Hi Everyone,

So today is our last day in Turkey as tonight we head to Istanbul on an overnight bus then straight on to Bulgaria. The heavens have opened this morning which is always a good sign its the right time to be leaving. We have loved Turkey and the thought of no more Iskender Kebabs, Turkish Breakfasts, Apple Tea and being woken up at 5am by the man in the mosque singing the call to prayer is very sad.

The last few days since our last update have been lovely. From Olympos we headed to Egirdir a small town perched on one of Turkeys biggest lakes. We had planned to do some walking but were too lazy so spent two days looking out over the beautiful turquoise lake and reading book after book. It was very nice to be in a place that felt much more rural and we didn't see any other foriegners the whole time we were there.

From there we headed to Goreme in Cappadocia, where we are now, which looks like something from a Dali painting. Millions of years ago the two nearby volcanoes were active and covered the entire region with a 200 metre layer of volcanic tuff. A few million years later this tuff, which is very soft, was eroded by water and wind to leave behind some fantastic formations. Caves in these formations were used by early christians to hide so there are hundreds of churces with brightly coloured frescoes built into the landscape. There are also thousands of cave dwellings - one of which has been our home for the last few nights. Our cave which is built into a so called 'fairy chimney' is not quite as basic as it sounds with its carpet and attached bath but it is magical all the same.

Our first day here we headed to the Goreme Open Air Museum which surrounds the best preserved of the churches then had a walk down Love Valley where some of the most impressive, but rather phallic, formations are. Yesterday we went to visit an Underground City which was again used to hide Christians during war. The one we visited was a maze of tunnels and chambers which could house 20,000 people, the biggest in the region. We also went for a walk down the rather impressive Lhara Canyon and visited a Caravan Serai. These are rather grand 700 year old camel hotels used to house the camels and traders making the four year journey down the silk road.

If I can manage to upload the photos, which at the moment are not playing ball, I am sure you will agree that this place is incredibly impressive.

So I'll leave it there to go and shout at the computer a bit more. Hope you are all keeping well and we will be in touch soon.

All the best

Laura and Gareth