Expect the Unexpected

Twice a week I have to pick up M after school, because he has after school activity and misses the regular school bus.  Usually I walk to school and then take a taxi home.

On Thursday when I went to school I noticed that there was a lot of traffic, so when we got in the taxi the driver asked me if he should take an alternative route because the traffic might better.  I said that he could choose since he probably knew better than me, and we managed to understand each other even if we didn't speak each others language.

As we were driving it was clear that traffic was bad everywhere, but it didn't bother me, especially since it was a beautiful spring day and we were driving along the Bosphorus.  The fact that this was one of the first really nice spring days might have been the reason for the heavy traffic, but living in Istanbul you cannot let the traffic issue bother you.

The unexpected part of this story happened when we finally arrived at our home.  The taximeter showed almost 14 Turkish Lira, and there is nothing outrageous about that.  To me it seems as if the taximeters here only run on distance, not time, so if you are stuck in traffic it is the driver who suffers the most.

As I was taking out my money to pay the driver, he told me that I only had to pay him 11 TL because the traffic had been so bad.  "Do you really mean that?" I said, and he answered "Absolutely!"  Again this was spoken in gestures and syllables.  "OK", I thought and gave him 12 TL so he at least got a little tip, but "No, no, 11 lira!", he insisted.  I didn't have a chance, so I paid what he asked and left the taxi in astonishment.

Of course there are taxi drivers in Istanbul who do the opposite, and try to scam a foreigner, but would you find a young taxi driver charge less because of bad traffic, other places than Istanbul?

Kayak in new territory

We brought our skis to Turkey, because we thought when living in Europe we would ski in Europe.  What we didn't know was that there is skiing in Turkey - but then you are better off going to Asia.
Confusing?  You have to remember that a little part of Turkey lies in Europe and the majority of the country lies in Asia.  The most popular places for tourists who visit Turkey, are the Mediterranean and Aegean  coast, and it never snows there.  The eastern part of Turkey is a different story, and we thought that sounded far more exiting than skiing in the Alps.

After researching skiing in Turkey online, we decided to go to Palandöken ski resort, which is close to the city of Erzurum.

Erzurum is situated is situated 1,757 meters (5,766 feet) above sea level, and Palandöken Mountain is at 3,271 meters (10,732 feet).  According to their own web site, http://www.palandokenskicenter.com/palandokenskicenter.html,

their season lasts for 150 days, and the best skiing is between December and May.  They don't get tons of snow, but what they get is powdery and beautiful.

We did not really know what to expect before we went to Palandöken, because most information we found online was at least a couple of years old, but we knew Erzurum had just hosted the 25th World Winter Universiade Games (University Games), so we thought it couldn't be too bad.

We were very impressed!  

There were no more surface lifts, almost all the chair lifts were brand new, there was even a gondola, and they were all running!  Even the weather was great, no wind or fog that caused the lifts to be closed.  The majority of the runs had good snow coverage, and because the area doesn't get a good deal of precipitation, they also had brand new snow making equipment installed.

As far as we could see, there are very few trees growing around Erzurum - and none on the mountain.  If this is due to the high altitude or poor soil, we don't know, but it made for some beautiful skiing off of the groomed trails.  The off-piste skiing was fun, especially because the quality of the snow was so high.  Our skiing experience the last 10 years has been on the East coast of the US, and if you learn to ski on those icy trails, you can ski anywhere!

There was one obstacle though, and we hit that mostly when when we went off the groomed trails.  Because there is so little vegetation, there are that many more rocks, and the rocks are sharp and treacherous.  I don't know if we would have been better off renting skis, but I have to say I could feel it deep in my bones and wallet when I hit a rock, and of course it caused for some very comical (and pretentiously dangerous) falls.

Last I have to mention that the hotel we stayed at was great, slopeside and three meals included!

Oh, and one more thing: I found it fascinating, but I have not investigated it further; the word for ski in Turkish is called kayak.

Dedeman Palandöken Hotel

Family photo

Slopes

Lifts

Mountainside farm

Can you spot my two family members towards the bottom?

Hotel with Erzurum in the distance.

View from our hotel room.

The big Ejder.