Day 138 - 19th September, Saturday, Turkey.

Another fantastic day. Absolutely love Turkey, especially the people.
We set off early morning with the intention of finding the port in the next major town of Alanya to see if they had ferries to Cyprus. Turns out they only have foot passenger ferries, so we started the long drive to Tasucu where we were told they run daily.
We passed endless banana plantations, followed by resort hotels with their donkey-led camel rides and posh swimming pools, then more banana farms and locals collecting firewood and selling Turkish tea by the roadside.
By the time we had reached the top of the mountains a storm was starting and some very dark clouds loomed above us. We pushed on, but the rain became too heavy, so we took shelter in a roadside cafe owned by Mustafa. Then sat out the storm ‘talking’ (more like playing Charades!), drinking tea, playing his traditional Turkish lyre (can’t pronounce the proper name for it) and learning some Turkish words from Mustafa’s English-Turkish dictionary.
We set off again under lighter rain and paler clouds and followed the coast road up, down and round the mountains, until the road was replaced by gravel, rocks and red dust! We continued on, through villages with waving children, past fruit sellers and tea drinkers until eventually we came across the inevitable... a serious car crash. The police were just recovering the remains of the cars from the forest as we pulled up. It didn’t look good at all, but given that most European drivers will overtake on blind bends, on sheer cliff edges, we were bound to see disaster sooner or later.
We found the port of Tasucu just before dark, only to discover that due to the Muslim holiday of Bayram, no ferries are running until Tuesday evening. Gutted. We were hoping to be in Cyprus for Ant’s mum’s birthday on Monday. We drove back into town to find the ticket office anyway, but that too was already closed for the holiday. The kind manager of the restaurant next door called his friend, the Director of the ferry company, to see if he could make a booking for us for Tuesday night. Such hospitality – we love Turkey.
So we then had a lovely meal in his restaurant before heading back to the beach to camp – we will find out Tuesday lunchtime whether we are booked or not.