VISAS WILL MAKE YOUR TRIP SHORTER.

Finally and after a bit more than three weeks in Istanbul, we are pleased to say that it is time for us to get our backpacks ready and keep going...

As a mild and modern version of the Midnight Express, this city and waiting for the colourful stickers to be attached in the pages of our passports have been enough reason to be our "cell" and keep our mileage to minimum.

We have been staying ın the friendly Mavi Guesthouse, where having a hot shower sometimes and heating in the room are luxuries not affordable for backpackers.

Just before New Year's Eve, a nice group from Uruguay and Argentina came around, added to a few long term friends from the guesthouse was a nice mixture to have an interesting ending for 2007, when having a passport can make a whole of a difference in how your new year will start.

We also had the chance to get our hands dirty as we worked for our accommodation painting the rooftop of the mentioned guesthouse....after all a bit of normal work would do us no harm.

With the new year, new hopes and resolutions , and with them the so waited visas for Iran ( 60 euros) and Uzbekistan ( 100 us dollars) . With them we wıll have our passage granted and with those prices for a single entry, we will definitely have our trip shortened!.

Now it is time for us to "convince" as well the Turkmenistan's embassy that we are good people...

Tonight we set off to Ayvalik, where we are hopping to assist and photograph our first event of camel wrestling!