Distance: 81km
Elevation: 917m
Erzurum: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vpGE1gXfzaBWa6Mt9?g_st=ic
During the night, a thunderstorm developed above me. It rained heavily for hours. I heard the creek getting louder and louder. Or was that just my imagination? I was worried my tent would flood. Despite the noise from the road, I got enough sleep. When I woke up, the rain had stopped.
I went out to make breakfast. The meadow where my tent stood had turned into a giant sponge. Every step pushed water out of the ground. Everything was wet: tent, sleeping pad, even the sleeping bag.
There was no signal, so I packed up, made breakfast, and headed to the next gas station. I wanted to finish writing my blog there.
I was on the road by quarter past seven. I had to climb up the canyon, twenty kilometers of constant uphill. I had started this climb the day before. It was wild and beautiful.
This morning, some truck drivers really annoyed me. They passed very close, even though there was no need. The highway has two lanes on each side, so they could easily move over or give space. Some didn’t. Some even pulled closer. The shoulder is usually wide, but sometimes it narrows, and sometimes it’s covered in rubble. That makes things tricky.
When I finally reached the top of the plateau I had a nice decent into Aşkale where I found a gas station. I had coffee, finished my blog and laid some of my stuff out to dry in the sun.
A while after I had continued my route another thunderstorm formed right above me. I managed to put on my rain gear just before it hit. There were still twelve kilometers to the next gas station – mostly uphill. By the time I got there, I was wet from paddling hard.
I stopped for lunch. I had some decent kofte and a lot of chai to warm up. The temperature had dropped below ten degrees. We were at nineteen hundred meters altitude here.
My right arm had been hurting for some days now showing signs of stress. Ignoring it had not helped so far.
I checked the weather forecast. It predicted rain showers for the whole day until evening. So I decided to take it easy and book a hotel room in Erzurum for twenty-five Euros.
During the final stretch it had stopped raining and I was questioning my decision. Was that really necessary? My inner critic was commenting„now that’s not very badass, is it?“.
If I am honest I am a good weather cyclist. However, settling for a hotel room never feels like a victory to me, especially when it wasn’t planned or could have been avoided.
Anyways, I decided to be ok with the fact that I covered less distance today. Instead, I made the most of being warm and cozy while it was miserable outside.
I missed my wife Carolin and our family. I missed my home and my camper van. I even missed our slightly crazy dog.
I really wanted to get out of Turkey now and into Georgia and I was only two days away from the Black Sea coast. This is where I would cross the border avoiding to climb the mountain ridge of the Small Kaukasus.
The attendant was very friendly and spoke good English, the first one on this tour I remember meeting like that. Once I got to my room, I unpacked my tent, sleeping bag, and everything else to let it dry.
I treated my arm with a thick pack of Voltaren gel and crawled up in bed.
Tomorrow’s weather should be better. My plan is to push toward the Black Sea coast, to a town called Hopa. It is 240km away but it is constant downhill from 1.900m to sea level.
Learning of the day:
A stoic quote comes to mind: “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” — Marcus Aurelius
I am good at beating myself up when I don’t meet my own expectations. And those expectations are usually much higher than anything I would expect from someone else. But really, nobody cares if I suffer because my tent gets soaked, or if I end up in a hotel room, or how many kilometers I cover in a day. It’s all in my head. At the end of the day, I am doing this to show myself that I am capable of cycling around the world and raise donations with it. How fast I do it doesn’t really matter.