Day 86: Nemrut Tour Day 1

It was an early start but it wasn't long before we left Cappadocia behind and headed east.  First stop was one of the Seljuk caravanserais at Karatayhan.  While the caravanserai itself wasn't in the best condition (it's waaaaay off the beaten track so it doesn't get the tourist dollars that some of the others do), it was a fantastic reminder that I was actually traveling along the Silk Road!

A good few hours more driving through the absolute middle of nowhere along bumpy and dusty roads brought us to Kahramanmaras, home of Turkey's "world famous" ice cream (says who?).  After sucking in dust for the past couple of hours, we were all looking forward to getting rid of the chalky taste in our mouths, and I have to admit the ice cream was AMAZING!  It's apparently made from goat's milk and had a creamy, buttery taste.  It was extremely rich and we could hardly get through the scoop we'd each been given.  The most interesting thing about the ice cream was its consistency: it's made with so much gooey binder that it can withstand the summer heat, and it was so hard we had to eat it with a knife and fork!

By nightfall we'd made our way to Kahta, a small town near Nemrut Dagi National Park.  We had a swim at the hotel, ate an early dinner, and bedded down for for a few hours sleep as we had a 3am start the next morning.

Nevyn and I polish off a bottle of Turkish wine at the hotel.