June 13, 2009 – Day 170 – Goreme, Turkey

Sixteen traveling hours total today but we finally, happily arrived in Goreme (the main town in Cappadocia). Had some trouble locating a cheap hostel and ended up staying at this fabulous place called Blue Moon Motel & Pansion.

Tasty Turkish Pides

After finding such a delightful place and having a much needed uber-glorious shower, we went across the street to a nice restaurant with great food. We stuffed ourselves on Turkish pides, a combo dish of 4 cold appetizers, fresh baked bread, and Turkish tea all to the tune of about $10 pp. Granted this is what we normally spend in a whole day on food but we hadn’t actually had a single meal today (a small bag of mixed nuts for the entire day doesn’t really count) so our finances didn’t really scream too loudly about this little “splurge.”

After an enormous dinner, we retreated back across the street to the hotel’s rooftop bar and drank the first beer we’ve had since Egypt. The national brand is a blond called Efes and is quite tasty. The air was chilly, probably seeming more so than otherwise coming from the blistering desert heat for the last couple of months. But even so it was nice to look out on a beautiful night, drink a beer and have goosebumps from the chilly air instead of sweating our brains out!

Saben was in withdrawl

Travel Tip:

The Blue Moon Motel is a a wonderful, extremely nice but modestly priced outfit. Compared to the hostel we intended to stay at (dorm, $13), we got an incredible bargain. We got a double room with TV, A/C, in room wifi, the best shower since Costa Rica, a decent view, a full breakfast on the rooftop and the rarest commodity—towels– all for $16 and it was located right in town across from a great restaurant, 2 minutes walking distance from a post office, plenty of other nice restaurants and souvenir shops and about 5 minutes from a mini mart. Their website it www.bluemoonmotel.net and the manager is a super nice guy that will not hesitate to help you in any way he can.