The black sea
Sebastian: We leave Uchisar as usual a little bit late but and decide to take a little detour to visit the Erciyes Dagi volcano (3.891m). On the way there the flat sand and grass underground next to the street make me want to go off-road. I cant hold it and I tell Martin, that I will take a short timeout and do a couple of 100 m alongside the road. Its beautiful, the ground is soft and easy to ride and the bike has no problems whatsoever to control the terrain – even fully loaded. After I catch up with Martin I ask him to take some pictures riding off-road and after doing so I ask him if he wants to join in. Didn’t need to convince him and on he went. In the end we drove a couple of 100 m next to the actual street enjoying our second off-road experience. Nice to see that Martin starts to enjoy it too :). When crossing back to the road I get of the bike to free a bird that has been locked up in a small house. Like this I catch up for the bird I killed with my mirror in Montenegro.
Driving on we pass the volcano and enjoy quite some nice landscape. Nevertheless its a little bit less thrilling than I had expected it and the rotten hotels in the area do not help to change that. After that we reach Kayseri, another million inhabitant city in turkey, and as ugly as most of them. Yet again a Turk asks us if we needed help and lead us the way to the right exit of the city.
Boğazkale
The next 200km change from dead boring to very nice landscape. Wind is our steady companion (Don Quixote I hear you!) and I still have to fight with my stomach and do not feel to fine. Finally we arrive in Boğazkale which was in the early days the capital (called Hattusa) of the Hittites. The ruins of their civilization are a known tourist destination for hikers or historically interested people. One of the most fascinating legacies is the first historically documented peace contract with the Egyptians in 1259 before Christ which can been seen (in copy) in the UNO in NYC in order to give a good example for the rest of the world.
Belice Beach
The next day we arrive in Samsung at the black sea, a city of which many people told us that its ok to visit. We do not share that opinion and are heavily disappointed (I admit we just stayed on the main road, but what we saw didn’t make us see more). We continue along the coast hoping to find a nice place to camp and after quite a while a small path catches our attention. Independently we stop and its clear – we have to check it out. Going down we arrive at a small bay with a couple of houses, 3 bars and some small chalets on the rocks overlooking the sea. One guy simple offers us to put up our tents next to his bar and once more we find a place to sleep without major problems.
Short time after the tents are ready we are already surrounded by young people of which one speaks great English. He acts as our translator and its thanks to him that we spent 2 wonderful days at Belice Beach as the place is called. These 2 days include cliff diving, hanging out at the (tire fueled) fireplace, dancing Turkish dances with the youngsters around, playing volleyball with them and being served great breakfast by two young boys that really enjoyed our stay.
During these 2 days yet some other colleagues of Martin stop by to bring me the long awaited phone that my father sent me 3 weeks ago. Not just that they come to bring my parcel they surprise us with a small present and invite us to have lunch with them. Spending time with the Turkish people has so far been a pleasure no matter where we went. Thanks to all of you! Or in Turkish Teşekkür ederim!!!
We leave and the sad guys spill water over us, which seems to be a Turkish habit for „Leavers“. Continuing along the coastline is as so many km of our route so far a pure pleasure. After we pass Ordu, the hazelnut capital of the region we cant stop looking right into the mountains covered by jungle like forest. Spontaneously we decide to make a detour and to check it out a little bit…
For they don’t’ know what they do
… as usual we were not well prepared and didn’t know that floodings had destroyed many roads in this area. Never mind we say and continue next to caterpillars which where cleaning the roads. After a while we reach a small village and want to turn around – the street seems too steep and we do not know what expects us further up. But… some people from the village tell us to continue, the roads will be better further up and so on. WTF??? What do they understand by better? Bad, worse, „bader“ maybe?
But OK, we take it as a challenge and on top of that we get surprised by a taxi that catches up with us after around 20 minutes (how did they get up here???). Three men get out of the car, one was the guy that told us to go on, one was a Turk from Berlin and one was the driver. Shortly they explain us that they want to show us the way and again again again we have a pace car to show us the way!! It is not believable anymore. Who thaught these people to be so nice? Anyways, we climb up the mountain stopping from time to time to visit old greek churches and to have a coffee with the older locals… everyday business as it seems to us by now :).
One more thing to mention is that we finally start to put our bikes to the ground! On the worsted road that we have driven so far (we drive from gravel, to mud, to dust, to broken asphalt)I started and Martin followed right away (cant stand to be behind this guy 🙂 ). This is not enough for him, short time later he parks his Eva2 against a rock wall, demolishing his mirror. But no harm done we can continue and finally find back to the coast road that brings us to Rize, on of the last cities before the boarder to Georgia. As we got the habit to arrive at night we have to look for a hotel at 23.30 and are lucky to find one that has a room and where our bikes are being watched. And what can I say, at the reception I meet a young guy who wants to invite us for dinner. As we are well educated young man we accept naturally and have a nice midnight snack and chat with him.
The next day is our last day in turkey (sniff): On the way to Georgia we take a short detour into the tea mountains (same like the hazelnut area around Ordu but with tea) and then get on the way to the boarder to join Raimund. He contacted us via the blog and invited us to stay at his place in Batumi. From there we will start a journey through the small Caucasus direction Yerevan in Armenia. Let us tell you more about that shortly!
