Turkey has been very good to me. I have met more locals and tourists here than anywhere else on my journey. Not a single day goes by in which I don't drink çay (tea) with Turks or Kurds on the side of the road, whether it be outside a cafe, in a dominoes room (the equivalent of bingo in Turkey) or someone's home.
The majority of these photos are from Samsun onwards. In Samsun my friend from England, Rob, joined the expedition for three weeks, to Tehran. We rode along the Black Sea for four days before turning south and crossing multiple mountain ranges. The first day of climbing saw us pedal for five and a half hours from 120m to 2640m. The next day the map showed that we had to do two 2,300m passes, nothing compared to the day before. As it turned out, just when we thought we'd done our final pass and could roll downhill, a third mountain pass popped up which required conquering.
This meant we didn't stop cycling until hours after sunset. We found a quarry with dozens of trucks in and asked if we could sleep there. No one spoke English but the workers invited us in for dinner. After thirty or so minutes of stuffing our faces and having our photos taken someone gestured to say they'd found us a bed. We slept in a 6-bed dorm with the quarry workers who woke up at various times in the night to get working.
Below are 60 photos from Istanbul to Erzurum, and one video of climbing the big mountain pass. As you can tell, I am rushing, we are trying to get to Iran in three days and there's a nasty headwind outside!
The first night away from Istanbul and missing people already
Climbing over a 900m pass while the motorway stayed low, using tunnels
Four days to Samsun
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| This photo took me all day to get, the lake is created by a dam 3km to the south |
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| Found Rob sitting on a bench in Samsun - Unpacking |
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| My Rubik's cube, brought from England by Rob - expertly wrapped by my dad |
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| Camping on Samsun beach with Agustin |
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| Rob's 1st day - The rear rack detached at the top, causing all his luggage to fall onto the road |
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| The view from my tent the next morning |
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| Route planning in a petrol station with free çay |
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| 6000km done since England! |
We camped in a block of flats that was being built, the locals came to investigate with their lovely dog - in the end they came back with some freshly caught sardines and mullet
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| Rob tucking in |
The garage we slept in - our food stuff is out as we'd already eaten pasta when they brought as fish!
Our only hill for four days, 200m above sea level
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| Having breakfast ( a pan of muesli) in our own block of flats with a nice morning view |
The dominoes room where we played chess in the rain - and the proud man who owned it
Having dinner in a çay warehouse
Preparing the bike and solar panel
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Not the best weather to wake up to when you have to ascend over 2,500m
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| In the valley leading up to Ovit Dagi pass, tea leaves being grown everywhere |
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| Rob and corn |
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| We started climbing from 120m at 7:30 |
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| Soon we were in heavy rain |
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| Once we cycled into the cloud the visibility was really poor |
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| The best view we had all the way up to 2640m |
Cycling on a really bad road = hard work
soaked through
Near the top I started filming - unfortunately the battery didn't make it all the way
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| At the top, the temperature was around 3 degrees Celsius |
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| After we'd wrapped up warm |
The next day we were expecting to do two mountain passes - no problem when you have such nice views
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| The mountain range on the right, which we climbed over the day before, was holding back all the bad weather |
A small part of the road we climbed up
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| Really steep roads |
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| Lovely cycling without a shirt - not so good when we stopped and the winds kicked in |
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| Cropped for better viewing of facial expression while munching on bread |
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Rob resting and eating after the first pass of the day
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Looking down from the top of the first pass
Nomads living in the valleys below
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| As soon as we were low enough to join the stream (1900m) the landscape changed |
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| More Nomads |
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| The seconds pass of the day at around 5pm |
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| The pass that we didn't know existed at around 7pm |
Aubergine with mince meat sauce - to start with they just gave us one, then they brought out three more each (plus macaroni and sour cream)
Most of the workers in the quarry were Kurds
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| A huge plateau at 1,900m |
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| Not impressed with the strong headwind |
Having dinner in a çay warehouse
Preparing the bike and solar panel
When did you turn into Wolverine? Steff xxxx
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