Back home through Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia
After a successful trip, it was time to go back home to Slovenia. We stood on the “roof of Europe”, explored Ukrainian caves, saw lots of attractions, the nature of Georgia and Armenia... But everything comes to an end. We chose a path through Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia with some stops.
The Border
A country that is so developed that only few travellers didn’t visit it... Probably because we travelled on non-tourist areas. Armenia and Turkey still don’t have an agreement and you can’t cross the border, we decided to go back to Georgia and go to Turkey from there. And the border was as if we travelled to the past. Macadam road, then two huts and some policemen and customs officers. It looked like they were bored. Not far from there you can see sheep, goats, cattle and each has its own shepherd. This kind of landscape continued for at least a thousand kilometres.
Refreshment in the salty lake
The roads became better but the shepherds were still watching their sheep. Because we haven’t seen a shower for a few days, we were all thinking the same thing when we saw a lake in the far. The roads were covered with grass and we had some trouble getting to the lake with a van. We let our clothes to aerate, changed into our swimsuits and started to bathe in a muddy, but warm water of the lake. It took us a little time to find out that the lake was salty and that the water is very dirty and that we aren’t any cleaner. We fixed that after a few days when we got to the Black Sea.
Cappadocia and Ankara
The plateau in the central Turkey with stone houses from fairy tale is a part that charms every traveller. Cappadocia was made by time, winds, rain and human hand that created homes from stone. The stone from tight volcanic ashes. It is one of the most charming areas in the world. Again, as in Vardzia, we played hide and seek in this beautiful landscape. 200 metres from Cappadocia we visited Turkey’s capital, Ankara. A city where we were very much welcomed by the locals. You can buy almost everything on the markets and that is where we were invited for tea. We even had lunch with them. It was amazing.
Home through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia
On the way home we stopped in Sophia where we also attended holy mass because of the great choir. We also wanted to climb the highest peak of Bulgaria, Musala, but the weather wasn’t on our side this time. For the end we enjoyed a great dinner on rafts in Beograd where some friends joined us. Then we went on a night ride through Croatia to Slovenia.
Three week expedition with 9000 kilometres behind us, went by quickly. We conquered the roof of Europe, which was our main goal. But we saw so much more. And while we were driving back we were making our plans for our next trip...
