The benefit of a good night's sleep

Today has been a much better day. Alex seems to be much better and can get out a good few sentences withough coughing- it makes me realise how much the effective lack of company has reduced my enjoyment of our experiances. We met the other travellers in the morning and had a nice chat- the woman is taking her two pre school kids on a tour of Europe, Turkey and Iran for a year in the campavan while her husband flies out to meet them occasionally and travels with them for a number of weeks at a time. I didn't fancy that at all- it's isolating enough travelling with one other adult when you don't speek the languge of the country but I to always have the solo care of two children when he is not with them would be so restrictive. We drove back over to the Hittie site and were happy to find they encouraged you to drive around within the 6km perimiter, getting out at various points to walk around remains of temples, gateways and a castle. Perfect for Alex's lower than normal stamina. I took much of the time to re wrap the chair so that we could store it in the car. This kept us both happy and I was happy to have that sorted and not to get another overdose of 'rocks'. Alex showed me the highlights quickly after he had explored the lot. I got just the right dose- it is an impressively enormous site and a suprising amount seems to have remained intact. The buildings had lower walls of stone with mud and timer walls and roof above and much of the stonework is still there as well as extensive areas of city walls and numerous gateways. As with the Greek remains I was most facinated by the way the odd shaped blocks were carved to fit it's neighbours exactly. We pressed on on uncrowded and speedy roads around the Ankara ringroad and on to the Bolu ski resot, happy to see the rolling hills and towns stream past our window in the sunshine. Northern Turkey has seemed a lot more western than I remember the south being but I'm not sure if it's just in comparison to Iran. It's definately less exotic than Iran- as are we- superstar status no more! Later it began to pour with rain, (the first snce Esfahan?) which gave me hope it was falling thickly as snow up on the ski slopes. The nearest town of Bolu was very western and all the hotel options we could find were £42 and upwards. Since £28 was splashing out for us we found somewhere to have dinner then drove out towards the ski resort where there were thickly forested foothills in which to spen a cosy night in the car.