In order to avoid Istanbul’s traffic craze, I decided to take a ferry from Greece to Turkey, from Thessaloniki to Kusadasi to be exact. I wasn’t off to a great start: The ferry was delayed a few hours and arrived late in the evening, and after going through immigration I realised I had forgotten my bicycle helmet on the ferry, and wasn’t allowed to go back to retrieve it. Disappointed, I withdrew some from the inflation suffering Turkish Lira with the hope to find a replacement helmet the following days. Easier said than done, as recreational cycling is very popular in Turkey. Luckily are the car drivers fairly respectful to cyclists, and it’s easily to find remote roads with little traffic. I chose to cycle through Central Turkey, and quickly realised why this country is so popular among bike tourers. Great roads, a beautiful countryside with rolling hills, amazing food, frequent and rather affordable grocery shops , and friendly locals always keen to offer you a cup of chai (tea). Time flew by and I soon reached Cappadocia, although arguably the country’s biggest tourist attraction, one that should not be missed. Unique rock formations and historical villages, many of which cater to the tourists, but it’s easy to find more authentic and pure places. One of them would be Selime and the Valley. Here the rock formations were even more impressive than in “mainstream” Cappadocia (around Görëme), with massive cone shaped rocks in which the ancient Byzantines would carve caves and live in. These caves would be my favourite wildcamping spot so far, and one that will be hard to top in the future.
Shortly after leaving Cappadocia I reached another (in)famous region in Turkey, the area that was devastated by one of the worst earthquakes in history last year, claiming thousands of lives. While I didn’t cycle through the epicentre, the damage could be seen all around, collapsed houses, tears in the road surface, and containers to house those affected. To my surprise, in this region I encountered the most hospitality yet, despite the horrors these people went through, the tea invitation kept becoming more common, and one day an elderly couple even invited me into their temporary container housing. They insisted on cooking me dinner and spending the night on their couch, and would under no circumstances accept a small donation the next morning. This mindset and hospitality given the circumstances gave me a lot to think about.
By now I reached the Kurdish region in Turkey, and finally found a Decathlon store where I could buy a new helmet. The Kurds are an ethnic minority in Turkey, and one that tends to have some differences with the government and is unlikely to achieve their dreams of an independent Kurdistan within today’s Turkish borders. This doesn’t affect their renown hospitality towards travellers however, something I would witness after crossing the X border with Iraqi-Kurdistan, which I had just reached after spending a month cycling across Turkey.
