The day was beautifully sunny again and we set off from Goreme for the 90 minute drive to Ihlara with our American friends from the day before, Bob and Lynnea, and a good mix of experienced travellers.The guide today, Rosebud (Gonja in Turkish, and the only reason I remember her name is that it sounds like the dirty weed smoked by West Indians), demonstrated the hilarious guiding humour evident throughout Turkey by highlighting the cheapest 'hotel' in Cappadocia ...

The morning started sedately with a 0930 pick up from the hotel to take our intimate group of 9 for a botany, geography and history tour of the Rose Valley.Rose Valley is a large valley situated between Goreme and Cavusin villages, is divided into many smaller valleys, and gets its name from the rose-colored rock that varies in hue and intensity depending on time of day, season and weather conditions.It is famous for its amazing and unique landscape, cave dwellin...

The Deniz Atlanta hotel is the pits; the carpets are filthy; the layout is a joke; the services are suspect; the staff are incredibly lazy.We arrived at breakfast early to find no bread, no glasses and no staff as they were sat in their little staff room having a natter.The dining room looked like it had just been infested by a locust plague of biblical proportions all of which had detonated thermonuclear devices on the way through.And the staff were still sat in...

I'm pleased to report that we have power, lights and hot water this morning so I'm no longer Mr Grumpy.I'm also sad to report though that I have nothing worth mentioning today as I had a 'lazy day' in the hotel catching up with the blog whilst Maria carried on planning the rest of our trip.She did pop out to buy supplies for our carpet picnic in the evening and came back looking very pleased with herself for buying me yoghurt, olive bread and some tasty little ...

I got up at 0630 this morning as we needed to get our visas from the Mongolian Embassy, which is the only reason for coming to Ankara in the first place.No hot water!If anyone knows me, then they know that I can't abide a cold water shower, so, none to chuffed, I strolled downstairs from the 7th floor to find the same useless chap telling me there was a problem!I was in a temper and let him know it, even calling him stupid, but it all seemed to wash over him, '...