Dinner out on the Terrace

The Meal...

The View....

Lunch, even cafeteria food is amazing!

If only we had this in NY!



Looks like Flan!!!



Random photo from visit to town.

HS arrives in TR...

Day 1 - Visiting the Bianca Nomara quarry...



It's quite a sight! Heavy machinery is always fun.

Off in the distance, far far away is HS.

The factory...

Proof that work does get done even when in Turkey.

Howard stayed that extra day for good reason!

105km Bicycle Tour

For my second weekend in Afyon, Osman (owner of the factory I am here to visit, to right), took me with his buddies for a ride around the countryside. Let me tell you, its absolutely beautiful. I wish I could have taken more pictures of that, but there is time, I will have to race up those hills and take a breather at the top and pull out my camera! My bike is the second from the left!

This is how we reward ourselves after a hard long ride.

These are the other guests which like to have breakfast with us, about a dozen of them.

Dinner at Kaymak

I made this plate up myself, I am thinking I will post a picture of every meal I have from now on, every day. At the hotel, it is a buffet, and every meal has been different. It's a good thing I would get bored very easily.



Soup..... yummmmm.

Ikbal Rock

So here are some, very few, photos from my recent hike up the nearby mountain. I haven't bouldered out here, but will hopefully this weekend. It looks like there could be some fun problems, very short but challenging nonetheless.

I am pretty sure in these two areas, photos above and below, will need to be top roped. I will try it this weekend and post my findings.

This is a general view from the main access road. You can also see this as you approach the hotel area from the main highway. Plenty of parking, if you have a car that is, I personally would recommend a bike, I brought mine here from NYC which has turned out to be quite useful.

Ikbal Termal Hotel

Here is my home for the next few..... I don't really know how long.

I went hiking today and took this picture from on top of a rock, I am thinking there is great potential for bouldering out here, I'll call it Ikbal Rock after the hotel, that way locals can help anyone find it.

At first.....

Just to summarize why I am here, I am here to inspect a particular kind of marble known as Bianca Nomara which is only found here in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. I will be here anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months, only time will tell.....

To start things off, the plane ride was terrible. I sat next to a woman who had 3 children, two of which were babies and were CRYING the entire flight. I don't see how they can sustain that for 11 hours, but they managed to. I didn't sleep at all, I did however get lots of drinks and food from Turkish Airlines which was great. Once I landed in Istanbul, everything seemed quite nice, very few people spoke English but at least I was in the International Terminal. I then realized I had to make my way thru customs and find the Domestic Terminal for my connecting flight. It was like I stepped into a very different place, all of a sudden no one spoke English and every was talking to me in Turkish. I sat around for about an hour, didn't want to try to get something from the cafe, not quite prepared for that kind of interaction just yet. I also couldn't find any place to exchange my US Dollars into Turkish Lira (YTL). So I waited, boarded a very small plane on my way to Ankara. Once we were in flight they started serving lunch, very strange considering this is less than an hour flight. Anyway, the young lady sitting next to me said something, I don't know what but it sounded... not very nice. I got my salad, wasn't bad, I was really thirsty but didn't know how to ask for that, a little nervous yes. I finally arrived in Ankara, and started my way to collect my luggage. First off, I couldn't find the baggage claim, but I did eventually I even got all my bags except MY BIKE. I had no idea where to pic up oversized items, and there was no way my little Turkish language book was going to help me with that. I wondered around aimlessly until finally I see it being rolled out of a small hallway and just propped against the wall. Well, at least it survived, I was worried it would go missing. Next task was to go find my ride, I stood outside in the pick-up area for at least an hour, until FINALLY I got picked up. There was some confusion with me being in the International Terminal vs Domestic. Anyway all was good, we loaded up my things and started on our 5 hr journey to Afyon, yes 5 hrs.

Once in Afyon, I was taken directly to see the owner of the stone company, keep in mind I looked like crap having been traveling for over 15 hrs. We had a short conversation, and I was let on my way to Ikbal Termal Hotel. This is quite a nice hotel, definitely in the middle of no where but that's okay, there is a nice pool and the food is supposed to be great, however I didn't make it to dinner that first night, I passed right out and woke up at 7am the next day just in time to be picked up for my first days work.