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Go East

maggio - novembre 2020
Un’avventura di 175 giorni di Herbert & Meike Leggi altro
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  • Go East

    Fascinating canyons

    25 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Good we didn't camp at the salt lake as we had originally planned. Because at 4am, we woke up by the sound of a storm. On the salt lake, there would have been no protection at all. On the campground, we were protected by walls, so we only had to cope with a dirty tent in the morning as all the sand came down with the rain.
    Anyways, it 7am, the weather was back to normal and we could start cycling. It was only another 50km on a flat highway (where I got my second flat tyre on our trip) before we finally reached a more interesting region again: We arrived in Kappadokyia which is famous for its spectacular rock formations, fairy chimneys, rock churches, canyons, valleys and underground cities.
    We saw the great rock formations of Selime cathedral, climbed around in the houses carved in the rocks and enjoyed a panoramic view and Ihlara valley. We then continued to Belisirma, a small village in the middle of Ihlara valley where we wanted to camp at one of the restaurants. We visited the old part of the village which is full of old Greek stone houses and then entered Ihlara valley via a back entrance for a hike. The valley is super impressive! A deep canyon with rock churches on both sides. We hiked for a couple of hours and admored the frescos you can see in the churches. Then we returned to the restaurant where we had a big dinner. As it's a tourist place, the price was a bit of a rip off, but it was good at least. At night, we set camp right next to the river. We could sleep in our sleeping bags only, no tent needed :)    Leggi altro

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  • Go East

    Underground city

    26 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Our day started with a steep climb out of the valley again. Back at the top, we could finally see Mt. Hasan, one of the 3 volcanoes in this region that caused those fascinating rock formations with their eruptions. Cycling was like visiting an open air museum, the landscape and the villages were just beautiful! We passed the villages of Ihlara and Ilisu with their old Greek stone houses, we got more great views of Ihlara valley and another canyon near Güzelyurt and found a couple of scenic dirt roads as well.
    In Güzelyurt, Sadegh invited us for some tea, told us more about Güzelyurt and showed us his home: a renovated Greek stone house. It was actually very cosy inside! We also made his Dutch wife who woke up during our tour through the house. In the end, he gave us some cucumbers and tomatoes from his garden to take with us.
    We had our real breakfast in the centre of Güzelyurt before continuing our ride. We passed many small volcanoes and really enjoyed the colours around us given by the volcanic landscape.
    In Derinkuyu, we visited an underground city which was awesome! It has 8 floors and is, according to the signs, the biggest in the world. It was fun walking and climbing around. It's crazy what our ancestors have carved in the rock!
    As Derinkuyu itself wasn't too appealing, we decided to continue all the way to Göreme, the heart of Cappadocia. It's very touristy, however, the landscape here is unreal. But more about this tomorrow.. . So far, we found a small hotel and relaxed in the backyard.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East

    Exploring Cappadocia

    27 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Today was dedicated to exploring Cappadocia . First, we went to the nearby rock formations. Cycling in between those fairy chimneys felt unreal, it was so cool! We also tested our bikes' offroad suitability as we had to cycle on sand. Without all the weight of the luggage and with less air in the tubes, it actually worked well.
    Afterwards, we cycled and hiked to some viewpoints, checked out Paşabağ, Devrent, Zelve and some other valleys and passed by the old Greek town of Ürgüp. All was totally impressive and great fun to explore!
    In the evening, we walked around Göreme town and admired the hotels that are built in the fairy chimneys. We also got ourselves a couple of beers to drink to our birthdays.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East
    12

    Balloon watching

    28 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Wake up time: 5am. As we are in Cappadocia, we really wanted to watch the hot air balloons. And as they start before sunrise, we had to hike up to the viewpoint early as well. So we climbed up to a cliff right next to the town center. The village was still lieing in the dark, but we could watch the minibuses driving around picking up customers and transporting the baskets for the balloons.
    And suddenly, we heard the sound of the air getting blown into the balloons. It got brighter and all around us, we started seeing more and more balloons standing up. And one after the other left the ground. In the end, we counted about 70 colourful hot air balloons around us - what a fantastic view!
    After this start, we had a quiet day. We cycled to Avanos in order to get new chains for the bikes. The first bikeshop only had very cheap ones that are not suitable for our type of touring, so we tried to find another one with the help of some locals. The second shop had one good quality chain - and an Afghani mechanic who spoke some very basic English and was called to translate. As they had never worked on a Rohloff setup before, they were totally confused and didn't know how to change the chain. So Herbert had to show them. In the end, it worked out and everyone was happy.
    We checked out the town center, which was actually quite nice, and had some lunch. Interesting to see that prices are about 20-30% of the Göreme prices only because it's not touristy. Back at the hostel, we went for a swim in the pool and Herbert did some bike maintenance. Then we went for a walk around town again and hiked to the cliff again, this time to get a sunset view of the rock formations here.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East
    1

    Balloon ride

    29 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Yesterday, we only watched the balloons, today we flew in one of them. So again, a very early wakeup call. We got picked up at 5:15am and were driven to the starting point. The balloon was huge, carrying a basket with 24 people plus 2 pilots. However, the flight was incredible! Our pilot alternated between navigating close by the fairy chimneys and flying high above the ground for the panoramic views and the sunrise.
    After the flight, we had breakfast at the hostel and left for Kayseri. We followed the highway, so cycling wasn't too interesting. But we got some nice views of Mt. Erciyes, a volcano with an altitude of over 3900m, which is located right next to the city.
    Kayseri is huge, it has almost 1.4 million inhabitants. There's a nice castle in the center and a busy market. But other than that, cycling in cities is no fun, so we headed straight to Türker, our warmshowers host for the night. For dinner, we cooked German "Bratkartoffeln" for him and his flatmates, went to an icecream shop and had some really nice discussions with the guys.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East
    2

    Away from the tourists

    30 settembre 2020, Turchia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    We are heading further East, a region away from the normal tourist route. To get out of Kayseri, we took the main road. Lots of traffic, but fast. We caught some nice views of Mt. Erciyes again. It had rained in the city last night. But above 3500m it must have snowed, as top of the volcano was covered in a thin layer of snow.
    After 30km, we stopped at a small roadside shop to buy some bread for breakfast. And here we encountered Turkish hospitality again. After having bought 1 bread for just over 10 Euro Cents, the shop owner asked his son to get us some green peppers and tomatoes out of his garden, gave us a bottle of water each and put a table and a couple of chairs, so we could have a proper breakfast. We then bought two more breads and he got us more tomatoes and peppers...
    After breakfast, we continued on a secondary road. We enjoyed the silence without all the cars, the colours of the landscape and the views. We passed Tuzla Gölü, a small salt lake. This time, we caught a panoramic view from above as it's located in between some mountains. But we couldn't cycle on it as the first few meters were too muddy to get on the salty part.
    Shortly after the lake, a car stopped. The driver spoke German and was up for a chat. He was currently on holidays in Turkey, but had been living in Munich for the last 30 years. He asked if he could help with anything, but we were all good then.
    With the help of the wind, we cycled quickly to Şarkışla, where we wanted to stay for the night. We went to a restaurant next to a public park to have dinner and ask if it's safe to sleep in the park. The owner directly offered us to find a place on the restaurant area. And as it had nice wooden platforms with a roof, we decided to just set up camp on one of them.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East

    Countryside backroads

    1 ottobre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    When you open your eyes in the morning and you can see the sunrise, you know you had found the right place to sleep :)
    We left the restaurant at about 7am, bought some bread in the city centre and turned on the highway to get some kilometres in before breakfast. After around 35km, we could turn onto a backroad and had our breakfast on a bridge. Then we continued to Sivas. We really enjoyed the ride as we basically had the road to ourselves and views were fascinating. The colours of the mountains are so beautiful in this region!
    In Sivas, we stopped for lunch. The city seems to be nice. It has an old center with impressive buildings and busy markets. After s short break, we continued to Havik where we cooked dinner at a picnic area at a lake and set up camp.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East

    Dead bear canyon

    2 ottobre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Winter is coming slowly, even in Turkey. The temperature at night drops below 10°C and we have to deal with the occasional rain from now on. Last night, we were happy we could sit out the rain under those picnic table roofs. This morning, we could wait it out in the tent. But it also means that our days get shorter as we don't have that much dry cycle time in daylight anymore.
    However, luckily, the day has been wonderful again. At first, we passed some small lakes with super clear water. Unfortunately, they are all very flat and the ground is muddy, so they are not suitable for swimming.
    After we passed the town of Zara, the road led through a canyon and we had to climb above an elevation of 2000m. The first time we passed this mark in Turkey and the 3rd highest point on our Go East trip so far. Interestingly, there's some trees here the further up you go.
    On the way down, we also follwed a canyon. Unfortunately, we saw a dead baby bear next to the road. We were totally surprised there's bears in this area as it's still pretty dry and the forest is not really big. And it was sad to see that this little bear was obviously hit by a car.
    As we were looking forward to a proper shower, we decided to stay in a hotel tonight. Not particularly nice, but at least we had a scenic view from the 8th floor.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East

    10.000 km and more canyons

    3 ottobre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Cycling in Turkey is a real pleasure! Today was a great example of why we like it so much. No. 1: The landscape is just breathtaking. Today, we cycled on canyon roads again. There was almost no traffic, so we could really enjoy our surroundings! No. 2: Logistics are relatively easy. There's many fresh water springs along the road, so we can regularly fill up our water bottles without buying plastic bottles or having to worry about how many extra litres of water we have to carry. Often, there's also a picnic area with tables and benches, sometimes even toilets. Wild camping is also legal and safe, so we usually find a good and quiet spot. Like today, where we are camping with a lake and mountain view. No. 3: The Turkish hospitality. Again, we met some really nice people. After we missed a lunch invitation due to communication problems, we met 2 teenagers at a gas station in Şiran. They invited us to some tea (of course), then took us to a restaurant, so we could eat something. Next stop was a tea shop again where they also filled up our water bottles and got us some local dessert called pestil köme (nuts in a sweet creme). Many people came by, we walked around the main street a couple of times, and after 2 hours I think we've "talked" (thanks to Google Translate again...) to everyone in the village. They wanted us to stay for longer, but it was getting late and we wanted to get to a nice camp spot. So we said goodbye and continued a few kilometres until we found our campspot.
    And as a side note: We passed the 10.000km since we left for this Panamerica Substitute Trip.    Leggi altro

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  • Go East
    1

    Walk the dogs

    4 ottobre 2020, Turchia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    This morning, we had some super nice dog company. "Forest" and "Gumpy", how we called them, saw us when we turned back onto the road after leaving our camp. And then they followed us as long as they could. The first 20km, we had to cycle up a pass - again we passed an elevation of 2000m. As we went slowly, the two dogs could easily run next to the bicycles. On the short downhills, they ran as fast as they could and didn't give up until they caught us again. We were really surprised! They even defended us against a couple of other dogs that came running and barking towards us.
    At the top of the pass, we stopped for a second breakfast and the stunning views and dried our tent. Of course, we shared our food and water with our faithful new friends.
    However, the rest of our cycling day was downhill, so we had to say goodbye to the two dogs. They couldn't follow us going down with 65km/h. But we are sure, they'll have a good life and get by well.
    On the way down, we stopped at a little shop in a mosque to have a cold drink. The owner saw us eating our bread. However, in Turkey it seems you don't eat just bread, so he brought us some olives and tomatoes to eat with it. How nice!
    When we got to Torul, we were going to meet our warmshowers host Hamdi. While we were waiting, gentleman invited us to some tea. We spent the rest of the day with Hamdi who took care of us very well. First, we walked up to a viewing platform where we had a panoramic view over Torul and the valley and some coffee. Then, we went to a local restaurant in the centre of the village before finishing the night with some tea and melon in his apartment over very interesting conversations.    Leggi altro

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