Day 27: I whip my hair back and forth

Miles: 140
Countries: Turkey
Stops: Konya-ish -> Cappadocia
Playlists: Epic Songs (Spotify)

We woke up early enough to be happy with our progress and potential start to the day only to somehow lose 2 hours sitting at the gas station restaurant drinking tea and coffee.

We packed up the car and felt we had to mourn our last comrade that flew out the window yesterday. We built a cross out of sticks, put on the remaining moose head, and bid our farewells.

It was a fun ride of wailing as per usual at the top of our lungs and as off key as possible. We rolled into Cappadocia and at first didn't get it when we only saw the modern looking city.

Then we got it. I know I've said this before, but seriously, there were no words. We actually turned off the music and drove in silence taking it all in. We've never seen anything like it. The entire city was built IN the mountains. Picture an episode of The Hobbit with the dwarves. Just rock and holes in the rock for windows and doors. Entire city.

We got set up in our campground where the host was great. He took us around, drove us to the mechanic where we had a sump guard installed to protect the underbelly of the car, took us to a barber where Justind finally got his Turkey shave (and the most meticulous shave ever including a full head, arm, and back massage!?), fed us (pottery kebab!), and drew out what he thought was worth seeing most. He is such a Mongol Rally fan with all his trinkets from previous teams. It's hard to tell if he's gouging us on pricing with various things (like the mechanic or hot air balloons where he claims he fought for the cheapest price but is probably taking a cut) or if it's legitimately the prices, but he's been amazing regardless! This campsite was recommended by other teams, although admittedly "basic" services: Justin and I had a good laugh that it offers a list of services on the brochure but only about 3 of the 12 points were actually accurate. Wifi? Not working most of the time. 24/7 hot water? No water at all until 8pm. Toilets and showers? Laundry machines? See water note above. The restaurant and the hospitality was fantastic and he really took care of us today. But hey, if we wanted luxury, we would've booked a hotel. The only thing that bothered me is the 6 months old puppy tied to the same tree since we got here at 11am and still out there howling at midnight because "she likes it". I can handle everything else :(

With our car all set up for off-roading now, we tested it by doing exactly that. Google says the highway is the quickest? Let's take the long route uphill. It started raining and we went through deep puddles, up and down steep hills, and got some awesome drone footage of just our car in the middle of this incredible scenery. The car is now so filthy, you can barely see the painting - Justin had a blast, and No Ragrets really pulled through! Seriously, not even going to try to put words to what we saw today though because it won't do justice. We even stopped taking pictures at one point because looking at those pictures, it did nothing. It didn't even compare to what we were actually looking at.

We got back from sight seeing and went to grab food and drinks. We met up with friends and had some good laughs tonight. Stayed up a little later than planned since we have to be up at 4am. They offered us their honeymoon suite to use their Hamam, but we figured we'll wait for the full experience with the full massage rather than imposing on their room, as sweet as the offer was. It was great seeing them and we hope to run into them again, but as we have completely different routes, it is unlikely. Best of luck, honeymooners!

On our walk home from the restaurant as it started spwinkling (Justin HAD to pick the furthest restaurant on the steepest hill from our tent), we saw another Mongol Rally team parked outside. We took a picture and posted online, hopefully we find out who it is!

All in all, excellent day and really love this place. Definitely nothing like anything we've ever seen before.

Fingers crossed weather cooperates and we can go hot air ballooning tomorrow - Cappadocia is the hot air balloon capital and you can never know until morning of. So here's to hoping the 4am wake up call is worth it! And here's to our first night in a tent vs the car!