Turkey

07 May – Turkey, 190 miles

A rather short day – just getting close to the Turkey-Georgia border, to make tomorrow’s border-crossing day a bit easier.
130 miles to get to Kars, where we’re staying (directly underneath a castle… my room looks directly up at it) – and then a 60-mile round-trip to visit the ruins of Ani.
The riding – nothing spectacular… just the main “highway” to get us here… dodging a few potholes, cows, cars-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road, etc.
Ani – worth a walk around. It’s mostly just some of the city walls still standing, a couple of churches, and the remains of other buildings – surrounded by a LOT of rubble, presumably from the remainder of the old city. Not much evidence to justify the moniker “The City of 1001 Churches”.

06 May – Turkey, 270 miles

A rather enjoyable day – I’e overheard a few people commenting it was one of their favourite days thus far. No real long motorway stretches, or super-twisty bits – just a lot of reasonable bends, a couple of rather high passes, and a LOT of potholes.
Many, many potholes – one would be cruising along quite happily, thinking the rough patches are all left behind – this stretch of road is looking rather new and fresh – come around a bend – and the two entire lanes of road are pockmarked in potholes, some very very nasty looking.
But – everybody made it through – although I was meaning to go down and check all the spokes on my wheels.
We’re staying the night at the main ski town of Turkey – Erzurum, 2,156 metres altitude, bits and pieces of snow around, none on the roads thankfully.

Also got stopped by the police, several times – the real police with assault rifles and what-not, not the Trafik Polisi I encountered the other day. Apparently we’re nearing the part of the country with some Kurds around – and the military and armed police presence is very very visible.
The first time – a roadblock in the middle of some back-country road – showed them my New Zealand passport, and the guy was very surprised, very pleased. A couple of other times – they initially pulled me over along with the car/bus I was behind – but then waved me through as they checked the other vehicle’s documents. One other time they started asking for passport, but decided against it when the other guy with me started pulling out his luggage from panniers to get to it. Instead, we ended up having a big chat, got a few photos taken, smiles, handshakes, etc. We left them rather confused after insisting they hold a small stuffed mouse for the photo opportunities – as the guy I was riding with, Dicky, has this mascot, from the children’s book he wrote, raising money for charity.
https://www.tommouse.co.uk/

05 May – Round trip, 161 miles

An optional ride-out to Mt Nemrut “Mountain of Gods”.
Some fairly twisty roads out to get there and some very small country lanes.
Visited some old Roman Bridge – where we were swamped by some school trip – about 2 dozen, or more, 9-10 year olds all wanting to practice their english. Most of the others managed to hide away, when they all converged on me… with the same questions darted at me from every direction, for about 10 minutes straight… “What’s your name?”, “Where are you from?”, “Do you like Turkey?” – etc, etc. They took a couple of group photos with me and bike, and a couple of “selfies” – and I completely forgot to get one of the group photos taken with my own camera/phone.
Anyway – rather impressive bridge, considering it’s nearly 2,000 years old.
And – then on to Mount Nemrut itself – where the entire top cone is artificial – built by slaves carrying up rocks to make the mountain higher… and there’s a few giant statues of the normal stuff – gods, guardian eagles/lions, and the guy who ordered it built… rubbing elbows with the gods, obviously. Again – rather impressive.
And finally – some very very twisty roads to return to Matalya, including quite long stretches of gravel… slowly building up the experience which will be required all too soon.

04 May – Turkey, 250 miles

Leaving the hotel in Cappadocia, some Turkish journalists turned up – taking video and photos of us and bikes… a little late, as most of the group had left – but they seemed interested in getting footage of my putting-on-of-helmet. Maybe there’s going to be some Turk-TV somewhere starring yours truly.

The riding – rather good…
~55 miles of standard highway…
~30 miles over a pass – the highest we’ve been yet, I believe – 1990 metres
I think I got a little off-route after that, with some very small country roads, lots of gravel, lots of stopping and double-checking the GPS vs route-notes… about 15 miles of that
And ~150 miles of semi-motorway – lots of long curvy roads up and down gentle slopes.
Oh – and the first traffic police interaction. Apparently 3 other guys in the group got given tickets, but I just got pulled over, and given a friendly/jokey chat “Ah – you’re going to Beijing, we come with you, which country you from, what’s your name, etc…” and eventually “oh, and, by the way – up to 100, no problem… 101 – ticket” (the speed limit on single-carriageways is 90. I’m pretty sure I was going well over 100 when the radar clocked me).

Got to Malayta fairly early – I think I was in the last four to leave this morning, and maybe(?)first four to arrive this afternoon.
So – spent the afternoon using the decent internet to update some previous/missing posts (Istanbul, and Cappadocia) with photos/etc.
Another hotel where we’re staying 2 nights – with an optional ride-out to Mount Nemrut tomorrow – which I’m almost certainly going to do.

Two nights staying in a cave in Cappadocia. Quite a nice cave… spa bath and sauna in my own cave/room.

On the day “off” – first – balloon ride. Up very early, to then stand around waiting for a couple of hours, pending the “go/no-go” decision. We were the only ones who turned up so early – everybody else turned up an hour or two later – timed for the actual take-off.
Anyway… the actual balloon ride – I wasn’t too sure if I was too fussed about doing this… but am rather pleased I did. Spectacular, and with a very skilled “pilot” who took us down/up to just brush against trees and/or rock formations. Probably the most impressive bit – which observers on the ground got for free – was the sheer quantity of balloons… I counted 125, and am pretty sure I would have missed a couple-dozen.
And finally – the pilot landed us right on the trailer for the balloon basket… not bad balloon-driving. Especially compared to one we saw come in a few minutes later… which had to abort the landing – started climbing again… at the mercy of the wind – no idea where those customers ended up.

Back to the hotel – had a short look around the town of Ürgüp where we were staying… that took about 5 minutes. Lots to see around the area – but I couldn’t be bothered getting the bike out of the pack in the hotel car-park – so instead just relaxed, caught up on some sleep, and made use of the jacuzzi/spa-bath.