My experience with Imaginative Traveller!

Imaginative Traveller has recently been spending some time getting to know our customers, and listening to your experiences of travelling with Imaginative Traveller. So keep a look out for more of these experiences over the next few weeks. 

If you have a tale to share, please email info@imtrav.net.

Here's our first instalment from Maureen Barber in Canada, who's first adventure was on "The Best of East and West" in Turkey. 

"I have been on several trips with ImTrav over the last few years and enjoyed them all.

Our first trip was the "Best of East and West Turkey"  that we did in April 2007 and my sister and I were just talking tonight about our experience in the home-stay in the Barhal Valley. It was extremely cold and snow was still on the ground! There was no heat, but we convinced the owner on the 2nd day to fire up a stove in the room of one of his workers to keep all of us warm! The following evening we ate our 2nd meal inside there on the floor following a very cold first night eating on the deck with most of us putting on all the clothes that we had brought for the whole trip just to keep warm (definitely not enough blankets)! As you can imagine this was a relatively early night to bed, to ensure we were warm! But certainly adding to the experience!

I think because although we went in April we were the FIRST trip of the year to East Turkey, I notice that the Barhal Valley has been replaced by a home-stay in and around Amasya (which we absolutely loved). Mehmet in the Barhal Valley was a great host with great food, but I really wanted to share our tale of getting arriving there... 

The road had washed out after leaving Yusafuli and our driver and others got out and jumped on trees across the washout/road to see if it 'held' and then drove the van over the washout area and continued (by a rushing river)- quite an adventure to get back to the Pension! The next day we walked back to the local town to help keep warm and had lunch over a "bunsen burner" at the local restaurant (no fridge and just a single burner) and no seats (take away) and ate by the river which was running high as a result of the runoff from the snow on the mountains.  Interesting times as to get back to Yusafili there had been several slides overnight and it made the road even more difficult! But certainly making for a great adventure! 

Maybe people did write in and that's why you are now in and around Amasya!

This was a grand trip and as I said, we were the first trip for the year into Eastern Turkey and as a result not everything was quite "ready" - but still we loved every minute of this trip.

By the way, the next night in Tatvan we had a earthquake of of 4.5 with the epicentre 40 kms from our location.  What excitement!  I accused by sister of bumping my bed at 12:10 a.m. and trying to scare me!  So you see it was quite exciting!

Please remember I have just mentioned the "adventurous" aspects of our trip, everything else ran smoothly and the tour leader was fantastic. By the time we reached the cruise gulet in the south the weather had warmed up and we had amazing time!"

"We did Turkey then Egypt and Jordan Caravan with ImTrav the same year". 

Find out about "The best of East and West" here 

Thanks Maureen for sharing this with ourselves and your fellow travellers!