Today I ate cherries picked from a tree just outside my bedroom window

after 4 days of slacking and watching 4 movies in 3 days (we stayed in the theatre to catch 2fast2furious. Ah memories of watching American Beauty for free come rushing back...) - movies here cost 3.5million lira for the 830pm show. Before you balk, 3.5million turkish lira is about S$4 - we finally got our asses moving again. This time it was a big change as we cycled INTO the country instead of along the shoreline, so it was with a bit of apprehension that we started up the road into the Turkish mountains. But the road turned out not to be steep at all, and after a few hours of cycling we found a campsite down the side road to the monastery we wanted to go to the next day.

...sumela monastery...

Built a friggin long time ago (mostly finished in the 13th century) the monastery was built amongst the steep cliffs of the turkish mountains, and the stunning scenery has not changed from the time monks used to come here for whatever sadomasochistic reason they had. First thought at looking at the monastery: "13C monks were damn fine rock climbers man!" The mist rising from the trees joining the clouds that envelop the mountainside made for an amazing sight, as did the frescoes lining the walls of the monastery itself. We met some travellers and settled down for some tea and a chat before hitching a ride back to our bikes (we hitched up the mountains) and going off.

We found a campsite that night in a cave just off the road. It was a great campsite, with a great view of the valley and the road below, and it was good that we were so comfortable too, because Dan had diahorea the next day so we had an enforced day off. Alex wrote in the report that wherever we were, we'd take 9th August off, and so we did.

...bad news...

We got off to a good start the next day, and Dan's stomach did'nt seem to bother him too much as we climbed up to the tunnel that brought the road to the other side of the mountains (1820m, a climb of 1300m) through the clouds that brought visibility down to less than 100m. On the other side of the tunnel, the scenery did a double take as tree covered mounatinsides gave way to brown, arid ones and clouds gave way to a blinding blue sky. The whole place made me feel like I've been transported to the american wild west, with rolling grassy hills and all. We had a 12km downhill, and amazing views at every switchback of the road that I was very glad I did not have to cycle up. Actually the downhill was longer, but we stopped for drinks or something, I forget why.

Anyway we found a great campsite the next day next to a river, and I got an SMS saying that TNP could not print the articles I had written for them. This was a great blow as I was depending on the income to stave off the bills I had at home. Now is a time for deep thinking and I am frankly at a loss as to what to do next... Some avenues have been explored, so there is nothing much to do but cross fingers and think of other ways to keep me on this trip. Sigh.

...friendly locals...

The next day we went off early and got a good day's of cycling in to Gumushane, where I spent some time on a frustratingly unstable internet connections to get some urgent emails out. But whilst there I met some people who would change our trip. Yas spoke great English and his friend Hakan was studying Computer Programming at a nearby University, and by some stroke of luck after we left the town we ran into them along the road and they brought us sight seeing and picking fruit from Hakan's family's plantation. There is nothing like eating fruit freshly picked from the trees and we had a great variety to choose from, from apples, pears, plums, avocadoes, grapes and even cherries. There's probably more but I can't remember.

They went out of their way and invited us to stay at Yas's place for the night, and we happily agreed. I think Yas called ahead because the place was SO clean when we got there and they were incredibly hospitable. Dan and Alex were too shacked out and turned in early but I stayed up late and chatted with the locals. Yas spoke good english (and russian, and german, and turkish, of course. And he's spent the last 5 years unemployed even though he finished Uni with a Building Engineer's degree) and we had an awesome time.

The next morning we were fully expecting to head to a restaurant for breakfast but Yas and his family had other plans. They put out a spread for breakfast worthy for Kings, and all the stuff (butter, jam, honey, cheese, and more) were all homemade. The honey still had a lot of comb in it. It was awesome!

We had a good day of cycling (hit a 1875m pass) and am now in Bayburt, a cool little town in the middle of nowhere (seriously - its surrounded by rolling hills and there's nothing for miles around) with a castle at its background. This is too cool. Will put up pics soon.