Day 28 – Alexandroupoli to Gelibolu

Distance: 156

Elevation: 1.265m

Due to some issues at work and some mosquitoes in the room, my night was restless.

I woke up tired and with a bit of a bad mood.

As I was packing up, I forgot my favourite flannel shirt in the hotel. It was the one that Carolin had given to me, and that had accompanied me on several tours so far.

Somehow I had the feeling that I would have a hard day in front of me, so I made sure that I was on the road by 8:15am.

During my break day, it had rained cats and dogs. For once, I was happy to be inside a hotel.

I used the time to prepare the maintenance stop of Rosinante in Istanbul.

I found two possible bike shop that could perform the service. Together with my friend Peter, who has been my bike mechanic for many years, I prepared the list of spare parts needed.

My friend Merih, who is of Turkish descent, called the shops and asked if it was okay that I bring my own parts. It turned out that it wasn’t a problem at all.

As I got into the saddle, sun and temperatures were perfect, yet there was a stiff wind coming from northerly directions. The wind slowed me down. There is no way that you can fight against headwind over an entire day. If you fight too hard, it breaks you. You have to accept it and deal with it.

After I had left Alexandropouli, I called my daughter Kara to congratulate her to her birthday. It was still fairly early and she was barely awake. She was spending a weekend together with her sister Hannah, the boyfriends Christoph and Karl and her mother Ingrid in the black forest.

Later, my daughters sent me this picture.

The shape of my route for the day resembled a half circle. Up until 4 pm. I was confronted with headwinds. Afterwards, on the last part, I finally had the wind in my back again.

After 50 km, I reached the Greek-Turkish border. I have never seen a border crossing like that. There was a lot of military, barbed wire and tank traps on both sides of a small bridge. Young soldiers with assault rifles were showing presence and vigilance.

Everything symbolised “we don’t trust each other!”

The Greek part of the border crossing was still fairly normal. Once across the bridge, I drove over into Turkey. The portal building of the crossing resembled a mosque or a palace.

Oversized Turkish flags were everywhere. A lot of white marble had been used to build, it seemed. It looked beautiful in a weird way. 

Despite the grim appearance, everybody was very friendly. It was the first time on nine border crossings, that I had been invited to actually cut the line and move forward while the other cars were still waiting to be processed.

Around noon, I was finally in Turkey. This was country number nine on my tour. What a great feeling this was!

I was looking for a place to rest and cycled into a small town called Ipsala. There was a little market on the side of the road, and I stopped.

Immediately, I was greeted by a man standing there. The shop owner asked, what I needed. He also offered me a stool to sit on, WiFi, and some Turkish tea.

Ozer had just opened his shop a week ago. I congratulated him on becoming an entrepreneur. I asked him about the economic situation in Turkey. He mentioned that to due to Erdogan’s policies it was difficult. There are some rich people, and on the other side, many people who were poor, and had to fight to survive.

Also, he as an entrapreneur had to pay a lot of taxes.

He had to take care of other clients, so I used the occasion and moved on.

I had been warned, that this part of Turkey is a place where you have to make tricky route choices. Today, I had a choice between a highway with four lanes and a lot of trucks on the one side and paths with deep sand on the other side.

There is no way to cycle Rosinante, who was weighing 130 kg together with my luggage and me, through deep sand.

However, due to taking the highways, my route came much longer. 

At one point, I almost cycled across a snake. Also, I had a lot of encounters with wild dogs barking at me and chasing me, even on a four-lane highway.

In the afternoon, I was approaching the town Kesan. I stopped by a tea house as it turned out. Men were sitting there together on tables, smoking, drinking tea, and playing cards. 

I bought something to drink. As I did not have local currency yet, I wanted to pay in Euro.

The owners were very friendly when they saw me as a stranger. They shook my hand and even hugged me several times. Yet, I think they ripped me off as I paid €10 for a couple of cold drinks and some Turkish tea.

Anyways, it has been a great experience.

I was tired, and still had 80 km to go. After leaving the city, the route turned South, and I finally had some friendly wind. As a result, I was able to pick up the pace.

There was one major climb that I had to complete. It took me about an hour.

During the afternoon, I got greeted by truck drivers, farmers on tractors, and motorcyclists.

People honked, waved at me and smiled. Some were showing a thumbs up or were making other gestures of approval.

Truck drivers are a special story though. They are way more reckless than in other countries. I think they just don’t know what to make of cyclists. Or they simply don’t pay attention.

In the afternoon, I came by a burning 30 ton truck. The smoke trail was visible for many kilometres. The driver had driven his vehicle into the curb on a perfectly straight and even road

The heat was palpable as I was cycling by. I hoped that nobody had been harmed.

As I was approaching Gelibolu, the Sun was already setting. I called my hotel to inform them of my late arrival and made sure that they wait for me. The owner spoke very good German and was very friendly. 

By 8:45pm, I had finally arrived. I took a quick shower and went out to the harbour for some dinner.

I found a simple place, directly by the loading docks for the two ferries that were leaving from here. The ferry lines operated 24 hours and were transporting mostly cargo trucks and local cars.

I had a quick call with Carolin as a Turkish band was starting to play, moving from table to table. It was great fun.

My first impression of Turkey was, that it was definitely closer to Egypt than it was to Slovenia from a cultural perspective.

At one point today, a car was driving on the highway opposite to the direction of travel and the driver was on the phone. Nobody cared.

It was after 10pm when I finally got to bed.

It had been a tough day, but also a very good one. Also, I was now in Turkey and I had a feeling that the adventure was just about to begin as I would continue to travel more East next year.

I was looking forward to it. But first, I wanted to go home again.