Day 2: Istanbul to Gölbasi Gölu

Distance: 52km

Elevation: 556m

The morning started with the usual routine. Pack Rosinante. Sort the luggage. Carry everything up the stairs, assemble it, and head to the terrace for a quick breakfast. Once everything was in order, I said goodbye to the hotel host, who had been genuinely friendly throughout, and made my way to the ferry terminal.

The ferry to Yalova was fully booked. Turkey is in the middle of Kurban Bayram right now, and half of Istanbul seems to have decided to flee the city at once. Bursa was the next option, so I took that instead. Bursa is a city of about three million people, sitting south of Istanbul across the Sea of Marmara, and it was clearly a popular escape destination for the holiday weekend.

The crossing took almost three hours. By the time I arrived at the harbor, it was already two in the afternoon. The harbor itself is still quite a distance from the city center, so I had my first Döner Kebap to eat (yummy) and stocked up on groceries. I had a plan to camp by a lake that night and wanted to be prepared.

By around three o’clock, I was on the bike.

The route was roughly fifty kilometers. The beginning and the end were brutal climbs. The middle section was the reward for those: quiet back roads, gravel tracks, a lot of green, and a landscape that earned its place on the trip.

I came by Mount Uludag, with 2.500m it had still some snow at the top. I remember the name from an Ayran brand in Germany.

At one point I had to cycle on an autobahn, which still feels a little absurd but is no longer the event it once was.

At a river, I saw a family washing their clothes in the water.

Late in the afternoon I reached a small village where I could stop to eat and drink under a huge plane tree (Platane) before the final push over a mountain.

The sun was already low when I arrived at the lake, and a thunderstorm was building on the horizon.

The camping spot from iOverlander, an app designed for travelers like me, was occupied by a crowd of locals taking advantage of the holiday weekend.

I was greeted friendly by some Kurdish people. They offered me water and some nuts which was very nice.

The state of the place was a problem though. It was dirty, with a large amount of rubbish dumped on site. There was no real alternative, so I found the least bad corner, set up the tent, and made the best of it.

The sad thing: there were actually trash containers. People just did not have the habit of cleaning up after them.

A wash in the clean water of the lake helped. So did the one beer I had bought along the way. It was lukewarm, but after that day, it tasted fine. Then the thunderstorm arrived. Loud, close, persistent. I was in a valley surrounded by mountains, which gave some reassurance. Frightening for a moment, but manageable.

I also saw snakes, large lizards and wild dogs during the day, for the record. None of them showed too much aggression.

The night was loud from start to finish. Frogs and fish made constant noise from the lake. Dogs barked and howled somewhere in the dark. There may have been jakals, though being this close to a city I am not certain about that. As the weather turned, the locals packed up and drove home, which left a lot more space and quiet by morning, but also made the accumulated mess more visible. It is a beautiful lake. It deserves better.

I also had a dog settle very close to the tent at some point during the night. It left everything alone and so did I.

I am not sure how much sleep I actually got. Enough.

This morning the tent is covered in small snails. They need to come off, and the tent needs to dry properly before the next night. That is the immediate task. Beyond that, the plan is still forming.