Greetings from Istanbul, Türkiye! The destination that almost never happened. Our first attempt to cross the border just west of Edirne, Türkiye failed with the customs agent sending us back to Bulgaria via the “Reverse Drive of Shame”. He tried (not very hard) to explain… “Improper Documentation”. Considering that western Türkiye was the overwhelming objective of this trip, and we just drove 2500 km’s to this border, you can imagine our feelings of frustration, disappointment, confusion, depression and even some hyper-ventilation.  

We limped into the back parking lot of a brand new and  huge casino just inside Bulgaria. A little frayed from the four hour ordeal with Turkish customs, and hungry too, we ventured into the casino for a late night bite to eat. Here our luck began to change. We walked to the back of the large casino and asked about a possible restaurant. Yes of course, over to the right. It turns out that this lovely no-charge buffet was for guests of the hotel only. We said thank you but we’re not hotel guests and started to leave when all three attendants said; no-no-no! please help yourself, no charge. It was a delicious four course meal with only a smile and a big thank-you for remuneration. Bulgaria is a beautiful developing country and now rates high on our list for obvious reasons.   

The next morning we drove south to Alexandroupolis, Greece on the Aegean Sea to think things through for a day or two. I was not prepared to give-up our dream so easily and therefore contacted a Turkish embassy to get a proper explanation as to why we were turned back. It turns out that we had virtually everything we needed except written permission from the rental company to bring this German motorhome into Turkiye with my Canadian Passport. A quick e-mail to Dumo and within a couple of hours we had the authorization document needed. Our campground by the sea printed it for us and the following day we breezed through the five checkpoints and into Turkiye with ease. 

We’ve now traveled enough to know and expect that challenging glitches will happen when on the road but, nothing beats that feeling of joy and exhilaration when overcoming them, and moving on.

Our drive south through Romania and Bulgaria were quick but interesting. The people friendly and the rural country side beautiful; although leaning slightly on the underdeveloped side. We really enjoyed our stop and stay at Bran Castle in Romania. You’ll recognize this famous castle from the “Legends of Dracula”. It was a very cool and real castle but infested with crazy tourists from everywhere, unlike us.   

Istanbul has turned out to be a complete sensation explosion from the crazy drive in to walking the frenzied streets, markets and tourist attractions. We parked at a campground stellplatz within walking distance (up and down hills) of just about every major attraction in Istanbul. So far we’ve walked about 35 km’s of these wild and hectic streets in the past few days and have covered just about everything that was on our list.  

Rather than driving out of Istanbul as we head south, we decided to take the ferry (that is very close to our location) across the MARMAra Sea to Yalova.  From there we’ll be heading past the Rainbow Hills to Ankara and then onward to the world famous areas of Nevsehir and Cappadocia.  Fingers crossed for finding more desperately needed propane and NO MORE GLITCHES!