We were told that at 2-2:30 the GM of the Hilton we were staying at would bring the car from the mechanic back to the hotel. So we woke up and hung around in the lobby for a few hours crossing our fingers that our $2200 was well spent. Right at about 2 the car showed up. Fuck. Yes.
Turns out he didn’t know our car was right hand drive, it being from the UK and all. So that was the first time he had ever had to do that. Considering how aggressive Turkish drivers tend to be, I bet that was a lot of fun for him. We said our goodbyes to everyone who helped and bolted out of that parking lot as soon as we could…to go right across the street to the mall again. This time at least we were only stopping into the hardware store to grab some spare gas cans as well as a new jack. After popping a wheel in Istanbul we decided it was necessary to get a real floor jack, as last time with the rim bent and tire so low it wasn’t super easy to get a jack under the car.
Mitch got the honors of breaking in the new engine since he’s the one who became friends with the GM and got all of this sorted out. Even though we lost so many days in Ankara we still really wanted to stick to our original route, which would take us down to Goreme so that we could ride a hot air balloon over the caves of Cappadocia. If everything went smoothly it would only take 3.5 hours, so ramblers let get rambling.
It’s a very pretty drive. Turkey is mostly nothing so there are massive valleys of huge rolling hills.
We got into the Cappadocia area around 5 or so and decided to grab a bite to eat before we headed to the campground. There was a cafe right across the lot from a big gas station, and it being kind of a tourist area we figured it would be easy to eat at. I wish I had taken a picture of what I ordered, which was some yogurt kebap thing that was the tastiest thing I’ve eaten in Turkey thus far. Mitch ordered spaghetti because I don’t know why you would order spaghetti at a Turkish restaurant. He had eaten it a few times at the Hilton so I guess he was on a spaghetti kick. Anyway it looked terrible and apparently tasted how it looked.
About 10 minutes before we got to the campground we were pulled over by the police. Pulled over isn’t exactly accurate, they will just kinda hang out by the road sometimes and if they point at you it’s a good idea to stop. Since we were driving pretty slow Goodman had one of the sliding doors open in the back. I was driving and slowed down for a speed bump about a 100 feet before the cops, and hitting the brakes caused the door to slam shut and we’re guessing they thought we were hiding something. They asked for our passports and muttered a whole bunch to each other. It’s not like they run them or anything, maybe they just look for the stamps? Anyway a nice dude at a table not too far away started yelling at us – in a pleasant way – about the Mongol Rally. Tons of teams roll through each year so he was either familiar with the rally in general or had run into a few teams this year. He joked that our car wouldn’t make it. Thanks man. He did explain to the cops for us what was going on, after which they just gave us our passports back and let us go.
The owner/operator Murat (turns out son of owner/operator) of the campgrounds had been in contact with Mitch over Instagram I believe. Several teams had stayed at his place over the past week and it came highly recommended, and I guess he followed us on Instagram to tell us we should stay there, which we were planning on doing anyway.
We pulled in and parked next to a few other teams that were already there. Murat came over to say hi, and oh boy what a character. He was just an overall silly and jovial guy. He told us where to set up and when we turned to get our stuff from the car we noticed we were leaking a bunch of something, clearly radiator fluid. THAT’S FUCKING AWESOME…
After fiddling around under the hood we eventually found what looked to be the problem, which was a hole where some sort of plastic valve or something used to be. The confusing part was what could have possibly gone there, and of course how and why did it come off. The good news is that after pulling part of the grill off it was pretty easy to fix. Murat gave us a big screw that fit the hole, we covered that in plumbers tape and screwed it in. On top of that we poured a good amount of epoxy, and on top of that some other sealant. After that set there was no way that was leaking again, we just hoped there wasn’t another crack somewhere. When the mechanic was dropping our new engine in he could have accidentally bumped the radiator, who knows. There wasn’t much else we could do after that so we headed up the hill to the restaurant his family owns to have a drink. A few other teams had shown up, one of which had gotten their entire rear suspension redone. Nice to know we weren’t the only people with crazy problems thus far.
Mitch went to bed early but Goodman and I stayed up talking to the other teams that stayed awake. Unfortunately in order to do the balloon thing in the morning we needed to meet at the restaurant at 4:45am so that we could leave at 5 on the dot. We had a great time hanging out with Murat and his dad, and chatting with everyone. There aren’t a ton of Americans that do the Mongol Rally so it’s always interesting to meet someone from another country and get their perspective on life, traveling, and America in general.
