What news will today bring?

13.9.21

The water pump, belt and radiator didn’t arrive until 3 pm. The day really dragged.

It was around 4pm by the time they finished what they were doing and fitted the parts.

As soon as the parts were fitted, the moment of truth…. She started straight away, but when they added more water it bubbled out the top of the radiator.

Really bad news, it means the head gasket has blown.

To have half the engine reconditioned will be around 6000 tl. To do everything, if thats needed, will be between 12000 and 15000. Plus labour. If it’s the full engine that needs doing it will be 3 to 4 days work. We won’t know until the head is removed.

They moved Naz onto their forecourt which is a massive relief as it’s been so hot in the direct sunlight.

The engine was removed.

I did have a few tears at this point.

The lovely guy who sold Naz to us said the engine had been fully reconditioned 30,000 km ago and gave us an engine report. Ömer said no way, John said the same yesterday after seeing the state of the clogged up rusty water pump. Ömer said the seller was a liar, and another guy said he probably paid for the report. I’m so disappointed by this as they were so very nice.

I cooked a large batch of chilli, enough for Ömer and his lad too, but they’d eaten.

There is not any shops for 6 km, so if we are here for 4 days we won’t starve, but we might die of boredom.

As if by magic a Nemrut Tour minibus arrived at the garage to have something done. The tour guy, Murat, spoke perfect English and we chatted about the tour and explained we have dogs. He offered to do a day time tour for just us and the dogs. He also tried to persuade us to go and stay at his house for a couple of days and said he has a lovely garden for the dogs.

Even after 10 years here I still query their motive, are they going to steal all our money and murder us? We couldn’t possibly go, but how lovely of him.

We don’t really like organised tours so I rang around a few car hire places, but they were stupid prices and no one was happy for us to drive to Nemrut. So I got back to Murat and we’re going to join a sunset trip tomorrow. The dogs won’t be able to come, but they’ll be fine now the van is in the shade.

That evening they started to dismantle our engine. At 10.30 pm Ömer was looking stressed as he couldn’t get one bit off.. Another sign it’s not been touched for years.

Hey ho, such is life. We know we bought Naz for a good price and whether we keep her or sell we won’t lose out.

Also, when you’re 1,159 km from home there’s not really any choice.

But we were feeling sad, disappointed and slightly panicky that we need to be back in Fethiye in just over 6 days time…

We have every faith in Ömer, he’s so dedicated and hard working. The amount of vehicles that come here every day is testament to him. He certainly isn’t sitting around looking for foreigners to rip off. He is THE expert, Üsta, in this area, everyone says it will all be great, don’t worry.

Looking forward to our trip tomorrow. There is no way we were leaving Eastern Turkey without seeing Mount Nemrut.