It's December again and the christmas times are slowly coming back at home. This is now the second christmas, that we spend without our families and only for us two. Again, in a country, that doesn't celebrate christmas – after Morocco it's Turkey this time. All of that is not too tragic. More so, that the corona virus has now been ruling many people's every day lives for almost a year and the sickness rates are constantly rising.

Now we get to feel the consequences of covid as well for first time away from home. The border to Georgia and Iran are closed. A world tour is currently not possible and a change of the restrictions is not in sight. Our 90 days residence permit in Turkey are passing. Now we have to get an extension of our stay. Then we can only wait for our request being permitted or not.

We even get to feel the restrictions towards the native inhabitants in terms of COVID. There were curfews issued for the weekend. These restrictions do not count for tourists though, but all cultural offers were also shut down for this period. Many turks are unhappy, because the virus endangers their job, and therefore their existence. But even despite that, we often encounter people, that treat us with incredible kindness and help.

We're currently cycling through the beautiful Cappadocia. To do that, we took the path over the Taurus mountains, over Konya and Aksaray. Just to mention it, that memorable day we set our personal record: 150 kilometers in one day. This small act didn't quite leave us untouched. Even days afterwards we could still feel it in every single muscle. After that we went over Selmine and the Ihlara valley to Göreme. Even if the night were really cold with -7°C and during the day a freezing cold breeze is blowing around our noses, we enjoy the unique landscape with its odd rock formations. The so-called fairy fireplaces made us smile and we tried to imagine how the people back then looked for a safe space in the small caves apartments. After that, we headed back to Antalya to our appointment about the extension of our stay. If it worked or not, is something you'll find out in the next update for January.

Despite the current situation we wish you all a lot of power, health and a merry christmas! have a good start into 2021 – hopefully everything will turn out good.!

Best wishes from on the way
Melli & Dani
 

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