The glorious and less glorious life of a biker

Before leaving Safranbolu we had another stroll through the ancient city center and had a great cup of Turkish coffee. I am sure that in high season the little square where we sat down would be a tourist trap, but for me, on this first relaxed morning in Turkey it was just perfect. The terrace looked like a postcard, very authentic (so for sure a tourist trap) and the coffee was made on an open fire. It was served with a glass of cherry juice and some mint water. Excellent.

We left for Amasra, another ancient city on the Silk Road. It was only a 90 minutes’ drive through the mountains before we arrived at the Black Sea. In Amasra we chose the nicest hotel we could find so that we could really relax and enjoy this first rest after 5 days of non-stop riding.

We had a nice light lunch at the sea side and in the evening some fish and salad in the same restaurant. Our hotel did not serve any beer because of Ramadan, but we found a beach bar which did.
The next day our plan was to have a nice and quiet ride along the coast to Sinop. We had read that the road would be beautiful and the trip would take us only 4 hours. Little did we know….
It all started out well, we were in no hurry and stopped after an hour or so in a small village to get a tea and talk to some locals who came out to see our bikes.

The route was beautiful and windy along the coast, passing cliffs and small villages

But then the roadworks started. They had just finished laying the asphalt, and it was still wet.
It took no more that 500 yards to get our bikes as black as the road itself.
The tar had spat everywhere. Our number plates had just become black squares, the panniers were full of black spots and the rest of the motorbike was covered in a thick layer of black dripping tar.
We wanted to clean this as quickly as possible before it all dried up and would be too hard to get rid of. It took us the next 2 hours to get the majority off. At the end we were sweating and hungry, and the petrol station where we were only sold ice cream.

After this cleaning session we did not feel like continuing to Sinop anymore. We found a small town with a cheap hotel, where the warm water did not work, as we noticed when we wanted to scrub off the tar from ourselves.
But they had beer, and we finished the day with a well-deserved Ramadan menu at a tiny restaurant where the whole family who owned the place served us while having their own Ramadan diner.

The next morning, we got up early, took a cold shower again and got on our bikes. This would be a boring and long trip to Trabzon. But the road was new and quick. Without delays we arrived in Trabzon where there was again no beer. And this time we couldn’t find any nearby either. So we worked a bit on our planning for the next days, our GPS and on our movies and turned in.

Today we will leave Turkey and get to Georgia. Looking forward to the wine….