Morning came pretty early. Mostly because we had to be at the street by 4:45 to get our van ride to the hot air balloon. Also Goodman and I didn’t go to bed until after 2 some time and I for one woke up around 4 and laid around until it was time to get out of the tent. All of the ralliers that were staying at Dilek had reserved a spot to get on the balloon. That is except for a team of Scottish guys (and 1 Irish) who showed up very late at night and were told it was full. Anyway we all made it up to the street in time and then just waited. And waited. And waited. Part of the fun of the balloon ride over the valley is that you are supposed to be in the balloon by sunrise. Well… whatever company was in charge of our group wasn’t very timely. Our gracious host Murat was very stressed out, pacing back and forth making phone calls trying to figure out what was wrong. This is literally that company’s only job, pick up people early and then fly them on a balloon. To my knowledge the balloons don’t fly later in the day, so it should be a simple process.
It was probably an hour later before the van arrived. I feel bad for Murat because it wasn’t his fault, but everyone kept coming up to him to ask him what was wrong. We all piled in and headed towards the balloon launch site which was about 15 minutes away. By this time a ton if not most of the balloons had already launched. We reckoned being late into the air would be a good thing because all the balloons would be in front of us, making for some great pictures.
Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a hot air balloon be inflated before. The process is pretty cool but also pretty sketchy. The thing is laying in it’s side and a group of 5 guys are doing their best to get it into the air without bumping into the balloon next to them. As soon as it’s fully inflated there’s a fire drill to get everyone inside as the thing doesn’t want to sit on the ground. Unfortunately they cram a bunch of people in there so you don’t have a ton of room. Next thing you know we’re up in the air.
They say the flight lasts about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how fast the winds are I guess. Regardless if definitely feels like it flies by. Our pilot was very Turkish, and he tried explaining to us some of the history of the scenery below us but his English wasn’t great. So here’s a quick summary. There are a ton of underground cities that were built starting around 1200 BC. People didn’t really live down there, but it was a network for people to get around conveniently and helpful if they came under attack. Also there are a ton of above ground rock houses that are carved into the rock. Not made of rock, into the rock. It’s pretty cool to see. Our guide was a balloon expert and would drop the thing to within 20 feet of the ground or some of these structures so we could see them close up. Very very cool.
The hour breezes by and it’s time to land. It was explained when we boarded that when the pilot says we’re landing, everyone crouches down into the thing and waits to land. So we do. Once that happens you really have no idea of your surroundings or how high you are. You do however totally know when you hit a tree. And maybe another tree, or several bushes? The wind was a little bit stronger than normal so I’m not sure if we under or over shot the landing but we hit some stuff, and the crew on the ground was running after us and apparently got dragged around through some farmer’s field. It was really pretty funny. And again, kinda sketchy. Incredibly worth it though, it’s the only way you can take in such an impressive landscape, not to mention the site of dozens and dozens of balloons across the horizon.
Our plan was to drive to Trabzon which is up on the northern coast of Turkey and right on the Black Sea. It was kind of an arbitrary place to go, and it turns out other teams were there or had been there before us. It was a 9 hour drive which is a little grueling on a car with a new engine. Doblo made it though. The drive was pretty cool. It sucks driving up these steep mountain passes because the little motor can’t handle it well, but the way down is a lot of fun. There was a point when I took over where they had laid down all new asphalt but it wasn’t marked. So what looked to be about 8 lanes worth of road with no demarcation was a little weird at first, but hell if there isn’t anyone around you can do whatever you want. The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful other than the fact that somehow our car had gotten several bees in it. One of the bees was giant and he was on the window in the backseat when I was riding back there. I’ve never been stung by a bee. Ever. I wasn’t about to let some dumb Turkish bee change that for me so I was trying to shoo him out the window but it wasn’t working. Next idea was to open the van door so the air would knock him out. It totally worked. Unfortunately my flip flop was right up against the door, so a few seconds after congratulating myself on solving the bee problem I realized I was missing one of them. So I didn’t get stung but I think the bee still won. Now I have to figure out where to get new flip flops because I don’t want to wear tennis shoes for the next 30 days in the desert. Also I’m not sure I even got the bee out. Once I switched to the driver seat – tennis shoes on now 🙁 – after a few minutes I felt something tickle the to of my ankle. The first time I figured it was a shoe lace. The second time it happened I assumed it was a bee. It was a bee. I screamed like a 15 year old girl and stuck my leg out of the window to get him off. Not everyone was thrilled with this, but it was still pretty funny.
We got into Trabzon and everyone immediately hated it. Like many Turkish cities it was crowded, traffic sucked, and it had a generally chaotic atmosphere. Not to mention it felt a little boring. We decided to figure out how to park the car somewhere, walk to a bar and discuss our options. Mitch and Goodman wanted to press on to Georgia. I most definitely did not. Everyone had their reasons and I think they made sense. I didn’t want to push the car, not to mention be in it for another 5+ hours and cross an insane border at night – and it was already 7 or so. They didn’t want to stay in a crappy city because it would definitely be a pain in the ass to figure out, and have to cross the border the next day when it was hot out. We were told to expect at least 2-3 hours, some teams were there considerably longer than that. Not to mention if we got into Batumi – which is another beach city, we would have the whole day to enjoy there. I was incredibly tired at this point, but conceded that their plan was fine. Especially since I got in the backseat and laid down.
The border was an absolute shit show. I guess they are building a new customs complex, and in the mean time their system makes zero fucking sense. Hundreds of cars are trying to clear Turkish customs and they literally had 2 windows. 1 for cars, 1 for semi trucks. I think we got to the window about 2-2.5 hours after we first got our car in line. There was trash everywhere, people yelling at each other, total chaos. Then it got really fun (not fun at all.) I was in the passenger seat at the time, and when we pulled up a border officer shined his flash light at me then pointed it to a giant line of people to the left. That line of people were clearly there for some bus tickets or something, I’m not sure. Didn’t look like a customs line. I got out and asked, he did the same. I started walking towards the line, by that time Mitch and Goodman had gotten out of the car as well. Thankfully another guy spoke some English and told me to stay with the car since it’s under my name and the other 2 had to go to the other line. I think he was a little more specific with his direction, but I’m not sure as I was trying to not be in the way any more. They walked away so quickly they didn’t grab their phones, so once we were separated I hoped there would be an easy way to get back together on the other side somehow.
Mitch makes fun of me for it and Rachel points it out too, it’s my time to shine when I have to talk to the cops, or with Rachel customer service people. Border officers are both, and I’m sure it’s a crappy job. I got through to the other side really quickly, didn’t have to have anything taken out of the car and searched, I was just overly friendly and kept showing everyone a map of where we were going. Now the Turkish customs and Georgia border are fucking massive. When I got through I had no idea where to find the other 2 or where they’d pop out. I drove past a bunch of people waiting for family or friends to cross – and everyone stairs, you get used to it – and just parked hoping they would see it. I was quite happy to see that as soon as you cross the border there are several small casinos and that meant wi-fi.
Unfortunately our TEP device doesn’t work in Georgia, I’m not sure how that system works but I don’t think they have a contract with anyone because it’s insanely expensive. Mitch has free calling/data through Sprint I think, and he looked it up to see if his phone would work and nope. Not only that, $5/minute for calls and $0.12 per kb of data. Holy shit. Of the 20 countries we’re going through our awesome badass hotspot (THANKS TEP!!) doesn’t work in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan or Mongolia. The first 3 we’re driving through in a row, so navigating is really interesting when all of a sudden you don’t have an easy way to do it. Anyway I got some free wi-fi to let Rachel know we made it across the border, and then we headed towards the hostel Goodman had booked for us before we hit the border. Thankfully Batumi was only a 20 minute drive from the border so the night was almost over. We found the hostel which was set up a little different than we’ve seen. There wasn’t a lobby, or a door to go in for that matter. It was probably 4 or so at this point so Goodman had to bang on a window loud enough to wake up the woman who was running it. After a few minutes of back and forth we were told they didn’t actually have a room for us, sorry. Fuuuuuuck.
This left us with a few options, none of them fun. Find another room somewhere – sucks because we would probably have to be up and out by 10am to figure out where to stay that day. Sleep in car – which would suck so hard. Drive around until we found somewhere to camp – which would also suck since the sun would be up in a few hours and sleeping in a tent when the sun is out is hard. We headed towards the beach assuming we could camp somewhere there. Again this is a lot harder to do when you can’t look up campgrounds or book anything with your phone. Ugh. We actually did come across a field of tents which looked pretty fucking sketchy, but that’s what we were left with. We had to drive waaaay down this street just to flip around, and as we’re doing this we see this beautiful building: A Hilton. Mitch is a gold member so he popped out of the car to use their wi-fi, and decided it was worth asking how much it would be to book the room with points. In the mean time Goodman and I jumped on a wi-fi spot we had found outside and were looking into hostels for the following day. I’m not sure what magic Mitch worked, but he was able to book a room for the following night with points he had, AND get an early check-in on the room – which would be now. Hallelujah, we were exhausted.
We pulled into the garage and headed up to pass out. We had been up since 4 the previous day on only a few hours of sleep. Long long long day, but at least when we got up we’d get to enjoy this beach town. Also I parked our car in the garage next to this awesome Maserati, hoping that the owner would walk down the next day and think WTF is this fucking thing doing next to my car.
