At the campsite we were staying at in Cappadocia a large overland truck arrived with about 20 people on their way to Australia over the next 5 months. Unfortunately when there are a large number of people in the same campsite you have to share precious things like hot water and water pressure. You also invariably get yourself into at least one Mexican tooth-brushing stand-off. If somebody starts brushing his / her teeth before you, you can reasonably assume that they will finish before you and nobody will judge the other’s tooth-brushing habits. What really happens is both of you continue brushing for far longer than you would normally, each waiting for the other person to stop so that in your mind you can congratulate yourself on how well you were brought up, and how unhygienic the other person is. Or maybe it’s just me, and everybody else in the world really does brush for 3 minutes, spit, then continue for another three.

The people who own the campsite also run a ballooning school, with about 20 hot air balloons and Land Cruisers to tow them. Still trying to redeem myself from being conned so easily by an almond salesman I decided to use some initiative and see if I could speak to the guy who services them. You know you’ve found a decent mechanic when his friend is rugby tackled by another guy and rather than helping him to his feet he checks his oily, looks at you and laughs (this is when you’re minding your own business and somebody humiliates you by sticking their fingers up your bum to check your oily). While we were waiting for the oil to drain during the service he went and got some tea for us and we then spent some time watching his friend proudly showing off his Chevrolet Impala, revving it to show how the engine makes the whole 2 ton, 5.2 metre long tank shudder. The mechanic was adamant that the oil we’ve been using is the wrong stuff and the reason we’ve been going through so much. The beast then had its first wash in a while, with a floor brush and high pressure hose and I was shown his Land Cruiser – 4.2 Litre with 4 massive spot lights on the roof and front and rear diff-locks etc, etc. I grunted and thumbed up in the right places and pointed to ours and said “baby one”, which is apparently the funniest joke in Turkey at the moment. As I was leaving he ran back to his car and came back with a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne for me to take home. Probably a first since cars were invented. The service cost us 300 Lira (about £110 including oil and filters).

We went to see an underground city, discovered in 1978 by the same guy who tried to sell us stuff at the curio shop outside (proven by a photo of him in the book he wanted to sell us, even offering to sign it). This was spectacular, with little tunnels leading to bigger chambers underground, with massive circular rock doors to roll into place and protect them from attack if they were discovered. Real Indiana Jones stuff if you can take screaming hyperventilating busloads of other tourists out of the equation.

He gave us directions to an old church out of the way, where we were greeted by a strange tour guide bringing out tea and biscuits and “dried grapes” and we knew there was going to be some money changing hands later. The church was spectacular – originally it was all underground, but some of the hill had collapsed exposing it to the outside world. He showed us where the pigeons were kept for email, the winery and various other interesting things. With the church tour over he took me to see his “tunnel”, effectively another “underground city” untouched by the Turkish board of tourism. In I stupidly went with my torch, first crouching, and later on hands and knees, and was treated to a long corridor, with no lights for tourists, plenty of spider webs, and once I reached the first chamber and saw collapsed areas leading to the maze of chambers below, and the bone of a dead animal, plenty of imagination.

At the campsite (Kaya Camping) we met Thomas and Susanne (http://www.abenteuer-seidenstrasse.eu), a lovely German couple who are travelling the Silk Road, heading east on their motorbikes. A bus arrived on our last night and created a wild panic as everybody else raced to get to the showers before all the hot water was used up by the hordes of passengers. Their fears were unjustified as the bus is home to another German couple, their two toddlers and dog. They have been travelling from India. We had a great last night chatting over a couple of drinks with Thomas and Susanne, before wishing each other safe travels.