Military hospitality

Descending early from the Altıntepe castle ruins, we heaved our bikes and gear over the fence and began cycling toward the highway. The cloying mud on the access road was enough to completely clog both of our brakes and prevent the wheels from turning, necessitating a long cleaning session (the first of many) once on tarmac! A couple of kids deserted their melon stand and crossed the highway to talk to us as we cleaned away with rags and old toothbrushes. One of them was pretty cheeky and aloof and was a little bothersome, kept talking about beer and fiddling with various things on our bikes as we worked, but desisted when I told him to leave them alone.

Cycling off again, our wheels able to turn once again, we covered a modest distance before seeing a small settlement where we stopped in search of food and water, our supplies of both being very low. We met a couple of men walking in the road from the village, and asked them if we could buy bread there. They started to speak to us in English and told us they would phone the army base to arrange some bread for us. Delighted, we walked on up to the base with them, parked our bikes outside and were led to a tent where Turkish MTV was playing before a young, non-uniformed man who played with his mobile phone on a sofa.

We were offered tea, and had an enjoyable chat with the officers who had so kindly offered to feed us. Before long, plates of traditional Turkish fare arrived: soup, rice, vegetables and bread. There was coffee, tea and cola too if we wanted it. Both of the officers were very friendly and easy to talk to, and one was even a keen cyclist; soon enough we'd decided we'd all like to stay in touch and in a few clicks we were hooking up using the wireless Internet. We told them a bit about our way of life/travel, and shared some useful sites for frugal travelling, such as Couchsurfing, HelpeXchange and Warm Showers, by which they were intrigued and inspired.

An order was given and a couple of young soldiers returned with a guitar and serenaded us all for a while, playing some beautiful traditional Turkish ballads and some other songs, perhaps more modern.

Both Charlie and I were very happy to be in such an unexpected setting and with such nice people, that we were reluctant to leave; as we packed to go, the captain ordered rations for us: tinned food, chapatis, chocolate bars and fruit juice.

As usual, I found it a little difficult to accept this hospitality and generosity with little to offer in return, but our new friends seemed very happy to have the opportunity to help us, and were very interested in our accounts of the qualities of our chosen way of life/travel, and some of the more interesting moments of our voyage thus far.

We got a good half-afternoon's cycling in before stopping as dusk fell in a sheltered valley, hidden from the highway by a few stands of birch trees and with a clear stream trickling down its length.

The next morning we washed in the stream and watched several car-loads of hunters go up the ridge above us, waving when they saw us and no doubt eager to break the morning stillness.

The highway led us toward a mountain range and some impressive and very rocky hills. We stopped in Tercan for supplies, where an older man asked for money and then told me he loved me in English when I declined.

The climbing began right away and the road took us through some very rugged and rocky valleys as we crossed towards Erzurum. We pushed ourselves and made very good time, exhausting ourselves somewhat in the process. To our surprise we eventually came upon the sign marking the 2,000 m Tepebasi Geçidi pass which did not appear on our maps!

We postponed lunching in the chilly mountain air, and descended, crossing into the Erzurum region where enormous arid mountains bracketed a wide flat plain. Rays of sunlight slipped through the clouds behind us, and somehow we missed all of the rain we could see falling, sometimes in several directions at the same time.

After many kilometres of very straight highway, Erzurum loomed into view and we turned off the highway onto a country road and found a place to camp beside a long, grassy bank next to the road.