A (Too) White Christmas!

The Anglophones are still in two groups. Les and Margaret in Kon-Tiki are probably still in European Turkey, whilst Clive, Anne and Maureen (in K-Nine and Womble) are just over the border from Iran in eastern Turkey.

This page is based on an phone call to Maureen (Womble) on Christmas eve and an e-mail from Maureen's daughter.

Things are a little icy! Womble and K-Nine crossed into Turkey further down the border from where Kon-Tiki crossed and were escorted (for their own safety) by the Turkish army to a village "5000 metres up a mountain" (this was after they had established that they were not diesel smugglers).

The village was fine, however, it snowed all night and it snowed all day and so they were stuck in the village for three days. On 2002-12-23 they were between Van and Antalya, hoping to drive down to the Mediterranean coast for Christmas. However, the weather is just too bad with a metre of snow.

Because of the cold (-19C) the night of the 23rd (and 24th?) was spent inside an army base (the army cleared a room for them to share) they were very cold. Everything in both Womble and K-Nine is frozen (oil, diesel and water).

Unlike Kon-Tiki they had a trouble-free border crossing but are perhaps wishing they had taken the main road from Teheran to Ankara.