Turkey Part 1: Cesme to Goreme
The ferry ride from Greece to Turkey was a bit of an adventure. It only took about an hour and a half, but the seas were by far the roughest I’ve ever been on. The little boat got tossed and bucked by ten foot waves and most of the passengers were looking pretty green. Steve was pretty happy to stand out on the deck and ride out the storm. Jamie also managed to stay standing on the deck and snap some photos. Karen eventually retreated inside to lie down, while I wedged myself into a corner near the railing in case my breakfast needed to come back out. It was pretty unpleasant. In addition to us four, there were four other cycle tourers on the boat, which meant a deck full of bikes sliding around in the rain and pulling against the ropes holding them in place. Finally we docked, and raced off the boat through a downpour towards customs.
At this point we were still feeling the lack of motivation that had been the theme through Greece and Albania. The current plan, though we hadn’t told anybody, was to head to Istanbul and catch a flight home from there. We did have a few detours to make though, some sights that we figured we should visit since we were so close, so we started by riding south towards the old roman city of Ephesus. The ruins were enjoyable, but the riding was just OK. Both the coastline and the towns were essentially the same as what we’d just left in Greece, and we weren’t overly inspired. We were meeting up with Karen and Jamie regularly though, and their enthusiasm made it hard for us to commit to the Istanbul plan. Stubborn as always, we headed inland to Pammukale, to yet another historic Roman site, the Heirapolis.
Surprisingly, the amphitheater here was one of the most impressive we’ve seen, mostly because it was so well preserved. Also impressive were the Travertines; Calcium deposits from hot mineral water which has hardened into huge cascades on the cliffs below the ruins. Picture a huge, wide, low-angle frozen waterfall, but with a bright white chalk-like substance instead of ice, and you’ll get an idea of what the travertines look like. You can take off your shoes and walk around on them, mushing the white mud around between your toes and dipping your feet in the pools of mineral water that have collected. It was fun. We started to wonder if we should reconsider the Istanbul plan, but there was one issue; my rear brakes had worn unevenly and before we noticed, I’d managed to put a huge gouge in my rim. There was no way it would last if we continued riding, and we weren’t sure if we could find the correct size in Turkey. Equally catastrophic, Steve’s kickstand had broken, and if you’d ever toured with him you’d understand what a deal-breaker this is. If that wasn’t enough, Steve’s rear rim, though not as damaged as mine, was also beginning to look pretty worn. It seemed easier to buy a plane ticket than to deal with the bikes. We debated, went back and forth, and changed our minds hourly. In the end, we couldn’t bring ourselves to break the news to Karen and Jamie that we were going home… so we figured we might as well keep riding. In a fit of optimism, we ordered some bike parts from Germany, to be delivered to Kayseri, roughly 2 weeks further down the road. The company was going to ship DHL, so we selected a DHL Service Point as the delivery address, and made plans to ride towards Cappadoccia.
The stretch between Pammukale and Goreme did a pretty good job of healing our broken spirits. Slowly but surely, the pieces of us that were worn out began to weave together again, to get stronger. As we headed inland, the scenery got better and the towns got more interesting. We climbed up into the mountains and rode over high passes, hitting 3 new high points in as many days. Each climb was followed by thrilling winding descents. Good campsites were everywhere, the days were longer, and spring had officially arrived. Most days we had amazing views of snowy peaks and bright wildflowers. With hardly any rain during these days, we finally started to remember that bike touring can be comfortable. Our tent actually stayed dry for days in a row, and our rain gear got buried deeper into the panniers. Most importantly, our attitude had changed. There was something there that had been missing for a while; excitement, maybe, or inspiration. We were enjoying the ride again. It felt like we just needed to relax, and let Turkey show us it’s magic.
One really special part of this stretch was the people. Multiple times a day we would be invited for tea, and though we couldn’t stop for everyone, we met some great people this way. Once, as we rode past a school, one of the teachers chased us down the road, blowing his whistle to get our attention. We ended up spending the morning at the school, drinking tea and chatting with the teachers while the students did their lessons. At recess we got mobbed by curious kids, all crowding around wanting to practice their English. After a few hours of hanging out they gave us some bread, re-filled our water bottles, and sent us on our way. It was a lot of fun, but also really interesting to learn a bit about how schools work in Turkey. It’s actually quite similar to schools at home.
Another time we were stopped on the road by a doctor and invited to have tea with him at a small hospital in the next town. The doctor and two nurses were part of a mobile clinic which rotates around between a handful of rural towns that don’t have their own full-time health professionals. Again, we spent an entire morning hanging out with the two nurses, exchanging stories and asking questions, while the doctor popped in and out, alternating between us and his patients.
There were more fun tea breaks with farmers, old men, and various other people we passed. Overall, the Turkish people are just so kind. They loved to smile and wave at us, stop to take photos with us, make sure we weren’t lost, and generally help out in any way they could.
This stretch was rejuvenating for our minds, but tough on our bodies. We had ridden for 10 days straight with no rests, and done a pretty decent amount of distance and elevation gain during that time. Rolling into Goreme, past the cave houses that make the region so famous, we were tired, but motivated to keep the trip going. The new plan was to take a few rest days here before pushing on towards Georgia.
With our desire to keep going, we now had to deal with our bike situation. During the ride from Pammukale my rim had just gotten worse, and had slowly started folding in on itself. The package we had ordered from Germany had been delayed about a week thanks to a very complicated fraud verification process and a very unhelpful employee, so it had only just shipped. We also learned that instead of shipping it DHL Express, the company had shipped it DHL Global, which makes a huge difference. This meant that it would be transferred to the PTT (Turkish Postal Service) after clearing customs, which meant that the DHL Service Point we had used as a delivery address would be unable to accept the package. After multiple phone calls to every customer service line I could find, we determined that the chances of us ever getting this package were pretty low. The only chance would be to try to pick it up at the central post office in Kayseri, but no one could confirm that this was possible, and we had no idea when it would arrive. The tracking hadn’t been updated since it shipped. We debated going to Kayseri anyway, to wait indefinitely, but that didn’t sound very appealing. Another option was to try and buy rims in Kayseri, but we couldn’t find any bike shops listed that looked promising.
We spent a few days stressing out about our rims while exploring Goreme and its surroundings. The entire area is beautiful, with unique rock towers called Fairy Chimneys, and entire villages carved into the towers and walls. There are churches with carved pillars, painted ceilings, and random tunnels that lead deeper inside the rock. We had a great time hiking around the valleys and crawling in and out of these old caves. They aren’t all abandoned either; many are still being lived in or used as cafes.
After a few days of distraction and deliberation, we gave up on getting our parcel and made a new plan: Leave the bikes in Goreme, take a bus to Ankara, and buy what we needed there. In no time we had bought tickets and were sitting at the bus stop with our wheels and overnight bags, set to try our luck in the big city. We had about 3 hours until the next bus. As we waited a man came up to us: “Where are your bicycles?” he said. After explaining our situation he mentioned there was no need to go to Ankara, we could probably buy the correct rims in Kayseri. It would have been good information, if we hadn’t already bought our bus tickets and if we could trust his knowledge about bike parts. We kept waiting. About 3 minutes before the bus arrived, Steve randomly checked the tracking number for our package. Updated about 10 minutes ago, it had cleared customs and was in Istanbul!
Stunned, we tried to process this information. This was an unexpected development. As we frantically weighed the options, our bus pulled up. In a split-second decision, we asked the ticket man if we could cancel our tickets. He was understandably a bit confused as to why we had just waited 3 hours for this bus, only to change our minds the second it rolled up. Regardless, he gave me the cash and took our tickets. We ran back to the guesthouse where our bikes were waiting, quickly packed up, and hit the road. As we rushed out of Goreme, the adrenaline from the last-minute exit had us pretty fired up. We pedaled off towards Kayseri as fast as we could, excited to be back on the bikes and looking forward to the next leg of this journey. Most of all though, we were determined to get our hands on this package, no matter what!
The ferry ride from Greece to Turkey was a bit of an adventure. It only took about an hour and a half, but the seas were by far the roughest I’ve ever been on. The little boat got tossed and bucked by ten foot waves and most of the passengers were looking pretty green. Steve was pretty happy to stand out on the deck and ride out the storm. Jamie also managed to stay standing on the deck and snap some photos. Karen eventually retreated inside to lie down, while I wedged myself into a corner near the railing in case my breakfast needed to come back out. It was pretty unpleasant. In addition to us four, there were four other cycle tourers on the boat, which meant a deck full of bikes sliding around in the rain and pulling against the ropes holding them in place. Finally we docked, and raced off the boat through a downpour towards customs.
Surprisingly, the amphitheater here was one of the most impressive we’ve seen, mostly because it was so well preserved. Also impressive were the Travertines; Calcium deposits from hot mineral water which has hardened into huge cascades on the cliffs below the ruins. Picture a huge, wide, low-angle frozen waterfall, but with a bright white chalk-like substance instead of ice, and you’ll get an idea of what the travertines look like. You can take off your shoes and walk around on them, mushing the white mud around between your toes and dipping your feet in the pools of mineral water that have collected. It was fun. We started to wonder if we should reconsider the Istanbul plan, but there was one issue; my rear brakes had worn unevenly and before we noticed, I’d managed to put a huge gouge in my rim. There was no way it would last if we continued riding, and we weren’t sure if we could find the correct size in Turkey. Equally catastrophic, Steve’s kickstand had broken, and if you’d ever toured with him you’d understand what a deal-breaker this is. If that wasn’t enough, Steve’s rear rim, though not as damaged as mine, was also beginning to look pretty worn. It seemed easier to buy a plane ticket than to deal with the bikes. We debated, went back and forth, and changed our minds hourly. In the end, we couldn’t bring ourselves to break the news to Karen and Jamie that we were going home… so we figured we might as well keep riding. In a fit of optimism, we ordered some bike parts from Germany, to be delivered to Kayseri, roughly 2 weeks further down the road. The company was going to ship DHL, so we selected a DHL Service Point as the delivery address, and made plans to ride towards Cappadoccia.
One really special part of this stretch was the people. Multiple times a day we would be invited for tea, and though we couldn’t stop for everyone, we met some great people this way. Once, as we rode past a school, one of the teachers chased us down the road, blowing his whistle to get our attention. We ended up spending the morning at the school, drinking tea and chatting with the teachers while the students did their lessons. At recess we got mobbed by curious kids, all crowding around wanting to practice their English. After a few hours of hanging out they gave us some bread, re-filled our water bottles, and sent us on our way. It was a lot of fun, but also really interesting to learn a bit about how schools work in Turkey. It’s actually quite similar to schools at home.
Another time we were stopped on the road by a doctor and invited to have tea with him at a small hospital in the next town. The doctor and two nurses were part of a mobile clinic which rotates around between a handful of rural towns that don’t have their own full-time health professionals. Again, we spent an entire morning hanging out with the two nurses, exchanging stories and asking questions, while the doctor popped in and out, alternating between us and his patients.
There were more fun tea breaks with farmers, old men, and various other people we passed. Overall, the Turkish people are just so kind. They loved to smile and wave at us, stop to take photos with us, make sure we weren’t lost, and generally help out in any way they could.
This stretch was rejuvenating for our minds, but tough on our bodies. We had ridden for 10 days straight with no rests, and done a pretty decent amount of distance and elevation gain during that time. Rolling into Goreme, past the cave houses that make the region so famous, we were tired, but motivated to keep the trip going. The new plan was to take a few rest days here before pushing on towards Georgia.
With our desire to keep going, we now had to deal with our bike situation. During the ride from Pammukale my rim had just gotten worse, and had slowly started folding in on itself. The package we had ordered from Germany had been delayed about a week thanks to a very complicated fraud verification process and a very unhelpful employee, so it had only just shipped. We also learned that instead of shipping it DHL Express, the company had shipped it DHL Global, which makes a huge difference. This meant that it would be transferred to the PTT (Turkish Postal Service) after clearing customs, which meant that the DHL Service Point we had used as a delivery address would be unable to accept the package. After multiple phone calls to every customer service line I could find, we determined that the chances of us ever getting this package were pretty low. The only chance would be to try to pick it up at the central post office in Kayseri, but no one could confirm that this was possible, and we had no idea when it would arrive. The tracking hadn’t been updated since it shipped. We debated going to Kayseri anyway, to wait indefinitely, but that didn’t sound very appealing. Another option was to try and buy rims in Kayseri, but we couldn’t find any bike shops listed that looked promising.
We spent a few days stressing out about our rims while exploring Goreme and its surroundings. The entire area is beautiful, with unique rock towers called Fairy Chimneys, and entire villages carved into the towers and walls. There are churches with carved pillars, painted ceilings, and random tunnels that lead deeper inside the rock. We had a great time hiking around the valleys and crawling in and out of these old caves. They aren’t all abandoned either; many are still being lived in or used as cafes.
Stunned, we tried to process this information. This was an unexpected development. As we frantically weighed the options, our bus pulled up. In a split-second decision, we asked the ticket man if we could cancel our tickets. He was understandably a bit confused as to why we had just waited 3 hours for this bus, only to change our minds the second it rolled up. Regardless, he gave me the cash and took our tickets. We ran back to the guesthouse where our bikes were waiting, quickly packed up, and hit the road. As we rushed out of Goreme, the adrenaline from the last-minute exit had us pretty fired up. We pedaled off towards Kayseri as fast as we could, excited to be back on the bikes and looking forward to the next leg of this journey. Most of all though, we were determined to get our hands on this package, no matter what!
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