Sumela and Trabzon

There was no sign of the Turkish army today, because we camped in a proper campsite. I say proper, but it barely qualified as a field, let alone a campsite. The "facilities" consisted of two toilets, each also containing a shower. One shower was unheated and so slow as to be useless, the other was lukewarm at best. The roof of this mighty edifice was comparable to Gore Tex, it being the total opposite of this material, guaranteed to let in all external water.

And external water we had lots of. It rained almost all the first night, and all the next afternoon. Luckily when we visited the Sumela monastery it was sunny and fresh. This monastery is situated on the side of a cliff, twenty minutes walk up the very steep side of a mountain. After hiking up, the first notable feature, apart from the stunning landscape, was a busker. It didn't seem to be a very profitable patch, but maybe that changes in the height of the tourist season. Soon after, we came to a ticket office and fortunately a drinking fountain. The monastery itself was astonishing, but in some disrepair due in part to age, and in part to large amounts of graffiti. I understand that the money from ticket sales is going toward restoration work, which should make more of the building accessible.

I finally managed to buy a towel too. Trabzon, a city of some half a million inhabitants, featured one towel shop which I could find. Why it is so difficult to find a towel in Turkey will probably remain a mystery.

Two pictures of the most notable buildings of my stay here: the Sumela monastery and the Sumela campsite facilities. We are going to Georgia today, there is no mobile data access there, so blog updates will be more sparse until Azerbaijan.