Frogs and Thunderstorms

It took me a little while to begin to like Istanbul after arriving in the tourist area of Sultanhamet. After a stay of around nine days it was a shame to leave. The road I stayed on was much like any other backpacker centre that I have been to before, but had redeemed itself with great views of the Bosphorus, Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia. After seeing more of the city while chasing visas I began to like the place, particularly the area close to the Bosphorus.

Visas for central Asia proved fairly straight forward to obtain once I had sussed out where all the embassys were and was really a matter of hanging around drinking cay while details were processed. I managed to obtain an Uzbek, Kyrg, Azeri and Tajik visas. All I need now is a Kazak and Chinese visa that I should hopefully be able to get in Baku. The trickiest part was trying to judge when I will arrive in all the countries as most of the visas have fixed entry and exit dates. So hopefully I will not be too rushed trying to jump from one country to the next. Cost added up with Kryg being the most expensive at 120 dollars. Considering I only need two days in the country, this is rather pricey. I asked for a transit visa but they couldn't be persuaded to drop the price. Maybe I can stay longer and get my moneys worth.

The Rivers and sea front in Istanbul is extremely busy with fishermen. Most guys were catching small fish on hokkai lures but many other species are about including bass, albacore, bluefish and an array of others. Theres even a good lot of spear fishermen around the golden horn who seem to have some success.

I couldn't leave the city without having a quick dangle. Ivor the crazy Serbian guy from the hostel and I headed down to the sea front one evening and bagged around 15 small fish that we later ate. I tried livebaiting but with no luck. It was a really busy area right in the centre of town so the next day we tried a little further down the coast and again had goodluck. Unfortunately while we were both fishing an alley cat raided our bag of fish and took at least half of our catch. We still ended up with around 30 fish which we had cooked later. I managed to catch 5 on one cast but this was no match for the old boys who I saw catch up to 11 on one chuck.

Istanbul was also a good stop off as there are many other cyclists coming through the city. I met 5 or 6 other guys and ended up leaving with Kurt, an american guy and Mirjam, a dutch girl. Kurt has been touring Europe and north africa for the last 8 months and Mirjam is also on her way to Australia from Holland.

We headed up the Bosphorus to the black sea coast which we followed for the first few days. We climbed some of the steepest hills so far on the trip and had some of the best camping. We stayed a few nights on beaches and fished and snorkeled. I was pleased my leg seems to have healed and apart from a little pain seems to be ok now. For the first few days we cycled through beautiful forests and countryside full of walnut, apricot, cherry, hazelnut and mulberry trees. We saw many tortoises and meadows full of a great variety of flowers and insects.

The landscape gradully became drier and the tempertaure incresed as we headed inland towards Ankara. One road was melting badly and proved to be slow going, it was as if we were cycling in glue. The forest gave way to dry rolling mountains which meant many hills to climb but also some great downhills.

Kurt and I split from Mirjam and headed into Ankara to look for my Tajik visa and get a mozzy net. We planned to meet again in Cappadocia, south of Ankara in a few days. We managed to get into the city around lunch time and high tailed it out the next morning around 9.30 so it went pretty smoothly all in all. We even managed to find a great camping spot in the centre of the city in a small valley that hasn't been built on yet. It was an incredible view of the city at night and was very special when the call to prayer came from all the mosques across the city. A sight I think not many tourist will get to see.

The turkish people have been incredibly friendly and have plyed us with free tea and food whereever we have stopped. The guys at one petrol station gave us fruit juice, tea, biscuits, ice cream etc and even air freshners for our tents and bike cleaning towels. Mirjam even got a rose!
In Ankara we planned to cook but we left the supermarket so full we could hardly eat the turkish pizza given to us by the kebab guys up the road. We had to start refusing tea offers as we could easily end up only cycling 10km per day.

We left Ankara and got chased to Cappadocia by big thunderstorms that we somehow dodged for the two and a half days that it took us to arrive here. One day we cycled through a swarm of aphids that left our arms and clothes coated. A little later the road was covered in thousands of small frogs. There were so many that some inevitably ended up squashed under our wheels. After the frogs the storm caught us and sent us scurrying into a storm drain under the road. We brewed tea and ate biscuits before we both agreed that the storm had passed. At that moment we both nearly died of shock as a lighting bolt touched down just outside our shelter. The blast up the drain left us with ringing ears and stupid grins on our faces!

Again later we were chased by a storm and had to cross an unmade piece of road that was unbelievably muddy. After a km we both had lovely coatings of mud all over our legs and bikes. A truck driver pulled up beside us and offered us a lift to the next town. We refused and he seemed to think we were crazy and kept asking us to jump in the back but we pushed on to the hill on the far side of the mud bath. Passing cars and buses kindly splashed us with mud if we cycled too close. I managed to cycle up the hill in record time as the thunder rumbled behind me reminding me of the quickly approaching storm. We stopped in the town for cay and a small 3ft tall menace bothered us until a turkish guy chased him away for the 10th time. Of couse the storm turned and missed us so all that effort was for nothing.

We made it to Cappadocia in two and a bit days from Ankara, with one day being a new record distance for me of 152km. We passed through some beautiful mountains made up of layers of rock of many different colours including lovely pinks and greens. Cappadocia is really as nice as everyone keeps chirping on about and is full of caves, perfect for sleeping in. The area was once covered in volcanic ash that has now weathered to leave many crazy shaped landforms. Its a great place for a holiday if you have a a few weeks to spare and like walking.

We met Kokoro a Japanese cyclist in the hostel in Cappadocia who had just arrived from Japan. 23.000 km. well done!! Its been great talking to him as he has come on the same route that I'm taking. From here I will head east, possibly to Nemrut Dagi and then on to Central Asia. I'm very excited but also a little nervous!