When I say that this is a story I never thought I’d have to tell – I mean it. Before I went, when I thought of Cappadocia, Turkey, all that came to mind was hot air balloons, caves, and rooftop viewing points. Well, that’s not all I think about now!
Cappadocia (and Turkey in general), has a relatively high population of stray animals. Most of the animals are very friendly, and it seems that the locals are not threatened by them. In fact, a lot of the locals leave food and water out for them and even some of the shop owners give them leftovers.
As a traveler, I am always pretty careful not to pet the stray animals, but in Cappadocia, they were all so friendly and used to having people around. One night at dinner, a cat walked into the restaurant, hopped on my lap, and started purring. That is just one example of many, but my point being none of them felt threatening.
The thought of getting bit by a cat did not seem like a possibility at the time. That is until I sat on a wall next to a cat who got a little territorial. I didn’t do anything to provoke him (besides sit there) but that was enough for him to lunge at my hand and bite me (and my boyfriend).
At the time, we didn’t immediately think that rabies was a possibility. We simply said “ouch” and walked away, but after a few hours of thinking about/researching the situation, we realized that it could be a real possibility.
After some research, we realized that we needed to get the rabies vaccines, but the problem was it was already 6PM and we were leaving on an overnight bus to Antalya at 9PM.
We knew at that point that we would not be getting the vaccine in Cappadocia, but found a hospital that seemed like they offered the vaccine in Antalya. Our game plan was to take the bus to Antalya, take public transportation to our hostel in the morning (to drop off our luggage), and then take an Uber to the hospital in Antalya to get the vaccine.
So we got on the bus, slept a little, got off the bus in the morning, made it to our hostel, and then called the Uber to the hospital. Everything was going smoothly. We finally got to the hospital and knew we were going to have a hard time communicating because of the language barrier, but after holding up some Google Translate prompts about how we were bit by a cat, we were directed to the right place.
We finally got put in the “vaccinations” line, and when our number was called, we were greeted with an English speaking doctor. He asked the details of what happened, gave us vaccine booklets, gave us our vaccines, and then sent us on our way. The whole process was relatively easy, but we quickly realized that we had more difficulties ahead of us.
This was vaccine number one of four, and as it seemed, Turkey was the only place that we knew for sure that we could get it. On our itinerary, we were supposed to go to Bulgaria next, then to Israel, and then to Greece, but we had no idea if any of these places had the rabies vaccine, because rabies is eradicated in these countries.
To conquer vaccine number two, we stopped in Istanbul on the way to Bulgaria. We opted to take the overnight Sofia Express from Istanbul to Sofia (more about that in another post). Because there is not much information online about where the vaccine is available, we found ourselves going from hospital to hospital in Sofia asking where we could get the third vaccine. After (seriously) five attempts, we finally found one.
As we traveled on from Sofia, it became increasingly difficult to find a place to get the final vaccine. Luckily, we had purchased travel insurance before we left, and we practically had our own “emergency concierge”. Through Safetywing insurance, there was a medical team on hand that was able to help us via chat. They were able to tell us what brand of vaccine to get and also, they were able to reach out to their connections to see if they could find somewhere that the vaccine was available. We tried in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even Greece, but after asking the Safetywing medical team where we could find the vaccine, we got the answer of “Split, Croatia”. So off we went to Split, in search of a Rabies Clinic to get our final vaccine.
When we arrived in Split, the first order of business was to walk to this clinic and get the vaccine. When we arrived, they were open and were happy to give us our last vaccine. The only catch was that it cost about €50 per person. We could handle that, and we knew after our conversations with the medical team that it might be covered with our travel insurance.
After two weeks of constant worrying, we were finally done with the vaccines, and we were able to enjoy the rest of our trip, worry-free.
So lesson learned, don’t pet the stray animals in Turkey, and make sure to get travel insurance!
Every time we travel, we use Safetywing! This is just one of the bizarre and unexpected things that can happen while traveling, but for a small price, it is worth it. We typically purchase Nomad Insurance which only costs about $45 per month. See how much it costs for you below!
Also, you can check out Nomad Insurance HERE!
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