1. Intro
2. Recap of week 47 to 52
3. The Istanbul pit-stop and family visit
4. Touring grinding and momentum on the road
5. The çay and the locals
6. One year has passed since I left home
7. Feeling far away from home in a new continent
8. Going for the mountains

Hot air balloons are floating in the air and ancient rock cave dwellings are all around me. I arrived in the fascinating region of Cappadocia a few days ago. That means I am in the middle of Turkey, which marks the halfway point of my cross country touring route. Ahead of me lies East Turkey and some gorgeous mountain areas.

Last blog ended in Varna, Bulgaria, on travel week 47. At that time I had just reached the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and was happy to see the ocean again. Turkey was not far away. After Varna, I spent four days cruising south along the coast before I headed for the border. I’ve heard alot about Sunny Beach and this formed some sort of prejudice for this coastal stretch. I imagined the whole area to be one long resort town. On the contrary, it was a bit deserted and many times with a beautiful forest backdrop. A few big hotels would pop up here and there and then some towns. But the roads in between were nice and quiet. Perhaps the tourist season had not started fully yet. Regardless, I was positively surprised. My last day in Bulgaria took me into the mountains again from Tsarevo through Strandzha Nature Park to the border town of Malko Tarnovo. The Bulgarian travel chapter ended here.

The following day I made my way into Turkey and spent my first days in the country in the popular bike academy of Lüleburgaz. This oasis is a point of convergence for most bike tourers coming from or going to Greece or Bulgaria. I received such a warm welcome and ended up staying several nights. By this time, I have heard enough stories of the chaotic traffic of the metropolis named Istanbul. For my onward travels, I therefore plotted a northern route above the capital to the Bosphorus strait and took a very scenic route by ferry into downtown Istanbul. For the same reason I also took a ferry out of the city to Bursa from where I would embark on my journey across the country. Leaving Bursa and the sea level made some tough days on the elevation meters. As a reward I got some good views of the green hillsides. After this initial climb, I entered the Konya Plain beyond the city of Afyonkarahisar. Here I could only see farmed lands in all directions. The remaining days to Cappadocia were on flat terrain which made my daily mileage skyrocket. As a result, I arrived in the heart of Cappadocia’s tourist area, Göreme, in record time. It is now travel week 52 and I will celebrate my one year travel anniversary by watching hot air balloons fill the skies above me.

My final part of Bulgaria had more elevation meters than I expected. I went far and fast every day and it felt like I was flying. On my last day in Bulgaria I biked up and through the Strandzha Nature Park which was really beautiful. As I approached the border city on the Bulgarian side, I felt a stinging pain in both my thighs. It was a fair warning from my body to relax and take it slow. With Istanbul in sight, I made that my pit-stop city. I took a northern route to Istanbul which ran along forest and farmlands on a rollercoaster road. It went up and down for what seemed like an eternity. But I was sure, this small detour route was more scenic and less stressful than doing 40km of Istanbul suburbs on major busy roads. I walked most of the hills which meant long but easy days on the road. The heat was bearable and suitable wild camp spots came frequently so I stopped whenever I felt I was too tired to continue. It was a slow and relaxed ride to the Bosphorus strait.The ferry ride down the Bosphorus from Sariyer was a scenic treat. Slowly the metropolis would appear in the distance with the minarets of the mosques soaring highest on the skyline from their locations on hilly peaks. The boat traffic intensified heavily as we approached downtown and the Eminönü port. Getting off the ferry was a hectic struggle to say the least. Stairs were used to board people from the port platform to the ferry and that also meant that I had to unload all my panniers and carry them down separately. Carrying the bike down the stairs is not possible for me - the bike is too heavy. The moment I had carried all my stuff onto the port platform the gates were opened for the onboarding passengers and they literally rushed in and surrounded me on all sides. I had to protect my panniers by creating a protective barrier around them mimicking a turtle shell when, at the same time, I tried to hold on to my bike which was being pushed around by people trying to rush onto the ferry. Guess this is bigcity mentality. It is truly the survival of the fittest. No sense of an orderly queue or ‘kids, women and elderly’ people first. It was a stampede! Welcome to Istanbul, I said to myself. The city itself was much like this. Traffic jams and constant car horns, crowded streets and people hustling and bustling everywhere. As you might have guessed, I was not a big fan of the city. However, I had decided this was my pit-stop. Also, I needed new tires for my bike as I had started to get frequent punctures. Finding the right sized tires in good quality was a challenge but I managed and it was a success in the end.

My mom and stepdad had made plans to see me in Istanbul. Almost a year has passed since I’ve last seen them. I always say that missing someone is a powerful and positive thing. It adds some perspective on how much you appreciate and love certain people. That’s an aspect about traveling that I like. This perspective sometimes gets lost in a hectic everyday life where you constantly see the same people. Of course I was saturated with joy and anticipation. Seeing my family again was the best ever. We spent some great days together catching up, exploring the city and enjoying long dinners with good talks. We already agreed on their next visit so I have something to look forward to and this will certainly act as a motivator in my travels, knowing there will be a reunion again not so far into the future.

I ferried out of Istanbul to Bursa and did some days with heavy climbing. I passed a steep hill where I set a new record for biggest incline. The sign read 40% when I had reached the top. I could barely push the bike up and finding a foothold was hard at times. However, I like setting new records and discovering limits - this was certainly a discovery of my upper limit. It’s actually impressive that they managed to pave such a steep road with asphalt. That’s some quality road engineering right there. I ventured into the mountain region with majestic Uludağ not so far away. Luckily for me, once I had entered this area, I would soon reach the Konya plateau and a long flat stretch going on for days. I was heading for Cappadocia nearly 800km away.

The distances between my touring highlights have gotten longer in this big country. For the first time, I experienced multi-day touring grinding. I could have taken a longer and more scenic detour to Beyşehir, but my tired legs really welcomed these long flat roads on super smooth and fast asphalt with the signature wide shoulder. My mileage count skyrocketed. The price I paid was endless farmed lands with uninteresting wild camp opportunities. The Konya plateau is almost wider than my eyes could see. And this scenery just went on for days on end. I enjoyed the views at first but in the end the scenery bored me. The days turned into transport days where I zoned in and out of an almost meditative state. I turned those pedals around and around and around. I gained momentum like the Juggernaut. A peculiar feeling to do touring this way but a good experience nevertheless. Also valuable experience and preparation for the oncoming big countries to the east. This is the name of the game if I take a southern route to the east via Iran, Pakistan and India. If I can find peace and joy of grinding mileage, which I believe I can, then I’m solid.

The scenery on the Konya plateau might have been boring, but it was here I got to experience the fascinating social culture and tradition of drinking tea in Turkey. Çay, the Turkish word for tea, is everywhere. From tea shops on street corners to delivery boys going around to shops carrying tea on their traditional serving trays which is a popular remnant from the Ottoman empire. I believe the correct term is a Turkish Tepsi tray. The circular tray hangs from a ring hook that has three legs with evenly distributed attachments to the tray itself. I guess this makes for a more stable carrying and it truly looks amazing as the tea boys run around the streets dodging left and right yet still perfectly balancing the tea glasses on the tray all the way to their destination without spilling a drop.

Tea time is almost a religious social act. You sit down where you can, often on small wooden backless chairs directly on the street. You drink your tea and have a full hearted chat with the people around you. Almost everywhere I stop, people burst out “çay” with an asking body language. It’s an excellent opportunity to connect with the locals. People are very curious here and tea time almost always involves these questions in the following order: Where are you from? Are you married? Are you religious? Straightforward and direct questions - I try my best to answer. I often have to cut the conversation short, otherwise I would never manage to do any mileage. Every tea time ends with a smiling ‘güle güle’ which translates to goodbye. And ever so often the locals ask for a selfie which goes on social media. Guess I am the attraction around here and it is so funny when people in the next village recognize me from a social media post done in the previous village. All in all, I love tea times here and I do as many as I possibly can do.

The many days doing touring grinding through endless farmlands transported me fast to Cappadocia which is an area in central Turkey. Suddenly tower-like rock formations appear out of nowhere. Spindly formations that seem to grow out of the earth like mushrooms. These are the magical landscapes of Cappadocia. These rock formations are a result of a geologic process that began millions of years ago, when volcanic eruptions rained ash across what would eventually become Turkey. That ash hardened into tuff, a porous rock, which was covered by a layer of basalt. Finally, the long work of erosion began. As millennia passed, the softer tuff wore down, creating today's towering pillars. In ancient times, people populated these pillars carving out cave dwellings. As this wasn't amazing enough, the area is also known for the hundreds of hot air balloons that take off early mornings on clear days. It creates a spectacular view that I believe is unmatched.

Not a bad place to celebrate my travel anniversary. I left home 14th June 2021. One year on the road is a crazy fantastic feeling. I’ve seen and done amazing things but the true beauty of my travels comes from the interesting, inspiring, kind and funny people I’ve met along the road. A small part of me actually believed that I would tire out from traveling after a few months. Being on the move, always meeting new people, bombarded with experiences. All of that requires you to spend some energy. Even though it is happy energy of the very best kind, I don’t have endless supplies of it and it would eventually run out and I would need to do something else. Or so I thought. The reverse seemed to have happened. The further I go on, the more my energy supply grows. My appetite for further travels is increasing. I’m now certain I can do another year. What an amazing feeling.

When you leave Istanbul, you also leave Europe and enter the Asian continent. For me it’s a bit crazy that I biked to a different continent. Leaving the big cities behind you start getting into a more rural area with smaller villages. I don’t know what it is exactly. Perhaps it’s just the idea that I am now traveling a new and different continent. Perhaps it’s the daily call to prayer from the mosque's minarets that is ever present in even the smallest villages. Perhaps it’s the different conversation topics and questions the locals here ask me. Perhaps it's the way people dress differently. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ve started to feel far away from home. Not in a bad way at all. Neither in a scary way. It just dawned on me. In a way, this is a thing I’ve been craving in my travels. One night, I got hosted by a local farmer. Thunderstorms had kept rolling over the mountain range to my south and I did my best to dodge them. At night I asked for some shelter in a small farming village’s mini market. When they realized I couldn’t bike to the next town with a hotel, one kind farmer very quickly offered to let me stay in his guestroom. We spent the night talking and he had loads of questions, one of them being why I travel. It’s a simple and straightforward question - yet hard to answer. I gave it some thought and then replied that I travel to learn. To learn about myself and to learn about others. The more different the country is, the more different the culture and people are, the more I can learn. Because it is only by being different that we can learn from each other. Being different is a strength, not a threat. So feeling far away from home in a new, different and a bit strange continent is not such a bad thing at all. I guess and hope this is only going to get more amplified as I go further east.

Having reached Cappadocia marks a halfway point in my aim to cross the country. Ahead of me lies Eastern Turkey and hopefully a lot of gorgeous mountains. At least I am going to make an effort to climb some mountain passes and reach Lake Van by mid-July. From there, Georgia is not far away. I want to enter Georgia in the beginning of August so I get to cycle the The Caucasus Mountains before the season ends and snowy winter makes the roads impossible to pass. Great adventures are ahead of me and I can’t wait.

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