We are now in the final country of our Middle Eastern Adventure, but somehow Turkey no longer feels like the Middle East. In fact, Turkey feels extremely European, especially compared to Syria and Jordan (I think it is hard to compare anything to the wonderful maddness of Egypt).

Top of the Citadel in Cappadocia

Much to our delight our Syrian adventure was relatively calm and "event" free. The only problem we ended up having was on the final day as we were leaving. We had to get up at 4:30am for a bus to take us into Turkey. The bus was supposed to leave at 5am. So we showed up at the bus depot, and it turns out they had oversold the tickets. (Apparently another supposed bus broke down so they had to load everyone on to one bus). The driver and the on bus steward (truly they have them) literally kicked off a bunch of locals to give us their seats. Of course this made us really uncomfortable, people were crying and yelling for being kicked off. They didn't even have enough seats for the 6 of us, Shawn and Rami ended up standing and the trip was supposed to take 3 hours until we could switch buses. The strange thing was that there were people on the bus who didn't even have a ticket but they wouldn't get off and the driver wasn't going to make them get off. In the end Rami decided that it was way too difficult and that they couldn't stand for 3 hours, so we got off the bus, removed our bags and watched as our ride to Turkey drove away.
Rather then waiting 6 hours until the next bus we hired taxis to take us through the border. It was pretty comfortable until the taxi also piled in another man to join us and then proceeded to chain smoke the entire way. To top it off Shawn and I weren't feeling well from dinner the night before.
We made it to the border, then we had to wait for a an hour and a half while customs searched the bus we were supposed to be on. It was absolutely hilarious. Apparently people from Syria try to smuggle sugar in huge quantities into Turkey because it is so much cheaper in Syria. The customs guys search the bags and take away huge trolleys full of illegal goods (sugar, rice, nuts, cigarettes). Then the maintence guys (dressed in full blue suits) roll trolleys around the corner away from view of the customs guys and then re-load the bus with the confiscated goods. It is so funny to watch. There is absolutely no point in checking peoples bags because it all gets put back on the bus.
They checked our taxi's as well, and people were running and hiding green bags full of these confiscated goods (including gasoline) behind the barricades. When the customs guys weren't looking they were putting them back in the taxis. Even our taxi driver had loaded up some unknown green bags. Very dodgy and very funny. As we were driving out of the bay a guy came up and asked us to take his gasoline across for him. Luckily our driver decided we didn't have enough room. A chain smoking driver and a can of gasoline apparently don't mix. Our driver also demanded our passports at one point to go and buy cigarettes from duty free. The drivers buy them on their passengers passports and then re-sell them in Turkey and make huge profits. On a basis of principle Shawn and I refused which I think completely bewildered and upset our driver.
We were dropped off at another bus station where we transferred to a regular public bus and we continued for another 6 hours. The bus ride ended up being pretty fun, there was some really cute Turkish kids sitting in front of us who were really friendly. The steward also kept coming back and trying to talk to us in Turkish (very difficult language).
Our first night in Turkey was spent in the town of Nigde. It is a big university town and we finally had an opportunity to add our photos from the Syria leg.
The next day we were met by a Turkish guide who took us in a private bus to a monastery, a gorge hike, to the underground cities and to a carpet factory. I wasn't able to enjoy the day as much as I would have liked because I think I picked up a little "touch" of food poisoning from our last day in Syria (I wasn't alone in my suffering). The hike was beautiful, as was the monastery, but my mind was elsewhere. Shawn did manage to stay healthy despite a slightly upset stomach the night before (stronger gut). The underground city was 4 levels and went down for 55 meters. In its day it could hold up to 30 000 people and was generally used for protection/ to hide the christians from persecution. I don't think you could go down if you were clausterphobic, there was some really tight and narrow passage ways. There was even a tunnel that went for 9km and connected the city to a different underground city. Shawn went down a little, but the tunnel was blocked to prevent people from walking 9km and getting in to the city without paying. We personally thought that if someone was willing to walk 9km to avoid paying 4$ then they should get in for free.
After the underground city we went to a carpet factory and saw how traditional carpets are made. Generally it takes one person 1 year to weave 1 square meter. We were shown how the silk is taken from the cocoons, how the thread is dyed and we watched some women working on carpets. We were also shown how to tell different qualities of carpets and discern the difference from machine/ factory made and artisan quality. In the end we learned that good carpets cost a lot more then you would expect, the minimum carpet (and it wasn't very big) was $ 700.00. The carpet we liked was $3500.00...one day...

We ended our long day in the town of Goreme. I was feeling somewhat better, and we were happy that we have 3 nights in the same hotel. The hotel is a cave hotel, and parts of it have been carved into the rock. Shawn and I opted not to take a cave room because it didn't really have much of a view and it was pretty dingy.
Goreme is in the center of Cappadocia, an area covered in layers of lava that have eroded over time to create a stunning landscape of columns, hills and pillars. To make it even more stunning the different layers of volcanic material are different colours, so you have pink, yellow, white and even striped hills.
We had an early night, eating a traditional turkish meal and booking our scooters for the following day.
Today was the scootering adventure day. Shawn and I rented these scooters and spent the day running around the region exploring little villages and finding hikes into the hills. You can also rent mountain bikes but you wouldn't get too far before realizing that the distances are too great (too many hills) to see much of the countryside. Scootering was so much fun. Shawn is way more confident and way faster then me, but he is a good sport and keeps cheering me on. There are parts of the road that are made with large paving stones, so they are really uneven and somewhat scary on a scooter. As the day progressed I did get much more confident. The only bad thing was that being on the scooter you forget how hot it is, and we both ended up with sun burns.
We took the scooters into one little village and drove down a dirt road until we had to park the bikes. We then hiked into the Red Rose valley, where the hills are all pink. The hike was great but Shawn and I ended up going a little bitt "off the beaten path" ( I said lost but Shawn disagreed). As we were hiking we were following arrows that seemed to be placed on the rocks pointing backwards. There was a local guy in the valley waving at us to come towards him but we thought he was trying to sell us a coke (which is way to expensive in turkey, $2.00 each). We ended up following the backwards arrows up the massive slope. When we reached the top Shawn said "do you think he was trying to show us the right path?". We looked down and saw this little path running right past his fields and it didn't look as steep as the path we chose. Our path also wound around the entire hillside. We could see the little valley we had walked up in moving farther and farther away, but we couldn't find a pathway down. We ended up cutting across some fields, slipping down a water chute and then jumping off a little ledge into another field before we found our way back to our bikes. The whole affair took us about 3 hours, but we came came out 50 meters from our bikes. Not bad for my poor sense of direction.
We then rode the bikes down to a little cafe to have a cold drink. There was a British guy there who was very well travelled and very friendly. In the end we learned about all the different seeds he was taking back to London to plant in his garden (he had a pocket full) and received this recipe that we are supposed to give our parents (this is as verbatem as we can remember):

Create a concoction of the following
Lavender Oil
Mustard Oil
Baking Soda

Rub into your feet from the ankles downward, at least 3 times each week, preferable up to 7 times a week. Make sure you cover your feet with socks after application of the oil. Feet are the most important part of your body, in fact they are more important then your head. You need to take care of your feet, because without them what would you do? This remedy will improve circulation and repair the damaged ligaments that you have from years of using your feet. This is the key to a long and prosperus life.

It was pretty funny, we left giggling the whole way back to town. You meet all kinds when you travel.

Tonight we are heading off to a cave dinner with a Turkish family. Apparently they usually cook couscous so we are really looking forward to it.
Tomorrow we are hopefully going to find a Turkish bath (on scooters of course).
We will probably next update this site in Istanbul in a few days. We are glad to get everyones comments!

5:00 am watching our ride to Turkey leave us at the bus depot

Feeling ill in the underground city

Silk worm cocoons at the carpet factory

Spinning/ displaying carpets

Scootering!

Cappadocia

Views from the Rose Valley hike

Shawns view