The Boy with the Moon and the Star on his Head

I am sitting on the Turkish/Georgian border, with probably an eight hour wait to cross the into Georgia, writing this blog. We are enjoying our wait with four Italians (one who is serenading us with Star Wars, Pink Panther etc on his trombone) and two Suisse and some other English people all doing the Mongol Rally.

I was up early this morning Andy was still slumbering as a result of his late retirement to bed the previous night in order to reach the deadline for posting his blog. He had disturbed me briefly in the night, to do his necessary ablutions. Eventually he surfaced, I asked him if he had seen another Mongol Rally Car had arrived when he went to the loos “No, he said, I pissed up against a tree”! We went to the bar area to have a coffee and upload his blog, he struggled using his computer so emailed me the blog and I used good old faithful iPad to upload his blog, l hope you enjoyed it!

After two coffees we packed our things and while we were packing I noticed that one of the pine trees was wilting, I asked Andy which tree he had used in the night and he confessed it was the one that was wilting. That’s the last of our risqué Jokes haha.

We left the campsite and headed East, our target for the day was Trablazon a good 300 miles. The roads were amazing, tremendous engineering, part of the road was built by what looked like the hill being cut down to make the surface for the road. Some of the highway was built out into the sea. It frankly put our road system in the U.K. to shame.

We saw much of the same along the cost, obviously an area that was wealthier than central Turkey, coastal towns that seemed very vibrant and house scattered along the cost line.

We encountered our first police check, as we approached the stopping area I slowed down expecting to have to produce all our documents and being delayed on our trip. At the last minute the Police Officer waved us on, I can only assume that he saw our registration and did not want to battle through the language barrier.

Today was a long haul, Andy while acting as the co driver decided he wanted to clean his finger.He promptly wound the window down while were travelling at 60 mph and poured water on his finger, I received my second shower of the day!!!

Time and miles passed us by and by mid afternoon we decided to have a change of driver and a pit stop. We stopped at a garage and found a restaurant next door, where a delightful young waitress helped us get onto the Internet. We ordered two coffees, the manager came over and started talking to us in broken English and persuaded us to have some food which reaped benefits later. On the table next to us was a boy with a moon and star on his head. Which reminded me of one of Cat Steven’s hit songs. The family showing their patriotism after the recent events, which was also apparent throughout Turkey with national flags adoring just about every building and car. They were delighted when we asked for a photo shoot.

The boy with the moon and star on his head

Along the route we occasionally pass fellow ralliers and toward the end of our day we drew up next to the Italian and Suisse cars at a set of traffic lights. A brief discussion resulted us in deciding to set up came together. So we drove in convoy, we knew exactly where the Italians were as the exhaust on their car was rattling so badly it sounded like it would drop off.

Several attempts at finding a camp site ended in failure, at one point we were discussing our options at a fuel station. Andy came up with the bright idea that we could set up camp on the forecourt of the petrol station and cook with the lights of the petrol pumps using our Primus stoves. It was given due consideration bug a health and safety risk assessment knocked that one on the head.

We decided to head for the border and arrived at 12 midnight facing a long wait. However, entertainment was provided by the Italians which helped pass the night away, more detail in Andy’s next blog.