Last time when you received a bunch of posts to read we were in Eregli. We decided to stay there for a rest day, the continuous ups and downs were very tiring.
Tamás mentioned once that there was a loudspeaker on a mosque. Well, there are speakers on every mosques and 5 times a day we can hear some pray and because of the speakers you can hear it everywhere in the city/village (and also in a 10 km circle). It was not different in Eregli either, the only difference was that before the pray started we heard some dialing tone from the speaker very loudly. I think it was a recorded voice and played at the time it was needed but we are not sure as we don’t understand a thing. We find it a little bit strange this loud pray so many times a day. We tried to find something similar in Hungary, maybe it is like the bells at noon but it doesn’t wake you up in the morning.
After Eregli we climbed a 500m pass but it was not that steep as the Turkish average. Next to the road there were a lot of small booths selling strawberry, one small bucket for 10 TL. We found it very expensive just like everything in small shops, more expensive than in Hungary. The bigger the city the cheaper the food is, the cheapest was so far Istanbul. We find this quite surprising as in Hungary it is the other way around.
It was so hot that the asphalt melted and we felt that the tires stuck to road making climbing a bit more difficult. Whenever a car or a truck passes by they always push the horn just next to us. I think it is supposed to be some kind of welcoming but we find it annoying because it is quite loud and we will go deaf if we have to listen to it very long. I think Turkish people like the horn a lot and they push it whenever they see something unusual. Surprisingly the road did not continue in a ravine and we could roll down for a long time. At the bottom there was a beach where Felix went to swim. I changed for a bathing suit as well and felt like people are looking a bit strange at me so at the end I didn’t dare to take my T-shirt of. But it was OK because the water was very cold anyhow. People grilled some chicken which had good smell. The cyclists are always hungry so we visited a restaurant and eat some chicken. The meals cost 7 TL each that’s why we were quite surprised when the lady at the end told us that we should pay 40 TL. We couldn’t decide why she said that because nobody spoke English there so our guess it was just a nice try. Felix explained them that 7+7=14 but still after that we got only back 5 TL from a 20…
There was our first tunnel before Zonguldak where we had to switch on our headlights, although it was not long, 100-200 m.
We arranged our next CS in Zonguldak, the GPS navigated there (we knew the address) – it was on the top of a mountain with extremely steep streets! This was the steepest so far. We had to push, but it was also very tiring. My shoes even slipped on the asphalt. We had to stop every 5 m and there were stairs next to the road – you can imagine how steep it was.
Finally we found the flat. It looked like a hairdresser’s saloon (it was that before). The guy was kind with us and we’ve learned that youtube is banned in Turkey because there was some offensive material about Atatürk. We asked him about the religious habits in Turkey – it turned out that on the beach, women swim in clothes so when Zsofi wore bikinis on the beach, she was not only imagining that others look strange at her, but she was right.
Not only was the road out of Zonguldak killing (the extremely steep ascents continued with lots of stinky buses and trucks) but we also realized after 10 km that we left our big jar of Nutella at the CS place! The biggest loss was the light plastic jar in which we always repacked the Nutella to get rid of the heavy glass.
The ups and downs continued until Fylios. Then the microbumps (Edirne-Istanbul) reappeared but the road was more or less flat. After we left the main road at Saltukova (to take the shorter road to Bartin), ups-and-downs begun. Here on this road we would have been lost without the GPS because there were no signposts! Zsófi was tired and said that we will not reach Bartin that day so we canceled the CS host in an sms. We found a camping place with nice panoramic view. This day we climbed more than 1000 m so I had to promise Zsofi that we will take a rest week in Amasra, which I soon managed to bargain down to 3 days.
In Bartin we finally found a supermarket. Both of us went in, one by one. While I was waiting outside, a man came there and looked askingly like Besenyő Pista bácsi in the beginning of this VIDEO ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqh_kWyj_iM ). Finally he asked: “Tourist?” I don’t know how could he figure this out… 
We bought grilled chicken (6 TL, 9 if you eat it on site) and we ate it next to the river on a nice bank. We had to climb through a pass to reach Amasra. There we could not find a place for our tent so we slept in a pension – the room cost 17 EUR. The view from the terrace was beautiful! Amasra is a cute little town. We took an evening walk. In the morning, Zsofi fried some pancakes (we forget to ask whether breakfast is included or not). We found the only place in town (a jewelry) where they change money but finally we took it from an ATM. After a late start (at 3 PM) we wanted to look for a camping place in the near (this is a rest day, after all). We found one after 279 m climb but I had to get water and bread from the nearby village (this was the zig-zag on the tracking). There was no shop in this village, so a man was so kind and gave me some bread (plus olives and apples), for free. We set up the tent next to 2 cows on a grassy land. They were tied to a stick so Zsofi dared to pass by them and to camp there.
We realized that we don’t have enough days left from our visa to ride all the way through Turkey! When calculating at home using a map, it was much easier – we did not see the tiring ups and downs next to the coastline on Karadeniz Yolu – the Black Sea route.
The sun came out from behind the clouds and there was no shade so we set up to find an other (more shady) place for the tent. We found it after 10 km. We asked the neighbours whether we can sleep there – they allowed it and later invited us for dinner. There was also internet in the house (but no wifi so we could not use our own laptop in the tent).
Next day we rolled down to the beach of Cakraz – it was very nice, we took tons of photos there. However, it was not beach time here yet – I was the only person to swim.
On the cliffs next to Cakraz beach
Again, a steep climb came – Zsofi almost wanted to give it up and told me that I should continue alone – but somehow she continued. We luckily found a very nice place for the tent (the only possible place in a 20 km area) with a nice view of the sea and the sunset over the sea! We were sleeping until late next day – we slowed down to 25 km a day
The next day we had some rain and also cleaned our chains after 2170 km. Again we found a nice place, and we just started to cook when a bus stopped and about 20-30 people got off and walked towards us. We thought that they are looking for a place to pee, etc. and all of them will do it in the bushes surrounding us. But they just had a rest and gathered around us (just as if they’d seen an UFO). To our surprise, none of them spoke any languages other than Turkish! Some of them said “Yes” and laughed… This is common in whole Turkey – they either don’t speak any languages, or if they do, they are very hard to understand. Many times they just repeat the one sentence they know and laugh after that.
At night there was heavy rain, it was so loud that we woke up. In the morning we woke up to barking dogs – when I looked out, there were 8 dogs around the tent! They went away but came back in 5 minutes, sniffing our food and settled down there. When I opened the tent and shouted “go away!”, they did not move. But when I came out and stood up (threateningly holding up an empty plastic bottle in my hand), they realized that I’m bigger than they are so they reluctantly walked away.
Today is a short day again because we found wifi at a petrol station and wanted to write to the blog and upload photos.
More photos at: http://picasaweb.google.hu/felix.kovacs/BikeToAsiaTorokorszag2
(We opened a new album because picasa wanted to start synchronizing from scratch…)
Nagyon klasszak a fotók, nekem főleg a tengerparti naplementés tetszett-hihetetlen, tényleg nem lehetett eldönteni, hogy hol ér össze a tenger az égbolttal! Nagyon szép helyeken jártok (irigykedik-irigykedik szmájli beszúrva)!