Çankaya

I arrived in Ankara, the final cycling destination of this trip on this continent! And fittingly I arrived in a snowstorm, with climactic and heroic conditions. And unfittingly, I don’t like this city very much.

So, a recap: no baloons at sunrise in Cappadocia due to brilliant, beautiful, stunning fog, and serious cold in the morning (well, relative to what I experienced so far in Turkey). Glad I had all that thermo clothing with me. Of course komoot first tried to send me to a non-existing road in the beginning, but that was easily fixed by just following the busy road — this one was remarkably quiet actually and made for relaxed cycling.

My route then quickly went into a smaller route to Kırşehir, which made for some of the quietest cycling ive had all trip. Just farmlands with villages where I encountered no-one whatsoever. Quite beautiful actually and a nice contrast from Cappadocia; it kind of seemed like all people stopped drinking tea and smoking, and this was the day they all had to work. Or they just somehow didn’t care for working in the other villages, what do I know. At some point I found myself without energy, and was quickly (15-20 km) offered food: the offer was communicated by a eating gesture, frantic waving, in the middle of farmlands, next to some tractors, and consisted of a huge, huge box of etli ekmek (literally bread with meat). Just stacks. And I ate… like 5 of those things. Turned out the guy had a brother living in vienna, so a phone-call to austria was made and I had a fun conversation with a turkish guy in Vienna. Plus, energy to continue.

Kırşehir was a nice small little city with a busy center, with so few headscarves I thought the place wasn’t islamic. Of course it is, but it’s just different from Konya. Nice friendly, and very Turkish, place, where I had two bowls of lentil soup and icecream with helva (a really good match, I guarantee).m

So, next days the weather turned shittier, and I wanted to make it as far as possible in reasonable conditions before it being, possibly, too cold. On the way I had another huge piece of pide (another name of etli ekmek ;) sort of) with cheese, egg, and of course, meat. That (and snacks) gave me so many calories I could push on and on for 130-140 km to Kırıkkale; and there the weather got really bad. Ended up looking for a hotel in terrible rain.

Well, the third day the weather got really cold, but I just wanted to have this over with, and so just put on extra clothing and got myself ready for headwind, 800 meters of climbing, and busy car roads into ankara. Really. F*ck*n. Heavy wind at the top. What’s more, it was partially crosswind, which made it very dangerous with trucks which don’t give you any space. Ended up pushing the bike for 2 k, almost got run over by a truck (i have never waved so aggressively at a car or truck ever, I really cursed this guy to death, sorry), stuffed myself full of cake of which I could not tell the taste anymore, and somehow made it past the top where the wind turned into headwind, and got slightly calmer.

Ok. In ankara it started snowing and I was super happy for this: the first snow is always nice.

Let me just wrap up by also adding by Ankara experience: this city is busy with cars and people going everywhere, but not busy in a nice way. I did go to visit a hamam (turkish bath) to celebrate my arrival; I accidentally took two massages as I thought the massage and scrubs are two separate concepts, but nope, same thing here. That “thing” involves a really thorough wash (I needed that) where they scrub so hard that your arm almost gets dislocated, and confusingly being led to many places where you don’t know what to do in what order but which somehow works out in the end. And a hot hot sauna (like I want it) with a ice-cold swimming pool (that no-one ever uses it seems) which you can dive in (so awesome): a fitting celebration. I also visited the museum of Anatolian civilisations which taught me so much about the beginning of civilisations here, and is really, really good.

But yeah, I don’t like this city: had to look for ages for a coffee, and the coffee they serve is really quite terrible. (In specialty places.) The tomb of Atatürk closes at 4 (…) and the metro system was too confusing for me at first due to a terribly designed metro map. (If I ask a ticket officer if he speaks english, I don’t have to be asked in return whether I speak turkish… But I just give him a shitty reply to that in English in return.)

It does have some things going for it: a massive mosque in the city center which is too massive for any pictures with a smartphone, an ok-ish city center (which doesn’t have any cultural feeling in my opinion but isn’t bad) and a nice market. The museum of the independence war is just a recital how awesome Ataturk was, how they beat all allies in ww1 and greeks (the allies made such terrible strategy decisions — or lack of strategy, rather, like I already wrote about) and it was just felt like a “we are awesome awesome awesome” show. And come on, you were on the side of nazi Germany and committed genocides. Show some ability to put things into perspective. But its funny to see them do some march to change the guards.

Oh my god I write too much. I could go on and on but it’s turning into a madman’s personal diary. Let me just upload some pictures for you…Read more