#3: [30-Nov-09]

#2: [25-Jul-04]

06-Jul-2004 -- This point was a beautiful one! After our failure at confluence point 40N 28E the day before, we were most keen on getting this point! And it was not too difficult to get it, either. Of course, you get difficulties finding the closest way you can take by car, especially if you have a Honda Prelude, which is very narrow to the ground, but Waldi is a very secure, experienced and good driver and knows how to take the roads that the cooler won't get damaged (radiatör, as it is called in Turkish, we learned that in our first week in Istanbul two years ago just after having arrived, as we badly damaged it then already, but everyone knowing the streets around Galata Kulesi (Tower) in Istanbul knows how bad the streets are there!). Anyway, we found the right "street" leading us closer and closer to the point, but since the street which was more a path was very narrow again, we drove to its end to a very small village were we were able to turn the car and parked it as close to the point as we could.

It is always nice to see the impressions on the faces of the people in these villages. I wonder what they think when two, definitely touristy looking people for no reason come to their villages, have a look, turn the car and leave again. We were about 360 meters away when we left the car on the side of that street, not blocking it, and started walking to the point, trying not to damage too much of the fields there. We soon found the point, but what did we discover? The fields around the point were damaged but only around the point! It was clear! Someone had been there before us! We nevertheless took pictures of the GPS and us, the point and the surroundings, smoked a confluence cigarette, and walked back to the car. But we felt a little sick having discovered that again we would only have a second visit! It was very clear that we had to get at least one first successful visit this time, so we decided to drive back to 40N 28E to finish what we tried the day before, but unsuccessfully.

The nice thing about visiting confluence points successfully or unsuccessfully is that you get to places nobody normally sees, that you meet people you meet nowhere else and walk up or down hills you would never bother to see or bother to find. I go even so far to say that the way to the point is the target and not the point itself.