Day 193: Hopa-Batumi

The sun was out so I was eager to get on the bike. I had 20 km left to the border. The crossing took some time because of the stamp mess in my passport. All the stamps of cyprus and three entries and two exits in turkey (one pair from 2 years ago) were one, the same two pages. They took me in the office and I feared that they would notice that the last two entries were separated by less six months. If they did, they were not bothered by it, they checked them regulations for my country again and sent be back to them booth to get my stamp. On the way to the Georgian controls I noticed my flat tire, so I needed to fix it in front of the duty free shop. On the Georgian side I was indicated to cut them long queue was looked at carefully during them passport control, finally got my stamp and was welcomed to Georgia.
Even though I like to think of borders between countries as mostly arbitrary lines drawn on a map (sometimes they do however coincide with natural frontiers like mountains or rivers), here one side was quite different from them other. The roads were smaller, the drivers are a bit crazier, the vegetation slighy changed, them houses looked different and the people, especially the women, dressed differently.
In Batumi I, found the house of my old Korean friends (Sungjong and Jihyun) hosts without problems. Ufugu and Prak are two Turks whose work allows them to leadan urban nomad life. They are great guys to be around. It was heaven sitting on the balcony in the sun on this warm day, sipping on a whiskey from the duty free shop, good it felt like heaven.
After a walk through the city and some shopping we started to cook all together. For dinner some of Ufugus and Parks Georgian friends joined. They introduced me to their drinking culture, where the 'ceremonial chief' says a toast before each time everyone holds the bottoms up of their glasses. And don't dare drinking before!
The food was delicious and after a couple of whiskey bottles were 'shot' away this beautiful day slowly came to and ending.

Day 192: Cayeli-Hopa

I slept some eleven hours through last night. Is this the spring tiredness? The sun was shining and the temperatur was considerably higher. The air was still cold though and the headwind pushed it right in my face. I thought I'd make it to the border today, but after 5 hours fighting the headwind my moral was too low to continue.
My last days in Turkey felt a bit like the first ones, I don't understand a word here, the accent is so strange to me that I only can reply 'I don't understand' (in Turkish). People also talk very loudly here, so once you said that you don't understand, they sometimes repeat even louder.

Day 191: Trabzon-Cayeli

After it stopped snowing around twelve, I left Trabzon taking the road along the coast. It was a rather pleasant afternoon with a bit of tailwind. The mountains along the coast were pretty white, which was nice to look at but it wasn't what I was hoping for in terms of general climate. The road was wet from the melting snow and the trucks stirred these dirty waters up.
I was able to do quite some distance that afternoon and Georgia is in reach now.

Day 190: Sümela Monastery

First I thought I would travel through the mountains towards Georgia, avoiding the big road along the coast and see what this region is known for; the green mountains. But on second thought I am really tired of the snow, so I made Sumela a round trip instead of a stop along the way.
I planed this trip for yesterday, but I was today I finally dared going back into the mountains, at least for one day. I was not really eager plunging into the snow again but I really wanted to see that Monastery (more caves, love caves).
Once the I passed the aglomeration, the dust and traffic became abruptly less and the ride enjoyable. So I worked my way up through smaller and smaller valleys and the snow was getting more and more. A lot of little torrents join the rives carving the valleys, there is so much water here and even now where the snow had gone one can see flowers.
It was nice riding with little luggage for a change, this way climbing up the 1200m was unusually easier.
The last 3km the road was completly snow covered. the valley here was so narrow and wind blew the snow from the trees and all around, like real snowfall and later I realized the it actually started to snow too. It was then on the last hundreds of meters when I finally saw the well hidden monastery.
The visist itself was a bit disappointing, half of the monastery was not accessible and my hopes for a warm room from which one could enjoy the view up there remained unfullfiled. The cold wind and my wet feet made this a rather short visit. The location is stunning. In summer it is a different game though, there is a terrasse where tea is served and all around there are hiking trails from which one can get different angles on the monastery.
So I went back down to find the next restraunt to grab a hot drink. I was luckey and the first location I launched into had an oven. I drying the shoes a bit and stocked some heat before plunging down to the sea again. The ride  back was not half as long and a lot of fun. It was one of the rare times when in these last days without freezing my fingers ore toes off.

Days 186-189: Trabzon

After these two last days I was pretty exhausted and needed the first day to recharge the batteries. The second day was devoted for the Iranian visa application. everything went pretty smooth using some of the information my cycloreveurs friends documentet so nicely. But the catch was, that I only got 15 days and was not able to negociate more. I have tried to be very polite and perseverent, but in the end I was hoisted outside the door. I was told I could extend the visa at the international police, but when I tried to find out in what city I could finds a police station for that purpose it was not exactly a success.
Two weeks for more than 2000km of riding, so many places to visit, and the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan visas to organize on the way, this will be awfully short. So I should add to the previous enumeration 'extend the Iranian visa'. All this stresses me a bit out. I am not very experienced when it comes to visa stuff and I really don't want to end up travelling half through Iran in a train.
The rest of the days I was walking another round through Trabzon and went to the Boztepe hill to overlook the city. In a tea-house up there I found a prospectus of Trapzon, prazing its beauty and historical importance. Indeed I arrived on the Silkroad, at least one of the branches that was travelled by Marco Polo. As for the rest of the citiys beauty my comment is that it is certainly not a classical beauty. I like the houses that seem to pile one on another on the hillside but otherwise it looks to me as a bit neglected by the people that live here. Paradoxly there is a lot of appartement house construction going on all around the city, which indicates to me that it has to be a rather popular city.
One thing I was fascinated by and I feared at the same time was the minibuses here. They look like tuned racing machines and all the drives must think they are Michel Vaillant.
The rest of the time I spent with Çağatay and his flatmates. Beside the discussions there was also a crash-course in the cyrillic alphabet, a couple of chess games, movie watching... not spectacular but cosy, exactly what I needed.

Day 185: Giresun-Trabzon

It was a sunny day and from what I heard, I can't count myself luckey that it was not raining, since it is supposed to rain a lot on this part of the black-sea-coast. I thought that I should not have too much trouble to put the 140km to Trabzon behind me, since the road is all flat. But I did not take the wind into the equation and he took about 4km each hour. So it became a long exhausting day.
In the eavening I met Çağatay, my host and not much later I kind of past out. I needed to sleep.

Day 184: Sebinkarahisar-Giresun

It looked like a perfect day outside and I was eager to take off. When I attached the paniers to Wolter I noticed that I got a flat tire, grumpf. I fixed it a bit in a hurry and took off. It was sunny and not too cold and I started by a strech of downhill before entering a canyon. The road was free but around there was a lot of snow and it was a delight to watch the sun throwing these thousand diamonds all over the beautiful landscape and the icicles growing out from the rock walls.
I did not come too far before I got another flat tire, again the rear one. So I fixed it again, no hurry this time. But I managed to tear the thumbnail when taking of the tire. I sliped and a corner of the nail got caught in a spoke.However I was thorough this time in checking the tire for some foreign bodies and indeed I  found a tiny bit of metal wire pearcing through the tire. Some time later Wolter was ready again and my thumb was taped.
Now the big climb started from 1200 on 2200 m.a.s.The serpentine through the narrow valleys and around the big peaks was amazing, offering a lot of views around every second corner. Half way thourgh the climb the wind joined the party and it grew stronger the higher I climbed. It blew around the snow, forming these beautiful shapes everywhere but it also managed to cover the road with snow. Then weather changed quickly as it sometimes happens in the mountains. The wind was so strong that I dodged it riding slowly uphill, basically it was doubling the effor of the climb. What worried me a bit was that I did not see ahead anymore, so it was difficult to manage my reserves. Truck drivers going in both directions were stopping. The one coming down told me to trun around since back where he came from a mess will await me.The ones coming up offered me a ride. I ignored the first, since I knew I was not too far from the pass anymore and waved the other on. The last 100m uphill were quite hard I pushed with all I had on my higest gear against the slope and the wind.
On the pass there was nothing with enjoying the view and taking pictures (I did not want to take my gloves off for it). luckily there was a house with a shed for the road-clearing-machines. I went and looked around and there was somebody waving me in. I the house there was a crew of 8 workers, all present since it was around lunch time. I got invited to share the meal with them. The soup, the koefte made of rice and meat, the fries and the salad were a real feast. After we went for tea and I was bombarded with questions and inmidst the chaos somebody also told me that not too long ago there were two other cyclist riding over the pass. These guys were a really funy bunch cracking jokes all the time.
When I took off it had started to snow. For the first part of the downhill ride a sledge would have been a much better choice than a bike. For those who know the track in Berguen... well it looked like it in a good winter, only steeper. The next part was ups and downs until the road threaded into the valley carved by the Batlama river (not sure if it is the correct name). From here until Giresun the street was really flowy, allowing for easy attainable high average speed. a delight to ride. But The snowfall was heavy and the snow got heavier  as I lost altitude untill I was riding in snowrain, that felt cooler on the little uncovered bit of skin in my face than the cold wind before. It was a fight to complete these 120km even with 2000m of altitude to waiste along the way.
But I managed to go all the way from snowy mountains to the black sea, where I even saw a couple of flowers.
I found myself a really cheap hotel in Giresun where there was only one wood stove in the corridor as heating, the heaters in the rooms did not work. So I sat there for a while and my soaking wet cloath were steaming. I just managed to get something to eat before having an early nights sleep.

Day 183: Sebinkarahisar

When I woke up and peered out of the window, snowfall said good morning too me. The window of the room is exactly opening into the vally that I will have to ride along next. Yesterday I saw almost distance an hour of riding worth ahead, this morning I bearly could make out the neighbours house. So I chickened out, not wanting to repeat that expedition thing from two days ago. This ttime when I cross the next 2000+ pass I would like to see something.
So I watched movies and went for the minimal shopping. In the late afternoon the sky cleared again. Let's hope this lasts until tomorrw.

Day 182: Susehri-Sebinkarahisar

It was a sunny day again and I could admire the complex landscape of the Giresun region. Compared to Nevsehir (part of Kapadokya) where the complexity lies more in the closer look (small valleys, caves, weird sand cylinders) here the complexity is in rough mountains and one steep valley next to another. I love this kind of landscape I also encountered between Greece and Bulgaria as well as Slovakia. But here the dominant color was white for a change, also this landscape seemed particularly chiselled, where the snow melted away it lay open soft underground and one could observe erosion at work. I was not sure if that is simply because the eastern Pontic mountains are young or if recently a forest has gone missing. I took my time to enjoy the different views along my path, but on the other hand the ups and downs exhausted me in no time. In some 55 km I accumulated 1500m of climbing. I can't remember climbing so much in such a short distance. In the prospect of having to climb another 1000m before the next town I decided to stay in Sebinkarahisar, which is situated at a very nice spot.

Day 181: Zara-Susehri

'Only a bit snow in the early morning' the weather forecast said. I got up and checked; all right. I packed and left the hotel and there I stood in the snowfall. 'It's not so heavy and it will probably stop soon,' I told myself. Around eight when I took off after a lentil soup for breakfast (first I was surprised that I found and open place, but this one was even packed) thick snowflakes came down the sky. 'It will stop soon' I told myself and took off. After one hour, the new snow layer was constantly getting thicker, I stopped, stood there, watched all the white covering everything including the road and even the air seemed impenetrable for the eye. I was on the point of turning around because I doubted if another hour later uphill the road would still be rideable. But the following two days the weather is supposed to remain unsteady and I did not want to spend the week in Zara, so I cursed (probably my own stubbornness) rode on and hoped that they will start clearing the snow of the road soon. To my releaf a snowplough passed a bit later and even though the road remained white, it got easier. However I prepared for the worst and did not want to make any real breaks until I would reach the pass. On the way up I overtook a couple of skidding cars without snow chains, one of them had two ladies sitting on its bonnet snickering while I passt. I wondered how they would make it down the mountain again if they should ever reach the pass. I made a mental note to keep an ear on skidding cars once I go downhill.
On the crete it turned out I had a guardian angle, since here I crossed the guy driving the truck with the snowplough the fourth time, earlier comming in the opposite direction he stopped and offered me to climb in the cabin of his vehicle to warm up, but I was steaming from the climbing effort and tried to explain that I would be better off keeping the blood pumping. On a crete he stood waiting again and waved me to him once he saw me approaching. He handed me half a kilo tahin helvasi (very heay sweet on sesame basis) and wished me luck after giving some descriptions about the road to Susehri.
So I rode on and realized only a couple of minutes later that this was the highest point of todays route. I could not believe it first, since I was prepared for at least another hour of climbing but when I ckecked the track recording to look for the altitude of the pass I knew from studying the maps (yep did my homework), it indicated indeed that my highest point was 2051m.a.s. I rushed over my first twothousander!! Well that's done.
So I changed the wet jumper and pulled the rain-jacket as windstoper over it and of course my wetterrüstung with its super hood. A strong wind joined the persistent snowfall in this narrow steep valley but I would have been fine if its wasn't for the fingers. I have two pairs of gloves, but none of them seems to keep up with this kind of weather. At some point I tried to wear one pair of gloves above the other, but succeeded only half. As I descened the horizont closed in above the lower mountains and the snow consistency indicated milder temperatures.
To comlete the day I managed to have my first real slump when the wheels got caught in some kind of snow rail and I lost balance because I was not able to gide Wolter back under my point of gravity. By real slump I mean essentially that you not only have to let go of the bike in order to stay on your feed, but that you actually fall flat on the road yourself. I took it with humour, it did not hurt, Wolter was hole and I almost thought that its was about time to have the first propper bail on the trip. But I repeated the stunt a bit faster only moments later. There my humor was blown away and I won't repeat what I shouted through the valley while I got back on my feet. Brave Wolter also took this blow without noticeable damages but I got a small bruise on my right leg this time. Finally I had to ride the last stretch through very muddy and bumpy roads before reaching the next bigger valley. Here the sun was shining and while I pedaled the last hundreds of meters to Susehri, where some citizens got to see a mud covered cyclist passing in slow motion and my hurting fingers thawed, the last 6 hours seemd strangely distant, like a weird dream.
Susehri is a bit up on the hillside of this beautiful valley, from where I could admire the mountains in the north.
I initially planed to ride past this small town, even now with these harsh conditions I would have had daytime left to continue a reasonable bit, but initially I also thought it would be a cloudy day at worst, so I got myself a room with a view and enjoyed both of them.

Day 180: Zara

It was snowing most of the day...

Day 179: Sivas-Zara

Reserved

Days 177-178: Sivas

Saturday was sightseeing day. Mehmet and me went for a stroll downtown. Sivas has a nice big central square that is dominated by the Çifte Minare Medresesi (double minaret) and the old college, where 1919 Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) held the congress that led four years later to the republic of Turkey. Today the college contains a museeum about the different ethnies of the region and of course about Atatürk.
We also visited the Ulu Cami, the big mosque, which is also the oldest of the town.
Sunday was Hammam-day. We spent and entire afternoon there, going from the fitness studio, which was included, to the swimming pool and finally to the hammam.
In the fitness studio I always feel a bit awkward, but running on the rolling carpet was kind of fun. In, the pool I, tried to do some lanes, but gave up after a couple zigzagging and diving between the, other visitors doing everything but swimming along straight lines. I settled for watching the fun instead. Aslan told me that a lot of people do not get swimming training in school, but I, had no clue how a pool full of non-swimmers would look like. Sure most of the people managed to keep their head above the water surface, but rarely with any of the techniques I know. After the hammam I was like cooked in the proper sense of the term. I waited a bit too long before the scrubbing so the skin was a bit irritated afterwards. Once we left in the eavening, I felt very tired and very clean.
Ah yes, and it was snowing most of the weekend...

Day 176: Sarkisla-Sivas

I was woken by the sun before the alarm clock set on a rather early hour could wake me. At eight I was on the road. It was not long before I found myself under snow clouds again. The road was free and the asphalt was steaming. The sight was short because of the snow fall and the myst. Around this plateau I was crossing truckers and google maps topographic views was promising a lot of impressive mountains. I did not see one. I just saw a couple of dozens meters of the black road and beside mostly white stuff. Sometimes the sun pushed a tiny bit through the clouds, hinting a couple of shadows into the white. To my own astonishment riding in these conditions was actually enjoyable. The atmosphere was quite particular and its silence was only disrupted by very few vehicles, one of which was my own. Wolters tires were humming on the smooth asphalted. On some stretches I rode on a thin fresh layer of snow, the humming got muffled and became an unusual sound. This transformed Wolter in some kind of futuristic spacecraft gliding through a strange environment in which I felt like an alien because of the usual noises beeing absent and my depth perception beeing fooled by the lack of contrast in all this white.
After lunch break the sun came back untill I entered this wind channel of a valley after a left turn to face north and the last 20km untli Sivas.
The town was very lively, lots of people in the street but I was in a hurry to get off it, get the ice out of my facial hair and find a place that offers hot tea and internet so I can contact Mehmet my host. He piloted me to his office before he ended his working day. I found the building of the public services without any problems, that house full of electric engineers. I could go on why this was special to me and why the memory box was rattling like mad, but that's another long story.
And at six p.m. we were out, back in Mehmets apartment and after dinner back in the streets of Sivas. But the cold did not make us last long there, just the time to see the building where the Turkish republic was founded before we clinched a glass of hot tea in one hand and a fork with baklava in the other inside a warm cafe.
The eavening ended with a movie of Fatih Akin, 'Im July'

Day 175: Gemerek-Sarkisla

It snowed only once this day... starting during the night and ending in the eavening. When I got up around eight am I peered out the window, checking the street. Everything was white and heavy snow fall added on top of what looked like a layer of 10 cm. I threw myself back into the bed. At eleven o'clock I repeated the procedure and discovered that some brave men must have cleared the roads from the snow. During the last nap I had some dream about me buying a bus ticket to Sivas. I stood there for a while unsure of what to do. Checkout time was approching and I really did not want to spend another night here. I was told that in Sarkisla there where hotels too, so I decided to reach that town which is only 30km+ from here.
It was easier than expected, the only trouble was the ice freezing on Wolter. At some point the bike was considerably heavier and the ice started to break the wheels. But I managed and arrived at a nice cheap hotel along the road. I could put Wolter in the lobby to defrost, when I said that there would be a mess the concierge and his buddy just laughed at me and waved me in.

Day 174:Kalaba-Gemerek

I did not get much sleep. Aslan and me ended up discussing religion, which is always delicate with somebody you bearly know and even more so because of the fact that I am in a muslim country. However it was very good to get insights from somebody who speaks his mind in a language that I understand.
In front of the door snow greated me, fresh snow starting to cover the road. But it was rideable. A friend of Aslan who drives trucks suggestsed to take the roads via Kayseri rather than the one via Bogazlian, to avoid even more snow and spare my legs some climbing. Anyway the road to Bogazlian now also has four lanes, not two as indicated on what appears to be my outdated map.
As I progressed the snowfall got lesser and the first half of the day was dominated by very good surfaced roads with a slight and steady descent and tailwind. Easy and nice. I rode with the dancing snowflakes. At some point the snowflakes turned into tiny snow balls, bouncing of the street. I felt a bit like a snowflake myself going at the same speed.
The second half had to be earned. The temperature dropped, the tailwind was almost absent and the roads got worse. Two times I was offered rides by truckers, but I thought I save this for an emergency, which was quitted by even more head shaking than usually.

Day 173: Nevşehir-Kalaba

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.

Days 169-172: Nevsehir

These last couple of days some kind of cooking competition took place a in Alkims apartment. We took turns in preparing the meals and as this went along the meals got more and more sophisticated. It felt like culinary heaven.
Sunday Alkim baked a birthday cake for Will who survived last Monday yet another winter. Most of the afternoon we tried to figure out what we could used to write a personal message on the cake. We tried sugar paste, dry suggar and biscuit crumbs before settling for the more elaborate and time consuming method of carving the letters out of biscuits. The result was, after hours of carefully scratching and cutting, quite satisfying.
After Will and Julies departure on Monday, I would hit the roads myself the following day. The weather forecast was not brilliant, but Powho knows when it would get better. The roads are cleared of the snow and would just have to fight through to the northern coast, where the temperatures are a bit milder again. So it felt like preparing to wake up from some kind of winter hibernation.
Spending these cold snowy days with Alkim, Will and Julie was a delight, this way waiting for spring was comfortably warm, a delight.
Thanks a ton Alkim for having us.

Day 168: Derinkuyu

Will, Julie and me took a bus to that town to visit the underground city. So we were hiding under the earth on that sunny day.
It is not quit clear if the Hettites started already building 2000 b.c., essentially to hide cattle and men from the cold. However, it seems a bit more evident that the christians around anno 0 inhabited these places digging deeper into the earth to build even chapels and missionary schools in the lowest levels of the city, some 50m underground. Since then the city has been growing. It is estimated that more than 10000 people inhabited the place.
To me the long descending tunnels were most impressive. I tried to picture children playing in the "roads" of this city, the light, if there was any... We spent a little more than and hour under the earth. I estimated that we have seen a couple of percent of the city, maybe holding hundreds of people but not thousand. Indeed a lot of tunnels were closed, otherwise people would get lost in this maze.
Some places are quite nice for buldering and of course we gave that a try too.
Back on the surface the sun stung our eyes. We went shopping on the home and Alkim cooked Kumpir, a Turkish dish made with mashed patatoes, mushrooms and other vegetables. It was delicious.

Day 167: Göreme Tarihi Milli Parki

Today I took my bike with little luggage and went for a day trip to see the fairy chimneys. The landscape, as advertised, is quite particular and beautiful. There was a still a lot snow and were there wasn't, the soil was muddy. And while pushing and dragging my poor Wolter along a single trail (forgot the lock, so I could not leave him) I got a pair of wet feet. The ride home was accordingly cold for the lower extremities.
It was a pity that I managed to piss myself off with my misplaced knightley attitude after a bad choice of route (a warrior never retreats/goes back and shit). It almost spoiled the day, fortunately the weather was brilliant, the air not too cold and the nature sculptured small miracles all around the place, keeping my mind off the cold wet feet.