Journey to myself

We woke up at 7:30am on the floor of the majors office in Bölükören. I left the warmth of the shelter behind to go to the bathroom, the outside world was covered in sparkling ice crystals, the air was crisp and arctic. Lured in by the mysterious atmosphere of the winter wonderland, I forgot about the temperatures and went for a walk through the village. Afterwards I prepared coffee for the crew and Frazer made Scottish porridge. Then it was time to pack our belongings and face the cold, once again. The air was bitterly cold, my hands were painful and stiff. I watched the silver shimmering hinterland of turkey speechless. Cycling up hills was our saviour, as the generated body heat warmed us up.

Soon the first caves were hinting towards Cappadocia. Excited we kept on pushing the pedals. Up and down, up and down the road was leading us towards Göreme. While cycling through the hinterland, my thoughts suddenly turnt around meeting my father for the first time. With arriving in Cappadocia, I was all at once so close. During the last few days all of my thoughts have been submerged in getting through the cold, one day at a time. But all of a sudden I was aware that we would reach Cappadocia today. While cycling at the back of the crew I started weeping, unsure why, unsure what I was thinking. Was I scared of liking him? Was I scared of not liking him? Was I scared of the nearing encounter? When we finally reached Uchisar we had a cay, overlooking Cappadocia and mount Erciyes. From studying the map, I knew that mount Erciyes was just next to Kayseri, I looked at the tremendous snowy mountain, unable to hide my tears. The boys tried to comfort me and we carried on to find accommodation. After checking into a cave hostel, we went for Korean food, as the boys were craving a different cuisine than Turkish. After wolfing down the portions , which might have been sufficient for regular people, but not for three starving bikepackers, we met the owners of our hostel in an other restaurant, where we had more food including Baklava and ice cream. Afterwards we went back to the hostel, where we chatted to other travellers and drunk cay.

So long – hoscakal from Göreme!