Rize

Cycling wasn't too much fun today. First, we had to descend some 400m further on the crazy highway with its countless tunnels and construction sites. At least we avoided the headwinds coming from the sea by leaving early. We had breakfast at the Atatürk Square in Trabzon. The city itself seemed to be dirty and full of traffic, so we continued quickly. But we had reached the Black Sea which was our goal :) Unfortunately, there's only a highway along the coast and it's quite busy. It's frustrating to see the sea but not being able to reach it because the guardrails stop you from crossing to the other side. We wanted to stop for a swim, but most of the coastline was artificially constructed with huge boulders. And at the only beach we spotted, there was no intersection to cross to the seaside anywhere near.
So we continued to Rize where we met with the two sisters Nihal and Esma who hosted us in the clubhouse of the local rafting and mountaineering association.
We had a very eventful and fun evening with them. First, we went to Nihal's workplace. Her manager wanted to get to know us, so we had a coffee with him. Next, we had Cigköfte at a small restaurant. The dish is similar to a vegetarian Lamahcun, spicy and very yummy. Afterwards, we went to a café in an ancient Turkish house, kind of a museum. We had tea and some of Nihal's friends joined us. Nihal had fun reading our fortunes in the patterns of the coffee dregs and all of us laughed a lot. Then, we went to a dance school where we got a private performance of some Latin dances. Some more friends joined and we had tea and biscuits together after having tried a local Turkish dance.
Esma had to translate all night as no one else spoke English.
Last but not least, we met Murat and his family in the city center. Murat hosted us in Denizli and was on a road trip in the Northeast of Turkey. He had contacted us a few days ago as he knew we were going there. Good to meet people on the road a second time :)
Thus, a long and social day came to an end late. It also marked the turn-around point of our tour as we won't continue further East on this trip. The coming borders are complicated for various reasons, so we are just going to explore more of beautiful Turkey.もっと詳しく