Day 85 - Kabakça to Arnavutköy

 47.7 km - Total so far 4,434.30 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 84   & Europe Day 85                         46 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in Artnavutköy, Turkey.

We could not get an early breakfast so we had to leave much later than we wanted. We assumed that it might not be that bad since we had only 47 kilometres to ride.  We could not have been more wrong. 

We started climbing as we left the village and it is was pretty much up and down all day. In the rural areas, the traffic consisted mostly of large trucks and some cars. We got a lot of encouragement “horn tooting” from construction trucks whether they were passing us or passing from the other direction. We stopped a few times for chai in villages and scored free chai at kilometre 17.6 . We also had a nice lunch of soup and rice at a tiny restaurant of 3 tables. 

Enjoying chai and learning some Turkish

Then we hit the built up areas. Still the same climbs and with more aggressive drivers and traffic lights. Having to resume a climb from a standing start at a traffic light is such a horrible sensation.

We encountered generous people who paid for our chai again, stopped to give us a bottle of cold water, ran after us down the street to ask if we needed help or stopped next to us on the road to give us a bag of mini chocolate muffins. 

I (Daniel) was exhausted by the time we reached our destination. It was by far one of the hardest days we have had on the adventure so far. We had done hills before, we had ridden in the mid-30 heat before, we had climbed hills in busy urban traffic and descended steep inclines with precious little shoulder on the side of the road. We had a horrible combination of all four factors in the last 15 to 20 kilometres and brutally exhausting doesn’t even begin to describe how tough it was. Riding into Sofia was a picnic compared to the last push today. Hélène had more enjoyment than I did. All I can say is ebike on the next big adventure! 

We went shopping for beer last evening and that was an experience. Only stores that are outside of the magical radius can sell beer. Inside the store, the beer is kept out of sight behind locked doors. There seems to be a disconnect between urban and rural Turkey not unlike what we experience in Canada.

Stray cat hoping for a snack