Difficulties and the moonscape of Cappadocia

Yesterday was an eventful day. It started with me noticing that I had a flat tyre, and then other problems presented themselves: Lewis' pedal was practically falling off, and I had foolishly left the spanner in Istanbul, but we fortunately were assisted by some people in a petrol station. We started down a peaceful road towards Nevsehir, and stopped off for a lunch of dried figs, apricots and peanuts.
   Things went wrong after we decided to take a smaller road to our destination: Goreme. We were stopped, oddly, by a couple, only for us to sit in silence for ten minutes! The next thing we knew after setting off, the road suddenly ceased to be a road. Just a layer of stones and dirt. As we weren't sure how long it would go on for, we decided to push the bikes. The sun pounding down on us, clouds of dusts kicked up by passing trucks, the walk seemed endless. Things got worse though; we heard a loud pop, and found that Lewis' back tyre had split. Had to wait for a lift. Didn't seem that we would get anyway after an hour- the only vehicule that could help was a pick-up truck, and two had already passed by and refused to help us. Frustration mounting, third time lucky we managed to hitch a ride from another pick-up. So grateful! He dropped us in the nearest bike shop in Avanos (we only had 2km left to go after walking 8!) and we fixed the problem with the folding tyre that we were carrying. Dehydrated, we sat in the nearest cafe and I managed to spill half a bottle of coke on myself. Not our day! That said, it ended well with us reaching Goreme and Emre's Cave House, where we are currently staying.
We have been very impressed by the surrounding moon-like formations of turreted rocks. Alexander passed through here and appointed a governor on his route to Tarsus. Woke up at 4.30 this morning and took a hot-air balloon ride. Worth it! Today is our final rest day before the end of the trip- should be less than a week of cycling to go now!

Miles covered: 1400 approx

More photos to follow- my camera is out of battery!