Author Archives: Miss Penny Black

Turkey: Cappadocia, Pt 1

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Firstly, let me begin by saying it’s Cap-ah-doe-kee-ya. I hate reading words and not knowing how to say them. Like the town we’re staying in – Goreme. Which I’ve only just worked out is ‘Gor-eh-meh’, not Gore-eem or Gor-eh-may. Urgh. Turkish is not so easy. Fortunately, language aside, the country seems to be about as well set up for ignorant tourists as Thailand and people here speak many languages. Like our hotel manager who speaks Turkish, English and Japanese (and that’s just what I’ve heard) and our tour guide who spoke Korean as well as English and Turkish. Being monolingual overseas is always a bit embarrassing… I think I’ll start telling people I speak a bit of Swahili – they’ll never be able to test me!

But back to Cappadocia. I wanted to come because our friend, the delightful Ms Muppet, recommended it so highly and she was right – this place is like some kind  ‘Labrynth meets fairyland in the desert’ landscape. The photos will tell it best.

Pigeon Valley at sunset.

Unfortunately Luke has now come down with the same sickness I had and spent the day on the bus suffering greatly. I felt a bit sorry for everyone else.. there’s nothing like being forced into a confined space with people who are coughing and spluttering (I’m still a bit sick too) while you’re on holidays and really not wanting to get ill. I tried to save my great, honking, nose blowing for outside the bus but… well, it wasn’t pretty.

What else wasn’t pretty was me having a panic attack at our very first stop.

We were scheduled to visit an underground city and I didn’t really have any qualms. We lined up, went down a narrow flight of stairs, turned a corner and some part of my brain screamed ‘GET OUT OF HERE’ and I muttered ‘I can’t do this’ to Luke, back up and raced out towards the light, adrenalin racing, almost bursting into tears.

I have no idea where this comes from – I’ve never really enjoyed confined spaces or caves but I think the super-narrowness, and knowing we’d be going down 8 floors just triggered something primal and I could barely hold it together to get out. At least I know to avoid those situations in future! I spent half an hour sitting on some grass, patting a dog that, apart from being white rather than black, was the spitting image of my dog, and generally cursing myself for being a wuss.

Everything else we did was fine though. We went for a walk down and along a canyon, had a nice lunch by a river, climbed to some fairy chimneys and saw the landscape that inspired Tatooine in the first Star Wars movie (scenes eventually filmed in Tunisia because the Turkish government at the time was monumentally short-sighted and didn’t give them permission), saw some epic views over landscapes that have barely changed in centuries and just generally soaked up the foreign-ness of it all.

Near the place that inspired Tatooine.

When we got back to the hotel Luke fell into bed and Lucas and I stayed up blogging, got some dinner and were serenaded by the sound of dozens of cars honking their horns because a wedding party arrived here and then left. We told the hotel owner that people only honk their horns in Australia when they’re angry and he laughed. “Cultural differences!” – yes, and thank god we live in a place where if you’re happy and you know it you don’t make a huge amount of noise. Apparently there are many weddings here on the weekends – it’d drive me mad!

The wedding car.

Speaking of our hotel, we’re staying in a fairy chimney – our room was carved out of a cone-shaped spire of rock. Pretty neat! This is what the hotel looks like. I think the first room photo that comes up on their header is our room. We had a big terrace in front of our room and one morning I counted 25 balloons in the sky. sometimes there’s over 60!

Turkey: Istanbul

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After six weeks in Africa on what I came to think of as the ‘plague truck’ and not getting ill, I was most dismayed to develop a cold and cough a couple of days into our stay in Istanbul. I didn’t really get the most out of the city, particularly since we stayed an extra two nights after Nikki and Leigh left, just to see more stuff. Still, we did make it to a few notable sights and the place certainly made a good impression.

The view from our first apartment.

The weather was pretty good – a trifle hot but it was August after all, and the nights were cooler. Our first apartment had 70 steps to climb (and me with 20kgs of luggage), so I was very happy that our second place was on the ground floor. We chose the ‘Cheers Hostel’, very close to the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque. Mosques in Istanbul were much quieter than Dar Es Salaam and provided more of a nice touch of  distant foreign flavour rather than a blare of tinny screeching at 4am.

In the ‘old city’ where we stayed at Cheers, there were some really beautiful buildings. Turkish people know how to go to town with colour and I’ve been totally inspired with regards to home furnishings and craft projects for when I get home.

If unicorns became architects they’d design houses like this.

At night all the lamp shops and bars with lamps and just general abundance of lamps made the place look magical. I may have even bought a few lamps myself, but about 97 less that I actually wanted.

Lucas, Luke and I decided to buy a ticket for a ‘hop on hop off’ bus to see more of the city. It was a bit rubbish, to be honest. The buses seemed to run in different directions each time we got on so there was some back tracking and the recorded commentary was dreadful. For a city with three thousand years of history you’d think there’d be something interesting to say but I can remember almost none of it – and usually trivia sticks in my mind. Heck, with an hour on the internet *I* could’ve done a better tour.

Every time I saw the Istanbul horizon I thought of football because of the pairs of minarets, which is ludicrous because I don’t even think about football when I see people playing football.

However the tour, for a small extra cost, came with a boat trip that we took in the evening. Despite looking like we were going to be crammed aboard a boat like sardines into a can (although that’s a bad simile, because if the can sank the sardines would’ve been fine, unlike us) it turned out that there were multiple boats and the view was great and the guide was ok too. Although I was feeling rather sorry for myself by this point and fell asleep for part of it, the boat did go under a bridge that was huge and did fantastic light displays every half hour with a huge number of LEDs. We’d seen it from our Taksim apartment but getting to get right up close to it was excellent.

This photo does it no justice at all.

Apart from that I basically slept most of the days away or dragged myself around like a snot-producing zombie. One of the things I did quite like was the Basilica Cistern, a huge cavern underneath the middle of Istanbul which was, as the name suggests, a water storage area.

About 1500 years old, it shows how we really don’t make things like we used to. Plus there were big fat fish swimming in the metre or so of water under the walkways. They were a bit creepy. Apparently the place was used in ‘From Russia With Love’, many years ago.

Apart from that Istanbul was notable for the vast number of cats everywhere, the fact that everyone’s brother/cousin/uncle’s-father’s-former-roomate-in-college had a carpet shop we should definitely visit, and the foooooooood. Turkish food is great – and dramatic. They do this thing called a ‘testes kebab’ (yes, I know what you’re thinking, but no!) which is a casserole cooked in a clay pot and then the pot is broken when served. We have also been loving the turkish delight and baklava. I’ve always thought baklava seemed like a good idea but never really had much of it. Until now!

On the topic of food, but only just, Lucas and Luke became addicted to something I dubbed the ‘squishy burger’. These were sold at street side kebab and sandwich vendors and would be stacked, pre-made in a bain-marie. They looked … well, you can see for yourself.

Bun, meat and tomato sauce, left to sit in a glass cabinet all day. It’s hard to believe nothing went wrong.

Not exactly appetising. But they were super cheap (the equivalent of $1 each I think) and I’m ashamed to say that I, too, thought they tasted alright. I limited myself to a single one but the boys had at least one a day, by my reckoning.

I’d like to assure all the parents out there reading this that we ate this kind of thing more frequently:


Farewell drinks with Nikki and Leigh.

Next stop: Cappadocia!

Africa: Wrap Up.

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I *was* going to do a bunch of posts about different activities and aspects of our African leg but I’m starting to think that if I don’t get it all down now I won’t get it all down at all, so get ready for some stream-of-consciousness ramblings that will jump around in time and subject, leaving you confused and probably slightly annoyed.

Huzzah!

Firstly, a couple of events that I haven’t written about.

Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Elephant walking in front of our truck in QENP.

We camped in this park and it was the first time we’d done a game drive in the overland truck – normally we decant into jeeps or vans. Doing it in the truck meant we were all higher up and we got to take turns sitting in the seats that let a row of people sit half out of the roof of the truck at the front and back. Initially when Steve said ‘roof seats’ I was a bit concerned that meant getting up via the outside and sitting on the roof… it’s best described in a photo. Here’s the second proper group picture I took, which shows people in the top of the truck.

Just like a school photo… but in Africa!

Queen Elizabeth Park doesn’t have giraffes or zebras (boo!) but it does have lions. We saw a few but they weren’t as close as our Serengeti and Masai Mara experiences. We did see groups of elephants reasonably close and it was the first place I heard an elephant trumpet.

We also saw a big lizard by the side of the road (Lucas spotted that, I think) and some interesting birds. QENP was also where we did a boat cruise – a really nice way to see animals from a different angle. We saw hippos yawning, elephants deep in the water, buffalo, eagles and lots of birds. One of my favourites was the malachite kingfisher. Birds are not easy to photograph, particularly small ones so here’s a photo I stole from the internet.

Courtesy of geography.wincoll.ac.uk

It took me about 10 yawning hippos before I finally caught one on film.

We camped at a Rhino Sanctuary but I opted out of the rhino trek. I can’t even really remember why… I felt tired from traveling I guess and I ended up helping Mash with dinner. Working with Mash was one of the highlights of the tour for me. He was so much fun and towards the end of our tour leg he would ask me after meals how it was and I would always say ‘terrible!’ or ‘almost good enough!’ and he would laugh. He was a brilliant cook and I’ve written down some of his recipes to try when I get home.

Me, Mash and Luke.

The morning after the rhino trek there was a walk to spot shoebills, which are a type of bird. However the people who went saw a *leopard* on the track, which I think would’ve scared the pants off me if I’d been there. I didn’t know anything about shoebills before the tour and having watched them on a documentary after we finished I’m rather glad I didn’t see them. They are tremendously ugly birds that looks like zombies when they blink. Their beaks are so heavy when they are young that they can barely lift their heads.

The other notable animal experience we had before leaving was in Nairobi.

We went to a giraffe sanctuary where there was a platform from which you could feed giraffes – although there were signs warning people not to stick their heads out without food as the giraffes could headbutt you. We all took turns feeding the giraffes with a food pellet in our mouth. It was sort of l like being licked gently by a big cat. A bit droolly but not very much.

Yikes!

My favourite animals.

Our trip to Africa was certainly primarily about the animals. I remember the same thing about my trip to South Africa years ago. While the culture and art in Africa interests me the tourism there is almost totally animal focused. Our trip was greatly enhanced by the passion and knowledge of our tour leader, Steve, who, although he is English, has spent many years in Africa and is completely dedicated to experiencing the wildlife there. When I look back at some of the photos I got I can’t believe that we managed to get so close to some animals that are dangerous, endangered and truly magnificent. Like these four cheetahs we saw in the Masai Mara, just lazing around on some rocks a few metres from our jeep.

I honestly can’t get over the fact that I got to take this photo myself!

What to do with all my favourite photos? Luke’s uncle has a bunch printed out as glass-topped placemats, which is kind of neat. At least that way they get looked at. I’m not sure I could narrow mine down to my favourite 8… or 12. I want to look at these *all the time*… but how? Suggestions welcome!

Anyhoo, next topic. The people on our tour. Our truck had space for about 23 passengers and was nearly full on both legs. Some people had been on the truck since Cape Town, a whopping 71 (I think?) days. I’m not sure I could’ve handled that many nights camping – although there was often the possibility of upgrades – and just the moving around every night or two. I like a slower pace of travel but at least on the tour we had Steve to do the thinking and ordering us around;).

The people were brilliant. A range of ages and we all got on pretty much the whole time. You’re never going to see eye to eye with 20 other people every day (or even just one other person, as Luke will tell you) but on the whole it all worked really well. There were quite a few Aussies, for example Deb and Pete were an older couple from Sydney who became like the parents of the group – well, Deb did, Pete was more like the class clown who was the life of the party. They were both first in when jobs had to be done and last to finish helping with the cleaning up. After the tour finished Team Toto hung out with them for an evening in Nairobi before heading to the airport. We watched a doco and surfed the net and generally invaded their space for a few hours and they were the best hosts. They were off to climb Mount Kenya a couple of days later, which totally blows my mind as I couldn’t imagine ever being able to do something like that (I look forward to the photos, guys!).

There were quite a few couples on the truck, but there were also a few singles, like Emma from the UK, who was cheeky as anything and hugely fun to have around. Plus Jess and Adele, two friends from the Isle of Wight who knew a friend of Kat’s who was supposed to come but didn’t. Luke and I are going to do our best to get down to visit them when we return to the UK and travel around the south.

Although I can’t mention everyone I must leave a shout-out for Joan, who did most of the tour with us with a broken foot but still managed to do the gorilla trek – I didn’t ask but I have a feeling Joan must be in her late 50s or early 60s and her energy and determination was inspiring. However she snuck off without saying goodbye, so if you’re reading this, Joan, we missed giving you a hug and I’d love to send you some postcards from our travels so email me at a1lenon at yahoo dot com. Although I can’t blame you, I usually hate goodbyes and do a lot of sneaking out myself;).

Apart from Steve, our leader, we also had the company of David, who was a driver and mechanic and all-round lovely person who was always there to lend us a torch, help set up a tent, or in my case, palm me his dirty dishes after dinner when he thought he could get away with it. A bit of a gentle giant, David’s serious face could hide a great deal of mischief and I often realised, halfway through, that his stories were complete lies.

David with 3 people who need haircuts – or at least a comb.

Theres’ so many more things I could write about. How beautiful the countryside was in Uganda and Rwanda – two countries I didn’t really expect much from. It’s funny how you don’t even realise you have expectations of a place until you get there and see that, unconsciously, you had some serious misconceptions.

Uganda, close the the border with Rwanda. A truly fantastic road with stunning views.

And I know I’ve written this before, but the people in Africa were ludicrously friendly. Even when trying to sell you something (which was most of the time) they wanted to chat as well, even after you’d said no thanks. One of my favourite experiences was with a fellow in Rwanda. I went for a walk from our hotel into town and he came up and said hi and walked with me a way. I was waiting for a sales pitch that never came. He was a tourism student and after showing me the markets, translating what people said, telling beggars to leave me alone, he walked me back to the hotel and just said thanks and wanted to swap emails.

Oh, one last thing I have to mention is the clothing women wore in Africa. I’m already regretting not buying a few metres of fabric while I was there as it’s *amazing*. So colourful, such bold prints and some of them are quite funny too – traditional designs with modern things like dice incorporated into them. The fellow above took me to a market where people where selling fabric and making clothes and it was fascinating. In Africa most people use pedal-powered old singer machines.

I asked the group of people here if I could take a photo and the fellow on the right motioned me over and was very keen. Then his friend on the left started filming me on his phone and then wanted to show me – we were all laughing by the end. My guide friend said that I had made these people very happy because not many tourists come to these markets or want to talk to the locals. This is another example of Africans not grasping potential – organised tours of local markets would really appeal to many of the people who come here to trek the gorillas and learn about the culture.

I should add here, for new readers, I’m an avid sewer and make a lot of costumes and non  traditional stuff. I make patchwork clothing and I am a terrible hoarder of material and craft supplies. In fact I threw out 12 garbage bags of stuff a while back and barely made a dint. So perhaps it wasn’t all bad that I didn’t buy anything but the temptation was certainly there!

So much possibility!

So there you go – my last, longest, and probably worst post about Africa. We spent over a year looking forward to this leg of the trip, and in many ways it wasn’t at all what I expected and in many ways it was better. I’m not entirely sure I’ll go back, but if I do Rwanda and Uganda will be top of the list. And if you’re thinking of going I have a few recommendations.

1. Take lots of US currency in small and large notes. Don’t expect change everywhere.

2. If you plan to go to the Serengeti save up and fly in. It’d be totally worth it. And do the balloon flight – it would have to be one of the best places in the world to do one.

3. Learn a little of the local languages, even if it’s just ‘thank you’ and ‘delicious!’. People’s faces just light up when you speak to them in their tongue.

4. TREK THE GORILLAS… maybe even twice.

5. Always carry toilet paper. ALWAYS.

I’m sure all the people who went on the trip with us could add plenty more in the comments. And I’m sure I’ve forgotten so many things already. But next: Turkey!

Kenya: Lake Mburo and Naivasha

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Zebra skull.

At Lake Mburo we camped fairly wild. There was a big expanse of dirt by the lake and a small shelter for cooking in. Some warthogs came by to investigate and Mash (our cook) had to chase them off with a camp chair. While I was washing up I kept thinking there was one right behind me. Warthogs are one of the few animals that are simultaneously kinda cute and scary. When we were in the Masai Mara we saw one chase a cheetah, so while they might be a friendly character from the Lion King, they’re also capable of killing a big cat. ‘Pumba’, btw, is Swahili for ‘warthog’. See? This blog is entertaining *and* educational.

Snuffling around the tents.

We got up pretty early in the morning and the tent was muddy when we packed it up. We did a walking tour the next morning but didn’t see much, although I did spot (and identify – I’m like the African equivalent of Crocodile Dundee) a lion print. Mainly we looked at animal spore, insects and plants.

Zebra bits.

I quite liked seeing the smaller detail stuff that you don’t see from a jeep. I would’ve liked to do a bush food walk. We did see a baby warthog that had been left behind in a burrow by its parents.

Everyone gathers to take a photo.

It nearly ran under Luke’s feet when it tried to escape and it was about the size of a guinea pig. Unfortunately female warthogs don’t have much in the way of protective instincts towards their children and, faced with danger, will just run as fast as they can and not go back to look so there’s a fair chance this little one might not find its parent again.

Poor little thing!

Other than the warthogs, Lake Mburu wasn’t terribly exciting. We heard the hippos but they were mostly submerged and there wasn’t much else to see there. Our next stop was at Naivasha, a campsite not far from Nairobi and by a lake. There was an electric fence around the lake to keep the tourists away from the hippos. Apparently a lady had been squashed by one a few years back.

This campsite was close to Elsamere, Joy Adamson’s home. She was the author of ‘Born Free’ and raised lions, cheetahs and a leopard, as well as being an accomplished painter. Having read the Wikipedia article on her life, it has a lot more information about the way she died than was given when we visited the house. She seems to have been one of those people whose strong will and determination allow them to accomplish much but also makes them difficult to get along with.

Part of the visit to the house and museum was an afternoon tea in the garden. While I was taking a photo for Scott and Michelle a Colobus Monkey ran up behind me and made a grab for my food! I kind of grabbed it by the shoulder (they’re medium-sized monkeys) and pushed it away. It felt a bit like my dog Penny – rough haired. It managed to take a biscuit with it then sat up the nearest tree munching away, A bit exciting, really.  My first hands-on brush with nature.

Tea in the garden where lions were raised.

Turkey: Istanbul

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Although I’ve got a bunch of things left to write about Africa, here’s a few first impressions of Istanbul and a little of what we’ve done so far so our parents are up to date.

We caught the red-eye from Nairobi airport, which partially, and quite spectacularly, burned down a few weeks ago.

Photo courtesy of euronews.

Unlike everything else in Africa, authorities managed to get it up and running again within days and so our flights were on time and everything ran smoothly. We did get there several hours early, but due to the wonders of technology we had plenty of entertainment watching David Attenborough Africa doco’s. If you haven’t seen ‘Savannah’ and the rest in the series I highly recommend them.

All five of us slept through pretty much the whole flight and missed the evening meal, which is almost unheard of for me. When we landed I felt almost normal. We arrived in Istanbul at 10am but couldn’t check in until 2 so we perused duty free,  I drank an iced chocolate from Starbucks that was as big as my head and we used the internet until it was time to get a cab.

Everything was so quick and painless and as the scenery slid by we marvelled at how clean and modern this place is. Cities on hills always have a special charm and Istanbul, or at least the part we’re in, seems to be nothing but hills.

We found our accommodation without a hitch, and apart from the 70 steps to get to our top floor apartment, it’s pretty cool with a small kitchen and a stunning view over the Bosphorus to Asia.

We unpacked a few things then walked up the hill through little alleys lined with cafes and shops to a main road that runs to Taksim Square. It’s Istanbul’s equivalent of Trafalgar Square, I suppose. A big open paved area where tourists and birds gather, people sell food on sticks and there’s not much shade. The boys marvelled at the variety of kebabs on offer and then we walked back, stopping along the way to get bits and pieces of food to snack on later.  We’ve all been looking forward to the food here – having all the food cooked for us on the tour was great but it was all the kind of food you can cook easily in large quantities. I’m so happy to be able to buy small, tasty snacks like borek, olives and cheese. We’ve also bought some fruit that isn’t bananas or pineapple – hooray!

View from our balcony.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to head to the Grand Bazaar and whatever else I can fit in. There’s also a pile of belongings to be sent home so my pack doesn’t weigh as much as a baby elephant.