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...
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
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 😴
Contrary to our fears, the border crossing went very smooth.
Of course we had to -still on the Iranian side - remove the bags from the bicycles and slide them through the x-ray scanner.
At the passport and visa control, the officer tried to convince us that our visa had expired. 'No, that's not the case' we explained and showed him that he should not consider the time period for picking up the visa, but rather calculate 90 days from the date on the entry stamp. He kept the visas (for Iran it is on a separate paper, as some countries would refuse entry when having an iranian entry stamp in the passport) and gave us back our passports.
In the next room, we were greeted in High German and immediately led to the next x-ray scanner. All the locals, with their worn bags, old suitcases, and dozens of plastic bags full of tomatoes, had to wait. We felt totally uncomfortable and so sorry when we saw how the Turkish border guards treated these people.
As quickly as possible, we packed all the bags from the bike into the scanner and were then asked to push the entire bicycle through 🤣 Wow, we had never experienced anything like this before! - too bad we didn't have a photo of that! - then got the entry stamp and off we went...
The first thing Fiona did, on turkish ground, was removing the headscarf 💁♀️
The temperature was quite chill up there and the snow was within reach. From the border we pedaled ~15km uphill until almost sunset and until we found a suitable campspot for this night 🏕️ 😴
From Bandare Laft we took the ferry to Iran mainland. Our plan was to pedale along the coast northwards, to stay a bit longer in the warmth. The weatherforcast for the inland regions (Shiraz, Yazd etc. ) is still a bit chilly, espeacially at night...
'Badgir', the so called Windcatcher are very impressive.
Badgir are built like the traditional houses, from clay and straw. From all directions the wind get catched and brought down into the rooms, essentially a natural air conditioning system.
In the little traditional village 'Laft' a lot of these Badgir are still visible. From a rocky little hill in middle of the village we enjoy the fantastic view over the old part of the coastal village.
Let's look back 🔭
Some weeks and months before we sat off on this journey - this new stage of our lives - we had a lot of preparation to do.
Besides selling and giving away all our belongings, we built our own bikes 🚲🚲 Special thanks to Mathias - mavis-bikes - for the beautiful frames 🫶
Marc welded in our one-room flat gorgeous racks and bottlecages. Fiona prototyped and sewed bags, sleeping bag inlays, buffs, and other useful stuff...