Day 33 - 37: Erciyes - Ordu

The road to Kayseri was everything but a problem, the 70km there were quickly done. 

In the outskirts, we went to a huge supermarket to refill some stocks. („Metro“ - sounded quite familiar to us - and coming inside it everything looked absolutely identical to the German Metro markets..) We bought some trouts and dorades for a decent barbeque that evening.

Up on Erciyes, the landscape was not too overwhelmingly beautiful – just like an austrian ski arena during summer. And indeed, as we were just talking about this similarity we met a former ski instructor who worked at the Arlberg for quite some years and invited us to sleep in fromt of his deserted hotel, use the bathroom and his shower. The name of the complex: „Otel Arlberg“. We talked to him about german football teams and turkish football players as usually, but went back to the picnic area at around 2200m to grill our fish. 

Again we can say that Turkey is the perfect country for a roadtrip like ours. At the picnic area we found little huts with a fireplace, table and bench and also roomy bathrooms and plenty of running water.

The next morning we tried to reach one of the summits. Unfortunately, the cable cars only worked in the first section until 2200m – climbing up to 3900 was then a little bit too much.

We chose a smaller summit (with smaller snow fields) of Erciyes. We climbed trough ski slopes and construction sites for quite some time, before reaching alpine-like meadows, and finally the volcano-shape 40° incline that goes straight to the summit. In these rock fields, we had a great view over the volcanic landscape and all the sheperd camps at lower altitude.

Usually, an area in cool climate directly next to heat-stirring a 1-million-metropole (as Kayseri is) is a guarantee to find all picnic tables occupied at the weekend (we knew that from Uludag and Bursa). This time, it was Ramadan, and as Kayseri is a quite conservative city, the tables stayed empty until late afternoon. Our new neighbours came late and gave us curious looks, and a handwave and „Merhaba“-shout made them come over instantly. Only one son of the family spoke a little Engish, but that did not keep 5 other people from also visiting. We exchanged some Maoam for the little kids for the melon and Baclva they soon brought us. After the grilled fish diner (as usual), we then got a huge delivery of ramadan diner, including salad, kebab, bread. Maybe you eat this much when you fast the whole day – we did not, so we were more than stuffed when we tried to finish all the tasty dishes they brought.

Well fed, we headed for the Black Sea shore the next noon, after some tuning that Kalimero wanted - to compete with the local Ford Transit Dolmuses. 

Kalimero's 3-ton hydraulic press

navigation system

Surprisingly - adapting the habits of his 2 inhabitants of being lazy in the sunshine - Kalimero began to have some hard time to start his engine when it is still warm (tank stops, etc.). This got continously worse, and at a tank stop after some time, he did not want to run at all. A quick checkup told us everything looked fine, except for the diesel filter that might be clogged. Michi wanted to change it anyway back home (one of the many preparations that we should end up doing while traveling), so it was quickly done. And indeed, after pumpming some air, Kalimero was snorring like a little cat. We went on, but somehow Kalimero sometimes missed some engine power. At a stop in the afternoon, he even stopped running once we pulled over. After some troubleshooting, the explanation was quite simple: the new diesel filter lacked a sealing ring in the line back to the tank. There, air came into the filter and was delivered to the injection pump. As we realized on quite many tank stops already, Kalimero unfortunately does not depend on love and air, but definetely needs Diesel to be happy. We had another new diesel filter, this one with sealing ring – and after the exchange, Kalimero started like a little kitten.

left: new, without sealing ring. right: new, with sealing ring

German car: interesting. German car with visible engine: VERY interesting. German car with visible engine and German guy doing stuff: CANNOT LOOK AWAY.  Notice the truck delivering wheat - he picked his loading zone DIRECTLY next to Kalimero's exhaust, while Michi was leaning over the engine.

We drove through the magnificient backcountry of the black sea region, to arrive at the coast the next day.

There we spent the next day on the coastal road, heading to the direction of Trabzon.

On one of the few sandy beaches, we chose to stop for the night. It was Sunday, so it was packed with families, but we were optimistic to be on a lonesome beach by night.
Indeed, most of them left as the sun went down. Next to us, however, there was a huge family preparing their Ramadan feast. One of the daughters knew some English, but this did not keep the rest of the family from also talking to us in Turkish. A fold-up map of Turkey definetely caught the interest of the father and sons - we were given some sightseeing tips for the Aegean coast by one of them. Luckily, we did not miss too much on our trip. The father is an offroad-driver from the area (Gezenbilir Forum), so he suggested us some routes.
In the evening, we were once again invited to some delicious Ramadan soup and Kebab.

Day 29 – 33: Igneada – Göreme, „a paradise with a pile of s**t“

After a wonderful weekend with the VW people in Igneada, we started to return to Asia, once again crossing the Bosporus bridge.

Farewell ceremony at the VW Bus meeting

no overtaking - street scence just behind Igneada

This time, we approached Istanbul at Sunday late afternoon, a time plan that rewarded us with 40km/h speed for almost 2 hours – curious looks, thumbs-ups and even a „Servus Kollege“ from a Turk with some obvious bavarian history were on the lanes next to us.

We decided to go straight through quite some parts of the country, sleeping on a highway autostop near Ankara, so that we arrived early afternoon in Göreme – the small village in the center of the famous Cappadocian tuffstone landscape. Already some time before spotting Göreme on the signposts, caves appeared besides the road, carved from the sandy stones. On our way down to Göreme, it really blew our minds, countless holes, doors, windows, stairs, all carved from stone pillars, walls and pyramids. The thought that people actually lived here is really startling.

We chose Dilek camping, just next to the town center, to stay here for a few days and use the luxury of a washing machine. The spot is run by a whole family since 2 years, and we really enjoyed the funny brothers, uncle, father and some kids.

On arrival, we realized that Patty and Ingo, whom we met 2 weeks ago in Istanbul (fehlzeit.blogspot.com) were staying on another campground up the hill in Göreme. In the evening (after the desert-like heat was gone a little bit), we pedaled up the steep road, past the Open Air Museum, to see the two. Just before dawn, we took one of the countless little trails down a wonderful valley, which proved Cappadocia the trail paradise that some people talk about. 30cm wide, just steep enough to roll without much effort, and this great landscape with stone caves everywhere. Our chosen trail ended in some thick green bushes, however, which prompted us to climb the side of the valley. No big problem, so we found ourselves just on top of another handful of trails, winding through caves, chapels and stairs. This is truely a paradise for mountainbiking (but consider not coming in July, as it is simply too hot between 11am and 7pm).

The next morning, we wanted to start early. And really, we got up before 8 to use some morning coolness. However, the notorious Cappadocian thornes gave Katha a flat tire yesterday, so we were delayed a little. We then rode up the asphalt roat to Ulcisar, the neighbouring town with an impressive stone castle in the middle. After about 250hm, we arrived on top of a green valley where a small, brownish line went in curves on the bottom. It turned out to be one of those holy trails you seldomly find.

As we rode up and down through the valley, we passed a little green stream coming from the top. Well, spoilt by the Alps (where you cross crystal-clear snowmelt water), we crossed through, to late to realize that this stream was coming directly from the hotel just above, on the valley edge. You may imagine what flows down from a hotel – we were disgusted „a little“, trying to at least get rid of the stuff from our tires, by covering them with sand.

Nonetheless, the rest of the ride was just as epic as the part before.

Back at the campsite, we used the rest of the day to escape from the heat – we had our place in the shadow of a huge stone pillar, and the campground had a pool. As the sun went down (Ramadan just started – we, however, chose NOT to fast), we prepared some fish we bought a day ago.

One of the campground brothers served us a glass of self-made spirit, we chose not to drink it completely...not only because we had to get up at 4.15. Michi's birthday present by his parents was a balloon ride in Göreme, so we found ourselves on a sandy plain just before dawn the next day. We were not the only ones waiting to climb the baskets of countless balloons prepared to take off – as in Pamukkale, it's so beautiful that you have to share it with a lot of people. In an one-hour-flight, we flew over Göreme and the fairy chimneys, and also in a surprisingly low altitude through some of the valleys. The view was really great, we witnessed 3 sunrises and two sunsets because of the repeated gas shots the pilot gave into the ballons -up and down, up and down, and up. The landing was another little aventure, as the pilot – connected to the driver on ground by walkie-talkie – point-landed on the trailer of a driving Landcruiser. Needless to say, this was in the middle of a bumpy field, so the car was appropriately challenged as well.

 

The rest of the day is quickly said: we thought about bikeriding, once we are awake at 7am – but the transport back to the Camping made us sufficiently tired to sleep until 11. After some mechanical maintenance and routine checks on Kalimero, we went to see Patty and Ingo, who switched their place from the campground to a just as beautiful freecamp next to the Open-Air-Museum. Millenium-old church ruins and remains of frescos, and freecamp on an empty field less than 10m away from it – try to do that in Germany. Another camping truck (4x4 camper in a foreign country, this must be Germans!) with two guys from northern Bavaria was standing next to them. We spent the afternoon there, when 2 young cyclists from Austria arrived (they want to do the tour to Thailand until January – Chapeau!) and stayed there as well.

For the evening, we had ordered „testi kebab“ at our restaurant (the spirit-serving brother is the cook) for us and Patty and Ingo, and it was not only a delicious stew – it is cooked in a pottery cylinder, which is cracked open with a giant knife for serving.

The next day, we left Göreme to go further east. From nearly every place in Cappadocia that is not deep down in the valleys, you can see a huge, pyramind-shaped former volcano on the horizon.



Erciyes Dagi (with over 3900 also quite high), which is actually one of the two volcanoes that created the thick tuffstone layers that enabled the early Christians to find refuge here and carve churches. As it was too hot to do extensive bikerides down in Göreme, we thought about going in this direction – especially after the great days at Uludag.