The following day we drove to the Turkish capital, Ankara. Initially we had "planned" to acquire the visa for Iran and Uzbekistan in Istanbul. But because of the delay on the Iranian side (and the sparse opening hours of the Uzbek consulate) forced us to rethink our options. That's why we ended up in Ankara. Having read online you get the Uzbek visa on the same day in Istanbul made us assume the same for Ankara. Sadly it wasn't as simple. The guy at the counter only spoke Turkish and Uzbek :S With some local help translating we got that it would take 5 days for the whole process... =/ It seems every embassy/consulate does things a bit differently. With some more talking we managed to tell him we would pick up the visas in Baku, Azerbaijan. For Azerbaijan we plan on getting the visas in Georgia ;) Without a visa for the countries coming from and leaving to it is even more complicated (to impossible) to get a transit visa for Turkmenistan. We still gonna trie our luck in Tbilisi and again in Baku.
After the paperwork was done we returned to the city centre to visit the Atatürk museum and mausoleum. The name meaning literally "Father of the Turks" is still remembered everywhere. Not a city without a road or square named after him. He was the founder of the Turkish republic and initiator of many reforms. For example it was on his behalf that the Turkish alphabet was introduced, having used the Arabic letters before. He wanted to transfer the remains of the Ottoman Empire into a modern republic. Not sure he would approve where the country is heading at the moment...
We then continued on to Cappadocia for the night. On the way we stopped at the Tuz Gölü (salt lake) for the view and some pictures!
Fail ;)