and relaxing on a terrace with a cup of coffee.
I ended up with this guide, climbing on the rock It was not an official guide, I know, but he was so persistent and I felt really sorry for him actually. Usually I’m quite difficult with this, persistent in saying that I don’t want it He told me there was much to see and I wouldn’t be able to find it all by myself.
“Yeah, right”. Disappointedly he walked back.
I walked upwards on the huge rock trying to check out the things to see myself. This fake guide, did tell us that the inhabitants left this city after an earthquake some 600 years ago. He also told me there were nice fresco’s to see in the church.
After I paid the city a visit and walked downwards to Melissa I met our friend again. He asked me if I saw everything and I had to admit thta I didn’t. Thus, we went up again.
He showed me indeed a lot more and couldn’t tell me very much, but he was able to show things I didn’t see. I ended up paying some Ytls and bought his turtle of stone too.
I felt sorry for this guy, that he had to to go through so much hassle, for just a few coins.

After all this, we continued the tour through the area. On our way we saw a turtle crossing the road, a tour bus coming from the other side had stopped and the tour operator was already busy to speed the turtle’s process to cross the road. After that we visited another small village, which also had an old part with houses carved out of rock, as a lot of villages have in Cappadocia. At the end of the day we went back to the valleys around Goreme and drove on a couple of dirt roads, twisted through the landscape of fairy chimneys.
This way we had to drive between the walls of the chimneys and it became smaller and smaller, and after a while we were driving with our wheels completely on the walls, it was exciting to do this, but sometimes a bit scary, then Melissa had to get out of the car and check the space between the car and the walls and see if everything worked out.
The path had become deep in the middle and the curves in it made it even more difficult. After investigating a very difficult part, measuring, considering, thinking, thinking again, I decided this was not save enough to do this, and go back. The problem was if I would give it a shot, I couldn’t go backwards because it was really small and there was a curve in it too. The Benz was too wide to go through this tiny part and I wouldn’t take the risk. I was able to turn around and we drove our same route back, without any problems.
After the sunset it was getting dark so we drove back to our cosy cave. It was a very special day today, lots of beautiful things we saw and the adventure of driving here. We didn’t have the time to go to the Ihlara valley anymore, it was too much. Tomorrow we are leaving again and drive to the East of Turkey.
This night we went out for dinner in a restaurant in Goreme. We had a very good vegetarian pizza and after that we talked with the waiter, who spoke very good english. We had a very good conversation about life and our home countries. It was a pleasant evening and a perfect seclusion of our time in Cappadocia.

Cappadocia

Valley, Goreme

Odd shapes again

View from a cave

Ancient carvings

Ancient city in the rocks

Strange shapes by erosion

Me, driving through Cappadocia

Another W123 T-modell, you don’t see the W123 in Turkey too often.

Urgup, Cappadocia

Heavy steering

More exciting steering

Ballooning in Cappadocia

When it’s getting late in the afternoon, the light becomes very colourful

Sunset

Sunset

Today we decided to rest a bit and do nothing. Melis liked to read today and I wanted to do some stuff to the car.

Having breakfast @ the Antalya Cave Pension

This was the right moment to investigate the Saharagelber, see if everything is all right. Everything was quite okay, hardly any oil usage, and all other fluids were okay. I also fixed the pot meter of the dashboard light, we didn’t have any when it was dark until now. I didn’t have time to fix this before departure so I did this today. I’ve brought a lot of tools with me and some small materials, so with that I was able to fix it. I’ve checked all the connections, tubes and lubrication points. I’ve replaced one fuse and until now nothing more happened since the 4600km we’ve driven. I also glued the Zebrano wood to the dash.
At the end of the afternoon I decided to drive around on my own, Melissa kept reading.
I was longing to drive around in the Saharagelber again So, I took my camera and drove around Goreme, stopped at every place where I wanted to take a picture.

Goreme overview

As a result, most of the time I was stopping, taking a picture, driving and stopping again, taking a picture, driving and so on. It’s great to drive around here, there are loads of small winding dirt roads which are a great to drive on, some are a bit difficult so I had a lot of fun today. The Benz is in its element here, it’s great to see with how much ease she is able do these things. Driving here is a real pleasure and you can get everywhere and stop at very nice spots, being alone nearly all the time. And everytime when I stopped and looked around, I was magicked by this stunning volcanic stone environment created by previous volcanic explosions, with all these strange caves and fairy chimneys, morphed by erosion. After sunset I went back to our cosy little cave where Melissa was (still ) reading

Volcanic environment

The ‘Chimney valley’

The W123 in the volcanic landscape of Cappadocia

Odd shaped, but recognizable…

The Saharagelber in the Goreme valley, the sun was setting, still shining a bit on the car and the trees around.

W123 Sunset

Driving in Cappadocia

Driving in Cappadocia

It was raining this morning. The village looked a bit sad in the rain. The underground city was 200m from our hotel and we walked a little bit through the Kaymakli village first. A bit disappointed, to see the countless stray dogs, which are fighting to stay alive. Lots of them badly hurt or infected, and today, we saw a badly injured dog again, Melis couldn’t get it from her mind. This is one of the bad things of travelling abroad, in most countries the animals have a bad life.
Anyway, we couldn’t help this individual, he was able to walk and we can’t give him a better life. We went to the underground city and decided to take a guide, we were very curious about the story behind these cities.
Some information extracted from a website:

Archaeological evidence shows that Cappadocia was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic period (c. 2.5 million BCE to 10,000 BCE), and continued to serve as home to the peoples of many different civilizations, including the Hittites, Greeks, and the Romans. Dwellings were dug into the rocks and provided shelter from the environment, defense against foreign invasions, and refuge from religious persecution. These dwellings interconnect, forming some two hundred to three hundred underground cities, equipped with elaborate air ventilation systems, water storage units, and in some cases, even stables and wineries. One of the most famous and well excavated is Kaymakli, where Christians hid from the pagan Roman invaders during the seventh century.

source: http://www.bookrags.com/history/worldhistory/cappadocia-ema-01/

This was really fascinating, from the Kaymakli ancient city 3 etages were open to the public, and there were five in total. Our small guide ran through the small passages and told us that these people used to to that too to move very fast and able to block passages with big rolling stones. He showed us wineries, kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms (for the regular and the richer families), meeting rooms, etc. Really impressive.

Inside the underground city of Kaymakli	Corridor

A family house
Kaymakli

After we investigated the city we walked back to the Saharagelber. It was still raining and we decided to drive to Goreme, from this base we would explore Cappadocia. Since it was raining we would then find a cosy place were we could do some reading or something.
We drove through this beautiful area and it all was a very nice atmosphere after all, a bit of rain, driving through this weird quiet area and listening to good music. Near Goreme we began to see the fairy chimneys, the weather had cleared up a bit and the rain had stopped.
We were stunned by the view of these chimney-like caves. This area really looks awesome! It is so weird, so beautiful, like another planet. We found a nice room in the Anatolya Cave Pension, it was a room in the cave we took, and we both said to ourselves, that this room was one of the cooles we ever had on our travels. You can see ‘our’ cave on this picture here (on the left): anatoliacave.com/resimler/029.jpg.

If you tend to stay in Goreme some time, really visit this pension, it’s such a nice place!
Very friendly people, and a beautiful pension, a place to be and a place to remember!
The room we had was as you can see in such a cave and is really, really cosy. We actually had two rooms, and a very luxe and clean bathroom, and it was definitely cheap too. The url is Anatoliacave.com After we installed ourselves in our new home, we sat down with the pension owner and his family and drank some turkish tea. He told us about what to see and where to go in Goreme. Mellissa and I both agreed that this must be paradise.

The Antalya Cave pension

Cave cooking

The rest of the day we hung around there and relaxed a bit and played with the dogs. There was a small dog, called Pascha which reminded us of one of our own dogs. At the end of the day I watched the sunset from a hill nearby, where some other backpackers were to be found too, I was surprised to meet my new friend Pascha there again The sunset with all these strange morphed caves and the sight of the colored mountain gives an extra dimension to the sunset, and on top of that, it all colors very beautiful. After that I walked back and saw a very cosy cafe-like place called The Flinstones. This was a very cosy place, also in a cave, I decided to ask Melissa to go there tonight, and we did. But first we Melis made our dinner in our tiny comfortable cave.
This was *the* place where fellow travellers were chatting with each other and sit and relax. A hearth in the middle kept the place warm. One of the visitors started playing music, vocals and guitar, this girl had a pretty voice and it was a pleasure to listen to. Oh what a night! Sometimes, when exploring the world, you come across a place which impress very much and has a very relaxed atmosphere, In my opinion, Goreme, Cappadocia ist just like that.
After a boatload of wine (for me though) it was time to go to bed. Still happy to be in Turkey, still amazed about the hospitality and the kindness of the turkish, and the beauty of Turkey itself.

Sunset in Goreme

Close to our pension, Goreme. The sun was setting and a lot of people were watching it., myself incluis

The travellers place to be: The Flintstones in Goreme

After a cold shower (yah, indeed). Yesterday it was indeed warm, as our turkish friend told us, but they have a watertank on the roof, and the sun warms it up during the day.
But in the morning the water has of course become stone-cold. But it’s okay, it’s all part of these kind of journeys. Just like this, just before we left Melis also broke a lath of the bed by just sitting on it. Yesterday evening I’d found out that one of the fuel tanks was leaking, when I was inspecting it today, I was inspecting the damage, it turned out that the complete roof was full of this vegetable oil, as was the cargo door. Furthermore, the rest of the car was full of tiny spots of oil. So, I planned to stop at a fountain along the route through the coast mountains. I had fixed the tank leak yesterday night with some glue and one screw, the glue had become hard, so that’s good. After we were offered a cup of coffee again, which was very kind, we departed to continue the coastal route for some time and then go up north to Cappadocia. After I found a fountain I stopped to clean the oil, while I was cleaning the car with shampoo the turkish family in their nice red W115 drove by and honked.

Our pension last night	The nice W115 of our hotel owner

After some time we stopped at a very nice spot with a beach in front of it and had a cup of coffee on a cosy beach terrace of the restaurant. There were hardly any people around here, and after we sat there for a while we decided to sit on the beach for a while. I also took a dive in the sea, which was a good refresh for it was very warm. We relaxed some more and then left again, in the direction of Cappadocia. We won’t see the sea for some time now.

We were quite late again, so we would arrive during the night.
Late in the evening we entered a small village (I guess it was Derinkuyu). We found one pension which appeared to be full, we didn’t get any offer to sleep somewhere else, so we continued our trip, the man of the pension told me ‘Kaymakli’ a couple of times, so there we were maybe able to find something (it was already nearly midnight). We managed to find something in Kaymakli indeed so we were lucky to find the door still open. This pension looked okay, if there’s a bed and water it’s okay already. We made it, it was already 00:30am, but managed to find a place to sleep.
After we walked the stairs we found two men in a room and we arranged a room. The turkish man spoke a bit english and we had a short chat about the ancient underground city we had to check out here in Kaymakli, he borrowed me a small book of Cappadocia and I read some of it in our room. First get a good deal of sleep and tomorrow we will check out the underground city. Melis cooked a nice meal again and we enjoyed it with some wine.
It’s getting exciting, tomorrow we will see what Cappadocia is like…

Always disappointing to see how all the garbage is thrown of the hill by the local people.

Garbage	More garbage

Did I tell you that the turkish put the word Turk in front of everything? A turkish cellphone company called Turkcell, a gas station brand is called turkpetrol, some hotels called turkhotel and so on, ah well

After we woke up this morning and tried to clean the remnants of our rice fighting yesterday, we continued the coastal route. This route is indeed beautiful, if you happen to go to Turkey and you are somewhere around here, definitely check this out. After driving a while we took a small path along the rough line of the rocky coast and found ourselves a very nice place where we took the time to clean things up and for me to fill the jerrycans again and fill the car up with PPO. This cost us quite some time and it was getting dark already. Only 30km before Anamur we already had to stop, we were lucky and found a nice old hotel which was very simple and run by a turkish family. This place was very relaxed, with a view on a small beach. We went inside and a friendly turkish man offered us some turkish tea and by sign language we were able to arrange things. I parked the Benz next to his old W114 Mercedes, which was in the family for all its time, something like 32 years if I remember correctly. It seemed we were the only guests. We had our tea in their restaurant in front, and he and his family were watching TV. We were sitting under the TL lights on plastic chairs and tables with white-red blocked patterns, really cosy There was also a shower in their restaurant, for roadtravellers stopping by and need to refresh. The rooms were okay, he told us the showers were hot, ah yeah, we heard that before

Taken by Fedde, after our Termessos ruins visit

74062km on the clock, travelled 4094km so far.

In the morning we arranged to meet each other on the square, we lost half an hour, because there were two squares After we found each other we left for the ancient city or Termessos. After about 40kms from Antalya you enter the national park. We parked the car on the parking lot, which was already full with tourist buses, hmmkay. We walked through those ruins today, it was quite impressive to see this, but unfortunately, most of it was completely or mostly destroyed, as is oftend the case with ruins of course, but we hoped for something more after we read about the enthousiastic review in a travel guide from Fedde.

Some info about Termessos:

Termessos is perhaps the most interesting ancient city in Antalya region. It is a Psidian city built at a height of 1050 meters in the Taurus Mountains. Termessos constitutes an unusual synthesis of a large number of rare plants and animal species, which are under protection in the Termessos National Park. When turning off the Antalya-Burdur highway (11 km.) in the direction of Korkuteli, the Termessos signpost will be seen 14 km. further on, and Termessos itself is a further 9 km. A visit to this site requires time and the stamina to walk uphill, because Termessos is built entirely on a mountainous area difficult to access.

See for more info: This article @ Antalya-ws.com

Termessos has a lot of tombs	The amfitheatre

Amfitheatre again

After the ruins we went back to Antalya, we passed the big Kipa supermarket and wanted to check-out if they had vegetable oil. We wered stunned how big this place was, a gigantic K-mart like warehouse. I was glad to see they had 5L bottles of sunflower oil, that’s a whole lot better than the 1 liter bottles. In the supermarket, after I filled the shopping cart with 135 liters in total the turkish people around us were stupified. We saw them watching like “What is this guy doing with that stuff?!?”. A turkish man couldn’t restrain his curiousity and walked towards me and asked what I was about to do with this. He only spoke turkish and no english or german or french, but he was so amazed, he just *had* to know (otherwise he probably couldn’t sleep I made some gestures by virtually steering a car, and I guess he’d understand At the parking lot of the Kipa, Fedde helped me with filling the car up. After that we had to separate, we brought Fedde back to the Citadel of Antalya and we were heading east in the direction of Anamur. It was already past 7pm, so we tried to make it to Side and look for a pension/hotel there. We didn’t want to drive in the dark as we sometimes do, because the coastal route of Turkey is amazing.

When we entered Side in the evening, it looked awful. Side only seemed to exist of awful gigantic resort buildings, the part of side along the coast that is. After looking for a while, we found a small one which was okay, and not too expensive. Melis didn’t want to spend the night in the car, because the lack of water to wash ourselves with. In our room we Melis made a dinner with rice. We had a lot of fun tonight, this time it resulted in a rice fight, we bombarded each other with rice, too much fun we had Tomorrow we depart again to continue the coastal route.

Wondering what we are going to do with it..	Fill ‘r up!

Filling her up again	Manavgat falls

On the road to Side (Manavgat)	Along the coast