It should’ve been enough for her to say that solo traveling isn’t her cup of tea, but then she had the gall to comment, “parang ang lungkot” (“it’s so sad”), and assume “grabe yung pinagdadaanan talaga siguro nila” (“they [solo travelers] must be going through some very tough times”). 😠
Honestly, our two-day stopover in Patmos was a lucky coincidence that came about through a name mix-up 😂 patmos, piraeus... 🧏♀️ I don't know... thanks to my legastenic brain and the stressy situation at the ferry ticket office 🤷♀️
The ferry crossing was already amazing 🤩, but when we arrived in Patmos and were warmly welcomed at the vegan restaurant 'Pernera' with our loaded bicycles, we were very happy about this confusion 🥰 !
Sidenote: The neighboring shop initially wanted to send us away and said we should park our bikes in the parking lot at the harbor... yea of course... not!
In the beautiful 'Pernera', we enjoyed a vegan and gluten-free menu, prepared with love from organic and local ingredients 🫠. And besides the delicious food, our souls were nourished by the inspiring and motivating conversations we had with the people there 🫶
The search for a campground in the picturesque small bays was a bit challenging. Either the beach was too narrow for a tent or private. Fortunately, it was still off-season, and we were able to set up our inner tent in the bay 'Kampos Beach' next to the beach bar, as the beach taverns and sunbed rentals were not yet active.
After we stopped at the Islands Leros and Lipsi we reached our destination, the island Patmos. The ferryride in total was 5h. We enjoyed it a lot, especially because we could see all these incredibly nice islands (at least the harbour vilages). #traveling#greece#islands#patmos
We left the island of Rhodes, took the ferry and sailed (speed catamaran 😉) for quite a while along the Turkish coast. How beautiful this deep blue sea! 💙
Our campsite in the middle of Rhodes...
When we found this place in 'Rodini Park', there was not a single person visiting this deep green park. So we thought we could go to bed early and spend a quiet night. However, we did not expect a group of teenagers who had come to play 'hide and seek'. As soon as they spotted us, they started throwing stones in our direction. So we got out of the tent to show them who we are and to talk to them. Finally, they understood that we are travelers who just want to spend a peaceful night here. After exchanging some famous football players and some curse words in different languages, they finally ran away.
After a nice but very long cycling day with lots of altimeter in addition, we reached Fethiye. Our plan was to book ferry tickets for early next morning and search a campspot near the port. The officer at the port told us the ferry was canceled because of bad weather. Oh, with this situation we didn't calculated. And we couldn't see bad weather on our wetherforcast website... The next possible ferry was sceduled for 3 days later.
We felt a bit disapointed, because we passed some nice places without stopping, but ok...
The two days we had to wait for the ferry we stayed in a hostel room. The two days the air was full of the sahara dust, it was super foggy and had zero visibility. But ok... we took these day to make laundry by hand and to relax a lot... #cycling#bikepacking#traveling#travellife#restdays#break#turkey#fethiye#saharadust
We came to Kas exactly when they closed all streets because of the famous roadcycling race through Turkey. Lucky us 😅 so we came to the ancient amphytheater when a group of teenager held a huge flag of Turkey for the media helicopter. Actually the theater is so nice. Its in a very good shape and look that view! While searching for a campspot we cycled on and on and on. everywhere it was too steep or too densely populated or directly next to the busy road... finally we found a nice, hiden, flat spot surrounded by nature.
We left Çıralı with its beautiful beach and the ancient site of 'Olympos' behind us and enjoyed a great day of cycling off the main road. Several kilometers before reaching the coastal town of Finike, we battled against the very strong headwind. It was no longer fun to ride, so we decided to look for a campsite. The weather forecast indicated that a terrible rain and thunderstorm will approach the next morning. Therefore, we searched for a sheltered campsite to avoid getting soaked... Yes, we found a roof under which we could set up the tent. The night was peaceful, the wind even stopped. And in the morning when we woke up, we thought the weather forecast had been overly dramatic... But suddenly it started to rain and then the storm began... coming directly from the sea, straight towards our small tent! OMG! The roof was no longer helping, the rain was coming horizontally. We feared that the storm would damage the tent, so we took it down while the rain soaked us...
After about two hours enduring the storm, the wind suddenly shifted and 10 minutes later the dark rain clouds were swept away. The sky was once again bright blue, the sun was shining as if nothing had happened. Only the wind continued to blow like crazy. We took our time, dried the tent, sleeping mat and the wet stuff on the deserted playground...
Olympus or Olympos (Ancient Greek: Ὄλυμπος, Ólympos)
We don't know how many places with the name 'Olympos' exists, but there are some... Actually, its very interesting but also too confusing the history and what is known or who tells which mythos... so, please check it out if you are interested 🤓
The coastal region after Antalya was not only full of operating hotels and resorts, but also many empty and completely rundown facilities. The same situation existed with plantations and greenhouses, on one side there were many new, modern ones, and on the other side dilapidated nostalgic glass greenhouses... - and a stranded submarine?! - 😂
On the road D400 we had to go through 4 tunnels. There was no possibility to go around 🤯
Who knows us a bit, cycling through a tunnel is the worst, we hate it!
Never before we've seen these buzzers 🖲️ to start the blinking lights around the 'attention, there are cyclists' sign. Actually, we dont know if this helps a lot, at daylight... But of course we pushed the buzzer! In the end of that day we found a campspot, not a magical, romantic nature surrounded spot, but ok...
While strolling through the old town we came across some sights like the clock tower, some more or less outstanding mosques and the great 'Hadrian's Gate'. What interested us the most was the little mosque of the broken minaret. Wikipedia tells: The Kesik Minare Cami (Broken Minaret Mosque) ... was originally built as a Roman temple in the 2nd century AD. In the 7th century, it was converted into a Byzantine church in honor of the Virgin Mary, but it was heavily damaged in the 7th century during the Arab invasions. In the 9th century it was repaired again. The minaret was added in the early 13th century when the Sultanate of Rum established their rule in Antalya and converted the church into a mosque...
Antalya... time to take a hot shower, time to chill, time to make laundry, time to chat with other travelers in the backyard of the hostel, time to stroll without bicycle through the old town and time to realize a little bit how fast we've traveled since we are in Turkey...
Long layovers can be one of the least desirable aspects of air travel. It takes so much longer, for one, than the coveted direct flight. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Writing for Business Insider, Taylor Rains tells us about the many travelers who are intentionally booking flights with long connections so they can explore the layover city. And some airlines even offer free hotels and food. Here’s how to book a “stopover.” https://flip.it/VfzbwQ #Culture#Travel#Flying#Traveling#Airports
The wild weather calmed down. In the evening, we found a campspot in a small bay on the deserted beach, next to cucumber greenhouses. The cucumber gardener saw us and immediately brought us a handful of freshly picked cucumbers 🥒 So friendly! (It was the last day of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration after ramadan). He confirmed that we can spend the night here without any worries. We had a very good night there. It was quiet, we felt completely safe and were able to sleep deeply 😴
After another day of cycling 🚵♀️ 🚵♂️ over the hills with amazing views over the coastline 🏞️ and through valleys and bays full of greenhouses, we had to settle for a less idyllic place to sleep. It was noisy, from the busy road nearby, and because of several guys, who had to speed through the park with their motorized vehicles 🛵 🚖 until the early morning hours... At least at one tent side the view to the sea was nice 😎
One day later we where lucky again!
In Anamur we pitched our tent at the end of the long city beach 🏖️ We stood there for totally 3 nights, went for a shower to the open beach-showers 🚿 and relaxed all day long in and around our tent ⛺️
The next morning at Mersin heavy rain surprised us. The sky over the sea was super dark black. The first bad weather wave we sat out in the tent, then, around midday, we decided to start cycling... Only some km later we where lucky to wait underneath a roof of a supermarket until the next cloudburst was over. To Erdemli, our destination for this day, we cycled mostly on the promenade directly along the coast or on the big road D400, totally easy 😎
At Erdemly we cooked dinner in the big and very clean city parc. We knew about the rainy night and pitched our tent, cheeky as we got, in front of a park office... 😇🏕️ #turkey#cycling#bikepacking#biketouring#cyclinglife#adventure#traveling#pedalandexplore#cyclingaroundtheworld#adventuretravel#exploringbybicycle#globetrottingonwheels#travelphotography
In Hakkari, we camped in the middle of the city park next to the big mosque, where they celebrated something related to Ramadan until late at night. We don't like to go to bed or close the tent zipper if there is still a lot going on outside. That's why we sat in the little picnic hut and waited. We could observe the people. Some couples and groups of 2-3 men walked their rounds along the park fence, some families had a picnic on the meadow, the smaller kids played on the slide and swing, others chased each other with water bottles (it was quite cold up there, surrounded by snowy mountain peaks), and we saw a group of teenagers chase, hit, and kick one of the boys quite rough. This was a really shocking moment. We talked a lot about this happening, trying to understand or at least find a reason to accept how 'kids' can be so aggressive and bad to each other. Some time later, they shook hands and went to the festivities in the mosque...
Our night was not the best, so it was not too difficult to get up super early the next morning. Our bus left at 7:00. The bicycles fit into the quite small bus, but then it was a Tetris game to put all the luggage of the other passengers on top. We crossed our fingers, hoping nothing got damaged on our bikes!
The bus ride was crazy. We first rode down into the narrow valley and then up over the next mountain peak covered in snow. The street was narrow and steep with thousands of switchbacks. Several military checkpoints with armed men controlled the passport of each passenger.
We felt really grateful to be sitting on the bus rather than pedaling on the street!
Our route, the only existing road, led us all the way up into the mountains. Since we hadn't seen snow in a long time, it was kind of exciting. But the most amazing part of being there was smelling the cool, fresh air without air pollution from cars and trucks. Although it looked on the map like it should have been a big road, there was barely any traffic. When we arrived at the mountain pass (2250m), a very nice downhill awaited us. Wow, this was great 🤩
Around midday we reached Yüksekova, where we had lunch and bought a Turkish sim card. In the afternoon we cycled on with the idea of finding a nice campspot and finishing the cycling day early. It turned out to be super difficult to find a spot to pitch our tent. We cycled along the Nehil river. The land around the river was extremely wet and muddy, not a good idea to pitch the tent. Then the landscape changed from wide swampland and farm fields to a narrow valley with steep rocky mountains on both sides, also no possibility to pitch the tent. So we kept pedaling and pedaling. Finally, we saw a flat and grassy place 20m away from the road. We pushed the bikes up there when we suddenly realized we were being watched from the mountain peak. Armed military men shouted down to us 'yallah, yallah,' sounding like 'get your butt off here...' and that's what we did. We almost lost hope. Finally, we found a place where we saw no military posts or guards around and where we could set up a bivouac (no tent).
We cooked a very delicious meal with lots of veggies and fell asleep immediately 😴