More hoar frost on the tents this morning. I was actually surprised that I slept so well, since I don't trust my sleeping bag for temperatures bellow 0. Claude on the other hand was complaining a bit about the cold.
We got off earlier than yesterday, since we wanted to make the 80plus kilometers to Istanbul. After lunch we decided to take the highway into Istanbul. The traffic on the road had gotten worse and since the roads were not always large enough, we thought, that on the highway we can use at least the entire emergency lane. Furthermore it was the straightest way into the big metropolis.
The wind was blowing in our backs, and the truks roared into our ears. We were flying towards Istanbul. I found it to be a rather good choice of roads until an idiot of a car driver used the emergency lane to pass another vehicle on its right side. I was a rather tight situation.
But The view from the hills on the city emerging in front of us was spectacular. The houses, the sea, and the Bosporus, all in bright evening sunlight.
As the drive-ups came in smaller intervalls and traffic became too much, we got of the highway near the Ataturk-Airport.
We both contacted our hosts in Istanbul to get directly in the right district, instead of doing it the usual way; riding into the city center and then go from there. The usual way, applied to this huge metropolis could cost, in the worst case, up to half a day of cycling...
After a second call to my host it turned out that my short notice would cause some trouble. So I decided to accompany Claude to Bakikoy, where he met another cyclist he contacted through warmshowers.org
There I got luckey and Dursun, our host, turned out to have a fried who could accomodate us both.
We had tea with Dursun and his friend Jingis and started exchanging news and facts.
After some time they took us to their Friend. It was a nice ride into the heart of Istanbul. Jingis is very experienced in dealing with absent bicycle lanes and the heavy traffic and managed to give the ride some flow. He used a whistle to scare of the cars and warn the pedestrians. It was all the more impressive, that Jingis has a white long beard (it catches the eye, and makes you wonder about how many winters you'd have to live to grow one like it).
At our destination we met yet another fried of Dursun, Yilmaz, who kindly let us stay in a small apartement in the basement of a building. All together we had dinner together later. I love the Turkish kitchen. Communication was rather difficult though. Dursun spoke a bit of English, Yilmaz and Jingis knew a few words. We the Swiss knew bearly a word of Turkish...
Claude and me were quit tired and at some point, after settling in the apartment, we past the point of feeling sleepy. It was quite a day. Arriving at a destination I was longing for to reach by my own force was weird and I still need time to recover from the arrivals "crash". I recalled that on a yacht when you stare at the harbor in the distance, it does not seem to come closer and in the end you crash into the wall.
So we were talking, talking, talking, late into the night.
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