We have a long driving day ahead of us, so we are up early. We pack up our tent before 6 AM, have our breakfast and then load up the truck and head off. We drive back up the narrow, winding path to the main road and head down the valley. We have a brief stop in the nearby town to buy fresh bread and then make our way back to the coast at the sea-front city of Trabzon.
We travel for a ways along the coast road, but eventually we turn south east into the hills heading towards Goreme. The road is not as well kept and many stretches have been washed out, turning the road into a narrow lane with a sharp fall down into the river below. As we make our way further into the mountains, the trees slowly disappear until they are gone when we make our way over a 2,200 meter pass. We make a brief stoop on the side of the road for lunch.
Just before 6 PM we start looking for a bush camp. We spot a dirt lone heading off the road up into the hills. We turn off and after about 5 minutes find a relatively flat spot surrounded by fields. We make our camp here for the night. After we have set up our tents and cooking equipment, a couple of men trundle over on a tractor. We hope they are not coming over to complain about us camping on their land and kick us off. It turns out they were just curious and wanted to say hello and see what we were up to. They welcomed us to stay on their fields overnight.
It is our turn to prepare dinner, so we get to work right away. Tonight we will have a three course meal. The first course is some more of the caviar we picked up in Baku. It is still very good and we serve it with the vodka we had picked up in Georgia just before we left. The main course is chicken risotto with garlic bread. Desert is apple crumble. We are stuffed by the end.
After cleaning up (this is our last cook group detail of the trip, so we are happy), we hang around a relax for a bit. The sheesha has been pulled out of the back locker, so it is set up and we enjoy the apple tobacco. After the sun set it started to get cold and windy, so we were finally ready to retire to our tent. It is a clear night sky with a moon that is almost full. Another wonderful night out in the open under the stars.