Two more days and still 200 kilometres of cycling ahead of us.
Our morning starts with a few hours of cycling through small villages. Empty lands and vast landscapes, doesn’t mean we don’t have many pleasant or puzzling encounters before breakfast.
We must cross sheep herds, cycle along rubbish dumps and countless tea invitations.
In one village we cross a group of young kids, on their way to school. As they see us they laugh, jump up and wave back at us with such joy, that they are making us laugh as well.
Meanwhile I am never addressed by any men, the women passing us are giving me the loveliest smiles and words of encouragement.
Around midday we eat breakfast in a town, we would have never stoped in if we wouldn’t travel by bike. As we drink our coffee we observe the traffic. Vintage Renaults passing, an old guy drives a woman with colourful headscarf on the passenger seat. Big old trucks heavily loaded with gas bottles or straw. A bus. Noise of playing kids in the air, passing the road from a nearby school. No matter where you are in this world it is always the same sound!
An odd ringtone, playtime is over and us we still have many more kilometres of cycling ahead, until we are supposed to reach a lake.
My hope and wish for a swim in the cold mountain water keeps me going.
In the middle of nowhere a toilet appears, how practical!
When the lake turns out to be absolutely beautiful but un-swimmable...
...only some baklava can save me from giving up. And a siesta on the side of the road.
As we ride on into the late afternoon, in a good mood, because we believe the end of the lake, our goal for the day to be only a few kilometres away. When we discover, after the sun set, that we had mistaken one village for the other. Strange names are sometimes impossible to hold apart, and since both started with a “T” we didn’t make a difference.
We have to pay for our ignorance.
When we order two sandwiches each in a small village just to continue cycling in the dark, the smell of the food in our noses. Endless unknown dark land around cycling on a road that has no end.
It must have been very close to midnight, when we carry our bags and bikes up on to an observation deck.
Like birds we put up our nest in the height, feeling saver above the ground then on it. Until the tower seems to shake every time I turn around. But at that stage, I leave it to faith, chance or luck weather this tower will collapse tonight or not.
Thank you for passing by, and have a wonderful Monday!
All photos and words are my own.
[//]:# (!pinmapple 37.80258 lat 31.37743 long Cycling through the Taurus mountains (part III) d3scr)