Day 45 (Turkey): Yenice - Gümüsjaka (slept and biked like a stone)

today’s distance: 94km
total distance: 3704km
riding time: 6h

I never woke up during the night. I slept like a stone for more than 8 1/2 hours. And didn’t wake up until 8:30am and felt bad for letting Emine and Özcilek wait. I quickly got up and the two of them were of course bright and chipper in the living room. After really waking up we had breakfast and I had a late start (without having any regrets about it). I had given up on getting to Istanbul in one day after seeing that the wind was still coming from the East. A brief look out of the window was enough to see that. But it was sunny. I bid my farewells and took off, only to meet Özcilek again a few hours later.

It was slow riding. The wind was in my face practically the whole time and never really let off during the entire day. It wore me out. My average was barely over 13km/h until I reached Tekirdag. I stopped after an hour when someone made an insistent call for having some chai. I obeyed. Off the road for a few minutes. The bad thing here is that the terrain is rolling, meaning the wind swoops down on you even on the uphills, which can be up to 3km long. At times, the wind seemed to be all-consuming. Not good. It occupied me entirely, I wished that it would just go away. Did I ever say that I liked not having a tailwind or that I became stoic regarding the wind. I lied. I so lied. I confess: I hate wind that makes flags go stiff and that comes from the front. But it was an interesting ride.

It was also beautiful (for those that need a new background picture, feel free, it sort of looks like the Windows XP default screen I thought when I passed).

I arrived in Özcilek and soon heard my name being shouted out. Özcilek needed to get his retirement papers on the Turkish side in order before heading back to Germany and so had come to Tekirdag to fix things up. We had - chai, sitting by the water and talking about this and that. Finally, we parted ways and I headed for more into-the-wind-fun. I found an internet cafe and thought that maybe it would be good to update the website, have some Koefte (the Turkish version of cevapcici, no offense to either ethnicity intended) and hope that the wind would abate. It worked … kind of not at all. It seemed to be going better a bit, but then came back with a vengeance. I was cycling straight into the wind for more km and eventually pulled out.

Stopped to ask for a market at a gas station. The Turkish word is also market, the guy didn’t understand. Wanted to send me 10km away. I left … I turned into the little town, which is a summer holiday getaway for Istanbulians. The first person I saw I asked “Sprechen Sie deutsch?” (Do you speak German?). He didn’t. But his wife did. She came out and when I asked for a market, she said there is one 500m from here. Great. I asked for a place to pitch. She said, there are beds upstairs. I looked puzzled. She said, “stay with us!” I accepted. I was either “my chiled” or “my son” from now on. Hauled the bike in and as it turns out Nurai lived in Germany for a bit 30 years ago. She claims not to speak any German, but she understands a lot (apart from thinking that I was on a motorbike, realizing that I am human-powered only an hour later). I changed. Coming down, food was all set up and we had dinner. Then her sister from Karlsruhe was on the line and we chatted for a while about the tour and what I was doing. I can’t say how lucky things turned out to be on a wind-wise pretty awful day. More fun was to follow with a couple that had spent their lives in Austria. Will now slumber off.