Turkish delights

On an epic overland journey from France to South Africa, Patrick and Marie Gurney take a turn through Turkey, a country of deep-rooted culture and calming coastlines.

- Patrick and Marie Gurney

When we crossed the border from Greece into Turkey, winter finally caught up with us. It was December and snow had started to fall. Midday temperatures barely reached 10°C and sank to -4°C overnight.We had two sleeping bags each, plus beanies and scarves – Marie even wrapped herself in a few plastic bags to keep out the cold! The evenings were bearable; it’s the mornings that were bitter.

Camping in a rooftop tent has its challenges:We had to wipe down interior condensation before folding up the frozen tent, then we had to get Kukuza started. Our beloved 2001 Hilux has a 3-litre diesel engine that struggles to get going in the cold.We’d fire up the car’s heater and wait for water to boil on a stove so we could have coffee. Slowly, life would return to our clumsy hands, our mobile phones would warm up, we’d set the GPS and start our day of driving.

We crossed from Greece into Turkey via the Kipi/Ä°psala border post with one thing on our minds: Get the Carnet de Passage stamped to prove that the Hilux had left Europe. If we didn’t get this stamp, we would lose our R90000 deposit made to the AA in Johannesburg. After a few frantic conversations with Greek offiials, it was eventually stamped and handed back to us.

We headed over to the Turkish side where we had no issues, besides having the entire vehicle scanned while trying to explain what the large military-coloured thing – our rooftop tent – was.

We were finally free to enter Turkey and, more importantly, to find a warm place to sleep in the town of Edirne, which was a 200km drive away.