The alarm clock went off at 5:40 and I was ready for pick up in 15 minutes. The guide had changed my pick-up time from 6:25 to 6:00, but apparently was the only one who had been informed about the rescheduling. The travellers in the rest of the hotels in the area had no idea, which made it absolutely pointless because we had to wait for them anyway.. For this leg of the trip we were 16 people, and the description of the day said we would “visit the Atatürk mausoleum in Ankara and see the Salt Lake” on our way to Cappadocia. A quick calculation yields to about 733 km of trip from Istambul to Avanos.

We left Istanbul and went on the road. We took a couple of breaks on the way, and around 12:30 we reached Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s mausoleum Anıtkabir in Ankara. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is often called “the founding father of modern Türkiye”, and served as the first president of the Republic, between 1923 and 1938. The Ottoman Empire had participated in World War I, and after its defeat, the Allied powers wanted to divide the country among themselves. Atatürk spearheaded the Turkish War of Independence, and upon victory, he abolished the Sultanate and proclaimed the Turkish Republic. He made a lot of changes – primary education became free and compulsory, the Latin alphabet replaced the Ottoman writing, women obtained equal rights, the country became secular and started industrialisation, the language was strengthened, and surnames were adopted.

Upon Atatürk’s death, it was decided to build a mausoleum in Ankara – Anıtkabir. There was a design competition which was won by Emin Onat and Orhan Arda, though modifications were added later on. It is a massive complex with a courtyard, stairs, the tomb hall, and exhibition rooms. The theoretical entrance to the area is an avenue lined with lions and trees, though due to security, you enter from the opposite side. The Hall of Honour holds a symbolic sarcophagus, and the actual tom is located 12 metres underneath. On the corners, there are small ethnographic exhibits. The whole complex is made out of reinforced concrete and is decorated with marble, travertine, reliefs, frescoes, carvings… Everything looks golden. Around 13:15, we saw the changing of the guard in the ceremonial courtyard.

Then we headed off for lunch, a bowl of lentil soup and a plate of flattened “meatballs” and rice, and continued on our way. Around 17:00 we “saw” the Salt Lake indeed – we guessed its existence from a service station a few kilometres away. We reached the Suhan Cappadocia Hotel & Spa in Avanos, in the region of Cappadocia. We would be using that as base for two days. One of the things to do in Cappadocia is seeing sunrise from above. However, since the group was not complete, the guide did not offer the possibility for sunrise the next day, he just gave us the Wi-Fi password (which only worked in the lobby), and the dinner / breakfast / day trip for the morning, and left.

Riding a balloon in Cappadocia is the thing to do. It allows you to see the structures called “fairy chimneys” from above as the sun rises, and since the landscape is so unique, I was really excited. Geologically, Cappadocia is a very interesting place – some thirty million years ago, volcanoes Erciyes, Hasan and Melendiz erupted repeatedly. Over thousands of years, ash rained on the ground, creating an elevated plateau of around 17,671 square kilometres. The ash hardened into tuff (a porous rock that I have seen in Neapolitan architecture) before it was covered by a layer of basalt. Both types of rock weathered, but tuff erodes faster than the upper basalt – creating sort of mushroom-like rock formations. As you can imagine, being the geology geek I am, visiting all these was one of the things I was looking forward the most. I had even put aside a budget “just for the balloon”, as it can get quite expensive, and I wanted to remain reasonable.

I dropped off the luggage and decided to go get something to eat before I hopped into the shower – else I would not get any food at all. Dinner was a buffet, and it was overrun. The food was weird… there was a huge dessert buffet, and a lot of breads, but nothing that really grabbed my attention but a few dollops of cacik (Turkish tzatziki). Back in the room, I tried to find a TV channel with something I could understand – and was not related to Israel bombing or being bombed. I did not even find the BBC…