We woke up to a strong wind yesterday morning, so we decided to get on the road right away at 7:00am in order to get through the congestion at the city of Samandag. We did hit some traffic on the bypass around Antakya, and didn't stop for breakfast until almost 9:00am.
Once past Antakya, it was pretty clear sailing...
Not much traffic.
Max even got to use his cruise control for a while.
We had the mountains on one side, and a wide farming valley on the other side.
Not often we see actual residential housing properties.
Most Turks live in apartments.
Lots of farmland.
Growing a wide variety of crops.
We had to drive through several large towns.
And the towns were not spaced very far apart. So while it was clear sailing in between, it was actually pretty slow going through the towns. And we seemed to get stopped at every single traffic light!
Stopped at a red light.
This town obviously grows peppers!
Lots of agriculture.
We finally made it to the fairly large city of Kahramanmaraş. Known to the locals as simply "Marash". Population 560,000.
We were running low on cash, and needed to find an ATM. Our Canadian bank has an agreement with TEB Bank here in Turkiye where we pay no extra fees, so we were lucky to be able to find one at a big shopping mall that we were driving right by anyhow.
I had read about a resort up in the mountains that is open year round and has a lot of hiking trails. It sounded like it was right up our alley, and so we drove up there. But I didn't realize quite how "up" it was! We climbed and climbed and arrived at the Başkonuş Yaylası Forest Resort to find ourselves at 1,310 meteres (4,300') altitude.
But that's fine... while there is some snow still on the ground, the temperature is about 15C (60F) and it's is sunny. Perfect weather for spring hiking. Still cool overnight, but we are plugged into electric!
Camping here costs 50 lira ($4.25 CAD, $3.40 USD) per night, electric included.
Heading into the mountains.
Beautiful scenery.
Still going uphill.
Traces of snow at the side of the road.
More snow.
View out our side window at 7:30am this morning.
Looking forward to spending the day outside. Hoping to show you some beautiful photos tomorrow!
Yesterday's drive 255 kms (158 miles).
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And in Canada...
Another beautiful area. What a great price on the camping with electric.
ReplyDeleteWe are really loving this area, so much so we are going to stay a third night.
DeleteIt is hard to go wrong with that price and it is a well maintained resort, the bathrooms are clean, the people are friendly and they have super cheap ice cream bars. :-)
Love the big red peppers, not only as a roadside deco but in reality. I find the big crunchy red peppers quite delicious and full of flavour. I do mean the ones used in salad not the chilli peppers 🤣.
ReplyDeleteWe like the ones you are talking about as well, I buy them all the time.
DeleteSeveral of the towns had traffic circles similar to that one. One had a brunch of grapes as the deco and another had an ice cream cone, I can't believe that we drove right by that town without stopping in but we had to put in a long day of driving as it was.