We left Ardahan with the prospect of days and days ahead in Turkey – it’s a big country! With tired bodies but bikes that seemed to have settled into the day to day mileage (“touch wood”) and still a lot of ground to cover we headed for one of the top 100 riding roads in Europe, the road between Şavşat and Trabzon in northeastern Turkey. We stopped for a coffee break along the way and had a discussion about the style of our day-to-day life on the road. Based on this discussion Sam decided to do his own thing for the rest of the day. No one was right or wrong, but after 29 days on the road it’s surprising that this was our first group tiff!
We were all rewarded with stunning views through the mountains, roads that were superb (although some strong mountain winds that made things interesting) and when the clouds cleared, the Black Sea was in view once again. A very special moment seeing the gem of our trip again! As we got closer to the Black Sea again the weather turned distinctly autumnal, we hit the coast and dodged rain showers. Sam headed on through the rain showers to Trabzon while Amand and Steve spent the night in a little place called Ardeşen, where the hotel was obviously for the summer season and basically shut down. Despite being the only guests a bit of gentle persuasion convinced them to turn on the sauna just for us!
On Day 30 Amand and Steve catch up with Sam who is waiting in Trabzon and another chat unfolds. A decision is made to continue separately for a few days and then meet in Istanbul. Part of the discussion was based around the distance left to cover and the time left to do it. We all agreed to push on through the middle of Turkey by utilising the excellent quality roads to make up some ground. All good (except we again heard that we’d find out about any speeding fines at the border exit… ummmm push on, but not TOO fast…)
Sam headed along the Black Sea coastline towards Samsun. Steve and Amand (now nicknamed Ahmed) head southwest through the mountains and Turkish interior towards Cappadocia.
Steve and Amand make it as far as Çamoluk after following an amazing road over the huge mountain range the separates the Black Sea coast from the Turkish interior. The road just kept going up and up and up, they seemed to go up at about 100km/hr for about 20-30mins. Finally they crossed the divide and the cloudy dreary Black Sea weather was left behind and they were back into the dry Turkish heartland. They travelled on into the evening and in the dying dusk light found a campsite by a river. It was an ideal spot to drink whisky around a roaring fire.
Day 31 – while Sam is meandering his way along the north coast of Turkey (no doubt finding awesome gravel roads and dirt tracks!), Steve and Amand committed to making it to Cappadocia, a mere 500km away – a big day on a bike. The landscape was immense and felt never ending, it seemed like one massive alpine plateau, mostly over 1,000m above sea level. They dodged huge thunderstorms along the way, having lunch and chasing down chain lube in Sivas and then racing away as the rain was just minutes away. Eventually, when it seemed they might get totally lucky, they hit one downpour in Kayseri and got utterly soaked (just the second show of rain in 31 days, pretty good really!). There were some slightly uncomfortable moments as the roads became really slippery, but after a big push it was all worth it to arrive in Cappadocia at sunset! It was a supremely special moment to have a reward like that after such a big effort.
The next morning Steve woke up at 6:30am to a strange sound and wandered out onto the hotel balcony and let out an expletive. He convinced Amand to get out of bed, who got up and added another expletive. The sky was full with about 50 hot air balloons. The sound was the dawn chorus of Cappadocia, the roar of gas. The sight of so many in the air was other-worldly, especially as the sun rose at the same time. The morning was then spent riding around the amazing sights of the area without any gear on the bikes (a rather nice treat). They managed to get the bikes into some interesting places and get a little lost in the process, which resulted in riding down some horse trails. Interesting, challenging and fun times.
After a fabulous morning exploring they then set off mid-afternoon towards Ankara, Turkey’s capital, taking in more spectacular and massive scenery. They passed Ankara on dusk, a cool time to see the city all lit up.
The planned destination for the night was a small lake just north of Kazan which was spied on Google Maps earlier in the day, figuring it to be a good camping spot. The first attempt was thwarted by armed guards – a little disconcerting! But they tried their luck 2km up the road and met two guys cooking over a fire near the lake’s edge. They were about to leave so they offered their fire and some chicken. Lucky find after dark! And a beautiful spot to wake up to the sunrise the next morning.
The goal for Day 33 was smashing out kms on the Turkish motorway to make Istanbul and reunite with Sam. It was the first cold day on the entire trip, where the merino and polyprops had to be dug out from the bottom of our top boxes.
Riding over the 15 July Martyrs Bridge crossing the Bosphorus in Istanbul (which links Asia and Europe) was a really special moment and many fist pumps were thrown in the air. It felt like another significant step in the whole journey we’ve had! What wasn’t quite so special was the Istanbul traffic, but after 30 minutes of hard and nerve-wracking work they found their way to the hotel Sam had already sorted out.
After four days apart we reunited, ate kebabs, traded stories, strolled the streets and avoided difficult conversations. Tomorrow we head to Greece and Europe proper. Woohoo!
Fantastic shots you guys, love the rock and a hard place! Surely not many bikes would have been on that track.