Lake Tuz: Turkey's Great Salt Lake

Rather by accident, on the way from Ankara to Cappadocia, we came across an enormous salt lake - Lake Tuz.  There were hundreds of people walking its shores as the sun set.  Our feet became encrusted with salt.  With the light reflecting off the shallow water, it looked as if we were walking on top of the water.

Yediggoller: Our adventure with a broken oil pan.

40 kilometers outside of Bolu, Turkey is a small National Park called Yedigöller.  The park itself is a series of small lakes surrounded by dozens of campsites popular for weekend picnics and parties.  This story is not really about the park; it is about our three day long adventure to get there.

You might be thinking: three days to get 40km?  How slow were you driving?

The problem is that we were driving a little too fast.

We left Bolu in the late afternoon, and because we wanted to get there before dark we were driving a bit faster than we should have been.  As we came around a corner on the dirt road we hit a rock in the road and busted a hole in our oil pan.  I knew immediately what had happened.

We pulled over to the side of the road and threw a bowl under the oil pan to capture most of the oil.  Upon inspection the oil pan had a hole approximately 4cm in diameter.  It was clear the car was not going to be moving without a tow truck or a patch-job.

We were pretty stressed.

With the help of a young couple who passed by shortly after, we got a ride out of the forest.  They were not going back to Bolu where we were staying, but we did not want to risk getting stranded in the forest with no supplies.  They took us to a town to the north on the other side of the mountains from Bolu, where they handed us over to the Turkish National Guard.  The National Guard did their best to try and help us with our situation.  In the end they even got us a free hotel room for the night.  The next morning the bought us bus tickets to Bolu.

Once in Bolu our troubles were far from over.  We now were able to get our stuff from our couch-hosts house, but we still needed to get back to our car and figure out how to get it running.  We did not want to pay the money to have a tow-truck go the 30 kilometers there and back, so we had to come up with another plan.

Javier immediately thought of something he had seen so many times in Mexico.  What if we plugged the hole?  Could we then make it back to town?  We set off to buy a few supplies.  We figured that with some sheet metal and metal epoxy we might be able to cover the hole sufficiently.  The next problem was getting back to the car.

There is very little traffic to Yedigöller, but our only reasonable option to get there was to hitchhike.  We got to the edge of town and started thumbing.  The going was VERY slow.  We had to walk many kilometers between rides.  We were lucky to have a few phrases written down in Turkish explaining our situation.  People felt bad for us when they read our paper, which helped our chances.

The last 10 kilometers or so were in a car with a family going to picnic in Yedigöller.  They dropped us off at our car and wished us luck (at least that's what we gather considering they spoke none of the same languages as us).  

The afternoon was spent covering the hole in the oil pan.  We cleaned off the oil, sand-papered the outer surface, and began the process of closing the holes and cracks.  Using the epoxy I attached carefully cut pieces of the sheet metal to the pan.  I used copious amounts of epoxy making sure that all the cracks were covered.  All that was left to do was wait overnight for the work to dry.

We awoke the next morning and examined the earlier day's work.  It seemed well sealed and was completely dry.  It was time to put in the oil and hope it would work.

After filling the engine with oil and starting the car, we took our time monitoring the oil pan.  There was no rush.  Only when were were confident that the patch would hold and was not leaking too much did we move.

Since we were only a few kilometers from Yedigöller we decidedwe might as well go and check it out.

We walked around the lake exploring the plants and wildlife.  It was beautiful - maybe not so beautiful to be worth the trouble - but very nice nonetheless.

After only a couple hours we returned to the car to begin the drive back to Bolu.  We were happy with the condition of the patch, but we decided to go slow and check it periodically.  Over the 40 kilometers, we stopped several times to check the pan.  There was a slight leak, but we were not overly concerned about it.  We got to the final ridge overlooking Bolu, and we knew that we were  going to make it.

This is when we started to notice that there was a car following us.  This car had been behind us on the dirt road for a while, but we did not think anything of it.  Once we were in town and this car started to take the same turns as us, we became concerned.  Soon a police car joined and signaled for us to pull over.

We pulled over and the officers came to speak with us.  They did not speak English, so the two men from the civilian car that followed us translated for them.  They first asked Javier what he did for work - to which Javier responded, "I am a researcher."  The two civilian men seemed very happy with this response.  They then asked me what I do for work - which at the time was studying at university.  They asked me what I studied, and I told them forestry.  They were very happy about this answer as well.

At this point there was nothing that could have prepared us for what came next.  They told us they would need to search our car.  We did not really care about this, but we wanted to know why.  What did they tell us?  They told us that they knew we were foreign biology researchers, and they knew we were illegally collecting biological samples. 

This was too funny to handle.

We let them search our messy car filled with pasta and Swiss cookies while we tried to explain that we were not researchers.  We showed them our oil pan, and we explained the reason we were at Yedigöller was not to collect samples.

In the end, the police were so upset with these two civilians (who were university professors of biology) that they made them take us to get help fixing our oil pan.  They spent the next couple hours translating for us and helping us get a good deal on repairs.  They felt like idiots.  We were smiling from ear to ear.

Istanbul

Istanbul is everything you would expect.  Exotic smells wafting from restaurant doors; brightly colored scarves and rugs hanging in the bazaars; and the gorgeous geometric patterns of the mosques and buildings.  It is an enormous city filled with noisy pedestrian streets and quiet corners.  You can eat fish sandwiches under the Galata Bridge, or some of the world's finest pistachio and walnut baklava with some chewy Turkish ice cream.  It is a spectacular city to explore, and you could spend weeks doing so.

Ceiling of the Blue Mosque

The Galata Bridge

Galata Tower

The Grand Bazaar

The Blue Mosque

Bulgaria

When we entered Bulgaria, our first stop was the beautiful Rila monastery pictured above.  We continued that same evening to Sophia, where we stayed with a really generous young man who had the most uncomfortable couch we have ever slept on.

Sophia is a simple city with some beautiful buildings.  There is not a lot to see in this city; it is not as extravagant or architecturally sophisticated as many western European cities.  But the day we spent there was sunny and clear, and we enjoyed our walk.

We next visited Plovdiv.  Our drive to the center of Bulgaria was marked by an enormous increase in the humidity.  The air was thick.  Plovdiv is a very cute town with some nice ruins and plazas.

We then crossed north over the mountains to Veliko Tarnovo.  Unlike Plovdiv which has the architectural feel of the Austral-Hungarian empire, Veliko Tarnova feels more like the Ottoman empire.  We had a wonderful tour by a friend of our hosts, including a trip to the medieval fortress of Tsarevets.

The Chalkidiki Penninsula

After a couple evenings in the city of Thessaloniki, we ventured down into the Chalkidiki
Peninsula.  This peninsula has three long thin lobes on its southern end called "the three legs" by the Greeks.  These three fingers are all different.  Going from west to east each one is more isolated than the next.  The first lobe - furthest west - is very touristic and developed.  The middle lobe is fairly wild, but has many quiet hotels along the beaches.  The lobe furthest to the east is a highly protected series of monasteries that are forbidden for women to visit. 

We of course could not visit the third lobe together, so we decided to check out the middle lobe.  We drove the whole thing, looking for some beach that we could go down to.  The hotels are hidden by the forest, so it is difficult to figure out which road to take.  We took our chances with a random road, and it worked out brilliantly for us.  The beach we found was so quiet and still.  The water seemed to have an extraordinary amount of salt.  You could lay on top of the water with ease.  We were only accompanied by a few Russians who were also enjoying the water.

Paros, Naxos, and Santorini

The beautiful Cyclades - we could have spent an eternity hopping from island to island, laying on beaches, and driving through scrubby terrain.  We chose to visit Paros, Naxos, and Santorini.

Paros and Naxos are less touristic than Santorini.  They are situated very close to each other, and it is only a short boat ride between the two.  On Paros we rented bikes and spent our time navigating the whole island.  We rented a room for really cheap and were fortunate to have a small kitchenette to cook on.

On Naxos we decided to forgo the bikes and rent a four-wheeler.  This was a blast.  We spent all our time zooming around the most remote parts of the island with the wind in our hair.

Santorini is much more touristic, but there is a reason for this.  It is absolutely breathtaking, and while the other islands were also very stunning, this island just tops them all.  The island is the remains of a volcanic caldera.  A crescent moon - sloped down to the sea on its outer curve and ending in an abrupt cliff on its inner curve.

We stayed with a South Korean woman who was working on the island for the summer.  Each day we would drive around on the four-wheeler we rented.  Going to one side of the island to play in the surf of the blood red beach, visit the lighthouse, or enjoy the black sand beach.  We would rush to the other side of the island to watch the sunset from Oia.  Our days there were unprecedented.