July 28, 2000: Crossing Turkey we drove with a little bus to fethiye, located at the mediterranean sea. on our drive on the steepy streets (most of it in the 1st gear) we began to talk with two turkish soldiers. they were off duty, military service here is 18 months and the only thing they knew about switzerland was kubilay tuerkilmaz (it all comes down to sports...). one of them (named ali, hassan, mustafa or whatever...) was so kind to organise us a good and cheap bed and breakfast in ölüdeniz. ölüdeniz has a beautiful lagune with crystal clear water (you see that picture in every travel mag). the lagune was nice, but our hearts cried for a backpackers paradise, we drove on to olympus. and here it was - our first little paradise! our own tree-house in the middle of citrus trees, no hotel for miles, no tourists - only backpackers. our tree-house had a wounderful path down to the sea, a wounderful beach, all surrounded by the ruins of historic olympus. for 3 day we stayed at our little paradise and enjoyed it's beauty. temperatures were 39 dregrees the day and 30 degrees the night. from antalya we went with the nightbus to cappadoccia in the middle of turkey. grace to our head comfort pillow we felt asleep for a few hours. for the next 3 days we explored the uncountable canyons near göreme. in the fruitful valleys apricots, melons and other fruits are growing. so we never had to look out for lunch... some of you sure want to know, what we did on dani's birthday? on that special day we joined a "turkish night". wine, fine food, turkish dancing, all included and all organised by the owner of our pension, so we had a huge table for our own. we felt like kings on our table, dani liked the turkish bellydancers most... on our way to kahta (mount nemrut) we had 5 hours stopover at kayseri. just imagine, we didn't have 10 minutes where we were alone! at the busstation two young guys who wanted to improve their english began to talk to us. they made a tour through the town and finally came back with us to the busstation. we still had some time left and went to a nice park near the station. a few minutes later, a young turkish woman came and began to talk to us in her broken english. another few minutes later, another young turkish woman asked us in perfect french, if she could help us. it didn't take long, and we were surrounded by at least 20 people (most of them young and attractive women...). we didn't feel good in that situation and decided to leave the park - alone. but 2 young turkish men and a little kid joined us to our bus stop. they waited together with us until our bus came. it was a special adventure, espacially as we couldn't communicate, because they only spoke turkish. after our tour to mount nemrut we arrived now at trabzon. if the black sea wasn't there, you felt like in the swiss mountains. we experienced turkey as a beautiful country with a large and modern bussystem. the more east you travel, the simplier the people are living. you see horsecars and donkeys. and some people just want to sell you a carpet, or simple talk to you... right now we're sitting on a terrace and enjoy a beautiful sunset over the black sea. tomorrow we'll travel on to georgia.

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