Saturday, 4 August 2012

Schoolboy error

So making our way from Valencia to Turkey ended up being a bit of an ordeal. We boarded a bus in Valencia at 9.30pm which took us to Almansa by 11pm. Little did we know before we arrived that Soria was in the middle of nowhere with no bus station. As such, We were left sitting on a bench for 2 and a half hours waiting for our connecting bus which finally pulled up at 1.30am. We arrived at Madrid airport at 6 in the morning where we found a quietish corner to, in proper backpacking style, lay out our sleeping bags on a solid concrete floor and get a few more needed hours sleep. As we prepared ourselves to board our next flight, we were soon told that we had booked the wrong flight. And by we, I mean me, Oscar. In the confusion of trying to book two weeks of flights, busses and accommodation,  I had accidentally clicked the 31st of August instead of July. So crisis aversion mode ensued. We went to four desks asking for various flights, all either booked or over €500 euros. Not really an option. Next we found a Internet station and spent 30 minutes looking at all the options. Finally, using a website called costasur.com, we were able to get a plethora of busses all connecting and finally getting us to Toulouse. Totaling €100 euros, we were paying the price for my mistake. The upside is we were still going to make our flight to Turkey, even if it was at the expense of not sleeping in a bed for a second night in a row. Then it dawned on us that we would also be sleeping on a bus the next night, from Istanbul to Cappadocia. Moodiness started to settle in. Four busses later we were in Toulouse. Another sleep in the airport and a sink and wetwipe shower and we boarded our flight to Istanbul where we met the rest of the gang, totaling 9 of us now. We didn't have much time to catch up as we rushed for our next bus which was leaving from the other side of the city only an hour after us landing. Happy to say we made it after 10 busses, one flight, one missed flight, two airport floor sleeps, one van, a cab and 60 hours in transit. 

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