The Truck Got Stuck

 7 May 2009

Cappadocia and Anatolia                                                    

After the damp bliss of Urgip and the tandir, we spent Tuesday in Goreme, the little town at the heart of Cappadocia and quite close to Kaya Camping (which, BTW, has possibly the nicest showers on earth. And a lot of Germans...also the first Dutch person I've ever met who knew where Dieren is—hi, Anouk!). Goreme was another Greek village, transferred to a Turkish population, and with Roman tombs and Byzantine chapels...this whole part of the world is a bit like the Patty the Daytime Hooker, everyone's had a piece.

The Open-Air museum just outside of it have about 7 cave-churches, with deeply vivid frescos from about the 10^th century, etc. More interestingly, some old people were in there filming for 60 Minutes, a piece on early Christianity and the Greek Orthodox church to show in September, we're told by the American bloke in his Rick Steves'-esque travel trousers and backpack-on-one-shoulder. So all you old Americans should look out for that. We completely failed to recognize the reporter, which confirms that we are still hip and cool. Yes?

The sixth of May, and the titular truck did indeed get stuck. Pulled onto a lakeside somewhere in mid-Turkey for bushcamp, and the misleadingly 'damp' ground in fact proved to be a sludgy mix of clay and mud. The truck was in down to the diff, and the boys spent a few hours shoveling, piling rocks, and generally playing in the mud like pre-schoolers (all completely necessary, I am assured), before some girls went and got a Turk with a JCB to pull us out. Sorted, yes? But no! We parked on the road with the hazards on, and made supper (lamb cooked in veggies and spices, beautiful)...only for a good chunk of the Turkish Army to rock up with flashing lights, wielding lots of large guns and looking suitably menacing. Very exciting. In perfect English they offered us any help we needed and gave us their phone number in case anyone bothered us...which did somewhat damage the fierce first impression.

Up and out at 7:30 this morning, have driven through the mountains (which I still do not enjoy...who signed me up for a truck ride through the Himalayas? I blame David) and down again to the Black Sea, which we're following along to near Trabzon and the Sumela Monastery.

Today's highlight so far: meeting Mustafa Cetin, the very nice owner of the bakery where we stopped to get bread...and who turns out to have lived in—I kid you not—Delran. For 8 years. Well, three years were in Edgewater Park, so that may not count...he has returned to Turkey and has bought a few shops in the village of Dereli with his American proceeds. Worked at various diners, including Omar's and the Edgewater Queen. Seriously. I left Delran at 18 and have been steadily moving farther ever since, only to run into the Diner King of South Jersey in Dereli, Turkey, in 2009. Sometimes my life feels like a Seinfeld episode.