I was not easy getting started this morning. The weather today was mild, the snow had gone, but the forcast for the rest of the week does not look that good. But who knows when it will get better... I'll just have to fight my way through to the northern coast where the temperatures are milder and where no more snow is expected this year.
I halted first in Avanos to fill up my food stock, then, after a rather long climb, I reached Özkonak where I wanted to visit the underground city during the lunch break. Up here there was still a lot more snow than in Nevsehir but luckily not on the road.
The river running through that small town dug free parts of the underground city, so the new houses stood next or on top of the ancient ruins, which gave the town a very particular touch. Sometimes some of the caves appeard to be adopted by a newer construction and old and new were fused in some households.
The accessible undergournd part was not very big, but it's tunnels were narrower than the ones in Derinkuyu and most of them had these mill-stone-doors to close at least one side. I was hoping that I would find an underground maze and was a bit disappointed. Never the less, I really like these caves and the tunnels and can not remember a time in my life when such things did not attract me. I thought about taking a walk, but since I wanted to use the nice day also to progress on the way to Sivas and prefered doing so without muddy wet and cold feet I decided not to.
During most of the remaining distance travelled I had a strong tail wind. On the flat road I rode with 30+km/h. when I arrived in Kabala a heavy cold rain started and this was the signal for me to call it a day. While looking for a pension a couple of guys in a car at a traffic light started to chat and took me to their barber shop to have tea. An older man took me later to an internet coffee to introduce me to Aslan, the owner. Aslan grew up in Leverkusen and spoke perfect German among other languages. So I learned that in this town there is no pension and the next town having one was 40 km away. But he reassured me he would take care of it.
So we discussed for quite a while, and he gave me his detailed opinion on the differences in mentlity between German and Turkish people.
Well, this will be my fist sleep over in an internet caffee... looking forward to that.
I halted first in Avanos to fill up my food stock, then, after a rather long climb, I reached Özkonak where I wanted to visit the underground city during the lunch break. Up here there was still a lot more snow than in Nevsehir but luckily not on the road.
The river running through that small town dug free parts of the underground city, so the new houses stood next or on top of the ancient ruins, which gave the town a very particular touch. Sometimes some of the caves appeard to be adopted by a newer construction and old and new were fused in some households.
The accessible undergournd part was not very big, but it's tunnels were narrower than the ones in Derinkuyu and most of them had these mill-stone-doors to close at least one side. I was hoping that I would find an underground maze and was a bit disappointed. Never the less, I really like these caves and the tunnels and can not remember a time in my life when such things did not attract me. I thought about taking a walk, but since I wanted to use the nice day also to progress on the way to Sivas and prefered doing so without muddy wet and cold feet I decided not to.
During most of the remaining distance travelled I had a strong tail wind. On the flat road I rode with 30+km/h. when I arrived in Kabala a heavy cold rain started and this was the signal for me to call it a day. While looking for a pension a couple of guys in a car at a traffic light started to chat and took me to their barber shop to have tea. An older man took me later to an internet coffee to introduce me to Aslan, the owner. Aslan grew up in Leverkusen and spoke perfect German among other languages. So I learned that in this town there is no pension and the next town having one was 40 km away. But he reassured me he would take care of it.
So we discussed for quite a while, and he gave me his detailed opinion on the differences in mentlity between German and Turkish people.
Well, this will be my fist sleep over in an internet caffee... looking forward to that.
