Welcome to Turkmenistan

Bus from Turkmenbashi to Ashgabat
August 26th

11 hour bus ride today. Hopefully the last bit of non-bike travel until we reach Beijing - knock on wood. We have no more planned boat, plane or bus segments. We have visas for all of the countries we will ride through. We are now back on schedule after the 3 day delay on the boat. Let's hope for an uninterrupted trip going forward.

For yesterday's 5km ride from the ferry port, a police cruiser with flashing lights led the way. It seemed unnecessary, since there was very little traffic, but it was a nice touch. It was definitely unnecessary today, when the cruiser rode in front of our bus, with lights on, for the entire drive. Apparently, the police are keeping an eye on us as we travel through Turkmenistan. There were different police in our hotel last night, in the tiny shack of a restaurant where we had lunch, and at the dozens of checkpoints on the road all day as well. This country is very tightly policed.

Leaving Turkmenbashi, we saw nothing but oil refineries and industrial docks. After that, it was flat, beige, rocky desert all day. The few buildings en route were the same color as the sand, so they melted into the landscape. We saw several wild camels wandering the desert, and dozens more that we being shepherded around. Otherwise, it was road, sand, and telephone poles stretching into the horizon. The capital city of Ashgabat was like a sudden oasis. Big roads, nice buildings, plants and grass, fountains. This is where any money in the country goes.

Trying to walk to dinner at 7pm at night, we were approached by 3 different people in the first 500m: a police officer, a military person, and a civilian. Each tried to direct us off of the main road, which didn't seem smart, so we turned around and ate at the hotel instead. (Later learned that the president was going to drive past, and they were clearing the road.) Very nice hotel with a great restaurant tonight – the complete opposite of the past two hotels. No internet in the rooms though. I imagine that internet is restricted here so that the government has more control over information flow. CNN was on TV though...along with “Full House”dubbed into Russian.

I've had to borrow cash here since there are no ATMs and no one told us to stock up on cash in Baku.

Here's a photo of our lunch stop:

Bad to Worse

Boat from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan)
August 23rd, 24th & 25th
5km (cycling)

Worse than waiting 2.5 days for the ferry was finally getting on it. The trip was supposed to last 12 to 30 hours, but ended up taking 54 hours!!! I can't believe that Tour D'Afrique thought this boat was a good idea. We've only cycled 3 of the last 15 days of the trip, and now need to take a bus to Ashgabat, missing another 4 days of riding. The trip is completely offtrack. Georgia was unavoidable, but the mess in Baku and on the ferry should not have happened. I've lost confidence in Tour D'Afrique to make good decisions on our behalf. Hope things improve soon.

Just after 10am on the 23rd, as we ate breakfast back at the Mozart cafe (4th meal in a row there), we got a text message saying “Get here now. Boarding!” Jumped in a cab and hurried back to the dock. At 11:30am we starting passing through Azerbaijan's exit customs and boarding the ship. It took about 2 hours to get onto the boat, after numerous negotiations with the customs officers and boat captains. Everyone wanted to squeeze us for extra money. “No bikes! More money!” Even after we were on board, we had to wait 7 hours for the boat to leave. I was bored and hot before we'd even left the dock!

The ferry was smaller than I imaged. It had a large bay for trucks and train cars where we left our bikes and bags. There were about 100 people on board, including us, and the only seats were inside a hot room with no fresh air. We had tiny cabins that slept 4 each in two sets of bunk beds and had one small hatch to let air in. It was really hot, and we spent most of our time reading outside, sitting on the metal floor wherever we could find shade.

They did offer lunch and dinner from a small kitchen. For $2 you got a bowl of rice and a chicken drumstick. Nothing else available. No drinks. There were toilets and sinks but no showers. Felt like we were in a prison.

By 7am on the 24th we were at anchor within sight of the Turkmenbashi shore, after a hot night of fitful sleep. Now we had to wait for one of the 2 boats in the dock to leave, so that we could pull in. Sat there all day. Got my mattress pad and silk sheet out of the cargo hold, and joined the rest of the group sleeping out of the top deck that night.

This morning (the 25th) I awoke at 6am as the engines started. Finally we were pulling into the dock! Thousands of flies swarmed everyone for another 3 hours as we waited in the dock to disembark. It was ridiculous. At 11am, we unloaded the boat and began waiting for customs...again in the baking hot sun. (The guards would not let us stand in the shade because it was too close to the building.) I didn't get through until 5:30pm! Each of us needed to buy a Turkmenistan visa at the border, which was clearly a mistake. We should have got them in advance to save time.

Miles met us on the other side of customs with some sandwiches. We were all starving, having eaten only a few granola bars all day. I had been in the same clothes for 3 days. 5km group ride to a dump of a hotel in Turkmenbashi. It was 95F at 7pm at night! Hotel does have air conditioning, thankfully, which makes it seem almost livable. 8 hour bus ride to look forward to tomorrow. These bus, plane and boat segments are always terrible. Hope we can stick to our bikes from now on.

Our ferry:

Ben and Clive trying to find shade on the top deck:

Turkmenbashi harbor:

Finally arriving at the dock:

Waiting to get off the boat once we had docked:

Sittin' at the Dock of the Bay

Baku
August 22nd

Another day spent waiting for a ferry that never left. Everyone ignored the (poorly conceived) suggestion to return to the dock at 9am. Instead, we sat in a restaurant in the old city all day – eating and enjoying the air conditioning and wireless internet. Not much fun, but a lot better then sitting on the hot, dusty dock.

There were rumors that the boat would load at 6pm and leave at 8pm, but nothing happened. At 8pm, we went back to the hotel in the old city and went to bed. The plan is to wait here until the ferry eventually leaves. Once we get across, we'll likely miss more cycling and bus ahead in order to keep to our original timetable. So much for riding all the way from coast to coast. I'll have to come back sometime and ride from Kars to Ashgabat below the Caspian, through Iran. I think that's about 2,000km...which I could do in 3 weeks...assuming I don't throw my bike into the Pacific at the end of this trip!

Henry (the tour owner) has returned to Canada. Nitzat (our local support, and the only one that speaks Azeri) has left as well. This makes it much harder to know what's going on, and to make last-minute arrangements at the hotels each night. I think this is ridiculous. They should both be here until the situation is resolved. (Captains go down with the ship, so to speak.) Fred, Al, Graeme, Mike and some others have been camping out at the dock to watch our bikes and bags. Henry and Nitzat should be doing that!

Hope we'll get to leave tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

A nice park in Baku:
One of the many nice buildings in this nice part of town:

The cafe Mozart...where I sat for 7 hours today:

Planning Collapse

Baku
August 21st
8km

Today was a total disaster from start to finish. We were supposed to catch a “ferry” from Baku to Turkmenistan, across the Caspian. I put “ferry” in quotes because it is not a passenger boat - it moves trains and trucks across. The ride is supposed to be 12 to 30 hours long, depending on how long it takes to get space at the Turkmenistan port to dock the boat. There is no food or water sold on board, so we were all packing liters of water and bags of food for the trip. The biggest problem is that there is no boat departure schedule. The boats just leave when they are full.

Left our nice, old town accommodation at 7am to make it back to the Velotreki for 8am to load the van with our bags. We all had cycling clothes on for the ride to the ferry, and day bags packs for the boat. We were supposed to leave the Velotreki at 9am, but the van didn't come until 10am. The tour company then decided that there was too much traffic to cycle, so they called for a larger bus and put all the bikes and bags on that. Paul, the historian, said that he was going to cycle down anyways. Me and 7 others joined him. It was an easy, 8km ride downhill the whole was to the water. No traffic problems. The other riders were all really mad that they didn't ride down as well, but many of their bikes had already been loaded and disassembled by the time Paul decided to ride down. It was complete breakdown in organization, with the local support and the tour leaders saying different things and changing their minds every few minutes.

Once we got to the ferry, we sat around all day. 12 hours waiting at a dirty, industrial dock beside a line of transport trucks. There were a few small cafes nearby, and a supermarket about 10 minutes away, but no internet and nothing else to kill the time. The ferry never left though.

It wasn't until 8am that the local support came and asked about the situation. Apparently, the war in Georgia has stopped the trains from Georgia and the ferry won't leave without a full load. No ferries have left for the past few days. It seems like they could have known sooner that there would be no boat today. In any case, we were scrambling around in the dark to find clothes and other overnight items once we knew that we couldn't get on the ferry.

5 riders volunteered to camp on the dock to watch the stuff...and make sure the boat didn't leave. The rest of us went back to the hotel in the old town for the night. They have our cell numbers in case we need to get back there in a hurry.
There has been a huge breakdown in the riders trust of the tour company to plan and act appropriately. Henry, the tour company owner that has been with us ever since we flew into Baku, was supposed to fly back to Toronto tonight. If he does, then I think it is a big mistake. There is still huge uncertainty about how we will proceed from here, and Miles (the tour leader) is already in Turkmenistan with the van. If Henry leaves, then we only have Ben left from the
tour company.

At the hotel, Ben asked everyone to meet at the ferry at 9am. Everyone is ignoring that suggestion. We've already sat for a day on the ferry dock. They can call us if the boat starts to load train cars.

The boat we were trying to get on:

Stewart and Nicole, guarding the bikes and bags:

This is the lovely spot where we waited for 12 hours!!!

Two Cities

Rest Day in Baku
August 20th
0km

The Velotreki Hotel where we stayed last night is a complete dump. No air conditioning meant that it was impossible to get any sleep at night. There was one small fan in our room, but the power in the building kept going off...so even it didn't work. The water pump must be electric, because there was no water when the power was off either. Horrible place. Its next to the city's outdoor cycling ring, but none of us felt like giving it a try.

After a bit of searching, and some help from English speaking locals, I found the local DHL office and picked up the package that my parents sent me. Such a treat. In one box where so many of the items that I have been looking unsuccessfully for en route.

The locals speak a mixture of Azeri and Russian in every sentence. For the most part, they use a Turkish alphabet, not the Russian Cyrillic, but they have their own letter (an upside down, lower case 'e' that sounds like 'a') which I didn't see in Turkey or Russia.

The other good news is that we got our China visas! Technically, we got one group visa for China, so there is nothing actually in my passport. But it is a very good step. For the past few days, we had heard that the answer was yes, then no, then maybe. This morning, we filled out some new application forms and sent them off. The one challenge with the group visa is that we all are required to enter and leave the country together. Entry is fine, but everyone has different flights out. I leave with Al and Fred 2 weeks after the trip ends. This is a problem that will have to be resolved once we are actually in China. I will likely need to change my flight plans.

Taking the metro into the Old Town in Baku revealed a completely different city from the area around the Velotreki. (The metro was obviously built by the Soviets, as it looks exactly like the Moscow metro – big, open, clean, marble stations.) There is a lot of oil money here, with every high-end retailer you can imagine. There are also lots of lovely parks, fountains, pedestrian walkways, etc. It is a really beautiful city...we just happen to be staying in the worst possible part of it. The metro made it easy to get around, although some of the stations were closed for repair and some of the platforms had trains from multiple lines stop at them with only an oral announcement of where the train was going. This led to a lot of backtracking by me.

Tonight, 9 of us booked rooms in a hotel downtown for $35 each per night. It is much nicer than the Velotreki, so I'm hoping to get a better sleep. The tour company really missed the boat on accommodation here.

The worst hotel in Baku:

A bakery, where we got lunch:

Fountain in the Old Town at night:

"Silk" Road?

Shamakhi to Baku
August 19th
119km (1,415m vertical)

Today was hot and the roads were terrible – some “silk” road. After leaving my bike in the sun at lunch, the thermometer read 127F! For most of the afternoon, it was 111F while I was on the bike. That is real heat. Canadians are not made for this.

The landscape was completely different from the past 2 days. Ever since yesterday's big climb out of the valley, the trees and grass have disappeared and it looks like a desert. There is nothing to cast a cooling shadow except the occasional parked truck. (And my umbrella.)

The entire ride today was along broken road. Most of it was under repair, and the few sections that weren't should have been. Kilometer after kilometer of loose gravel, sand, broken pavement, scrapped road, and everything in between. Apparently, the locals have decided to rip up the entire road before starting to repave any of it. We came along at precisely the wrong time. Cars roared past us on both sides, since there was no real benefit to staying on the road itself. They kicked up clouds of dust as we tried to avoid them, steer around the big potholes and brace ourselves for the smaller ones.

My stomach felt a lot better today. Fingers crossed. The ride was a lot more enjoyable without worrying about my stomach all day. If only we could get the temperature down, then I could get back to enjoying myself.

The last 20km of the day were a group convoy into Baku. We definitely did not enter through the scenic route. The air was thick with dust and pollution, and everything seemed to be under repair. At one point, the main highway we were on was redirected into tiny back alley. Very basic hotel tonight. No A/C, no toilet paper, no curtains.

That's me...riding through a dust cloud:

A rare stretch of ok pavement:

Paul and Knut enjoying the view:
Dusty hills and construction...the story of the day:
Jost pushing up a climb on some rough road:

Birthday

Gabala to Shamakhi
August 18th
95km (1,746m vertical)

Today, I shared a birthday with Clive and Knut. We each got balloons and streamers at dinner, a cake, and a copy of Paul's Silk Route book...which I'm looking forward to reading. Around the table, “Happy Birthday” was sung in 10 different languages by the other riders. (English, French, Dutch, Azeri, Vietnamese, Slovakian, Romanian, Danish, Africans, and German.)

My birthday got off to a bad start with the return of stomach troubles at 1am. Very discouraging, since I had felt fine for the past few days. There are at least 7 riders with similar stomach issues right now...including Joan, the trip doctor. At least I'm not alone...although the Immodium supplies are getting low.

Although short, the day was tough with hot sun and two steep climbs as we left the Caucasus mountains. Riding up dusty 12% grade switchbacks in 105F is not fun when you're sick. The tar on the road was almost liquid, and sizzled as we rode over it.

Azeri cuisine, though not exotic, is not really comfort food for my sore stomach. Every meal has cucumber and tomato slices, thick pita bread, hard boiled eggs, soft cheese and honey. Dinner also comes with soup and meat...its the breakfast and lunch that give me trouble. Finding cold drinks on the road is also a challenge – especially still water. All the bottled water here is carbonated. (The exact opposite of Turkey, where we couldn't find any carbonated water.)

Although its an oil country, there are almost as many flocks of sheep, goat and cattle marching along the roads as cars. 3 of 4 cars are small, boxy Ladas, and half the trucks spew out thick black smoke from their exhaust. On the plus side, things are really inexpensive. 1L of water, 1L of Sprite, a Twix bar and some candy came to $2.

Knut, me and Clive...the three birthday boys:

Caucasus mountains and a dry river bed:

Nicole eating lunch in the shade:

View from the top of the first big climb:

A look at the second big climb from the top of the first one. Picture looks washed out because it was so bright and hot!

Back in the Saddle

Saki to Gabala
August 17th
92km (1,493m vertical)

I felt more human after a 8 hours sleep. With the 2 hour time change it was dark when we woke up at 6:30am. That should make it cooler on the roads in the morning.

Rode along the Caucasus mountains all day. Thankfully we weren't crossing through the mountains, so we had a pretty flat ride...although the scenery was pretty tame as well. There were a lot more trees and grasses then we'd seen recently in eastern Turkey, which gave some relief from the hot sun. It was 98F for much of the afternoon. There was snow on the peaks of the mountains...but that was little help.

In Turkey, the locals were always interested in seeing foreigners. In Azerbaijan, its like we are from another planet. Everyone stares, honks, waves, whistles, and yells. This is usually very welcoming...except for the loud car horns, which are really irritating. Several drivers stopped their cars and took photos of us. One guy got out a video camera and filmed us riding by.

Great campsite tonight beside a little hotel, so we can use their showers and toilets. Tents set up in a shady forest, which is lovely. I am happier camping than in really cheap hotels...providing there are showers and shade available. A restaurant for cold drinks is an added plus.

Joan, the trip doctor, won the lame duck award yesterday after she carried the emergency satellite phone all day without turning it on. (There were 14 missed “emergency” calls when she did.) Nick, one of the two new riders that joined us in Baku, took the lame duck tonight after missing the campsite and riding an extra 30km up a 20% grade rough gravel road.

Knut approaches an Azeri traffic jam:

The Caucasus mountains:

Cheating isn't Easy

Flight from Ankara (Turkey) to Baku (Azerbaijan)
Bus from Baku to Saki
August 15th & 16th

I'll combine two days into this single blog entry since I didn't get to sleep in between. It was a long day.

Left the hotel in Ankara at 2:30pm for the airport. Turkish Airlines only charged us US$50 per bike and they didn't charge us for our other excess luggage. (Technically, they charged me but I refused to pay...on the basis that no one else had been charged.)

Flew to Baku via Istanbul, which was strange for me because I had flown into the same airport from Moscow 3 weeks ago. The trip changed a lot in those three weeks: daily distances were 100km and became 120km, daily climbing increased from 960m to 2135m, and we started riding for 5 day stretches instead of 3. Sickness took a lot out of me and we've started bush camping with no facilities. It really is a completely different trip.

After long waits in both Ankara and Istanbul, we finally arrived in Baku at 4am...6am local Baku time. After leaving the airport, Ben collected all the passports to send off for China Visa applications. Hopefully that works out for us.

Next, we hopped on a charter bus for an 8 hour bus ride to Saki. Saki is where we should have spent our first night in Azerbaijan, so we'll get to ride the entire way across the country, except for the 100km between the border and Saki. All told, we missed about 700km of cycling because of the Georgia detour...just less than 5% of the total trip distance.

Re-assembled my bike in Saki - not easy after an all-nighter! Quick dinner with little conversation before a night in a “home stay”. I got my own bed and little else mattered.

All told, we were awake for 36 hours straight...and “in transit” between hotels for 24 of those! Cycling the distance from Kars would definitely have been an easier option.

Packing

Ankara
August 14th

Wandered around the “Old Town” today, which is not really that old. The city was purpose built as a capital only 100 years ago. There was an interesting market to go through with meats, fish, produce, cheeses, spices, etc. Reminded me of St. Lawrence market in Toronto. (The subway also reminded me of Toronto. It was built by Bombardier in Thunder Bay, Ontario.)

My parents sent my DHL care package off to Baku yesterday. I've been tracking it online through: Hamilton, Toronto, Wilmington Ohio, New York, Leipzig Germany, and London. If all goes well, I'll pick it up in Baku on August 20th or so.

Spent 2 hours packing my bike for the flight to Baku. This is a long time for someone that hates packing. We got bike boxes from a local cycle shop, but they were for smaller mountain bikes, so I had to disassemble my bike a bit more than usual. Also had to make due without the usual level of protection (derallier cages, fork spacers, etc.) that I would usually use when boxing a bike. Bought a tea towel and some kitchen sponges for padding instead. Fingers crossed.

We fly to Baku tomorrow night, and potentially start cycling right away.

Waiting

Ankara
August 13th

Lazy day at the Best Western in Ankara – which feels luxurious relative to our recent accommodations. My stomach is pretty much normal now, although my shoulder is still sore from my fall.

Henry Gold, the tour company founder, met with us today at the hotel. He went through a similar situation with Kenya during the Tour d'Afrique trip this year, so he had a useful perspective. He's going to try and give us 3 days of cycling along our original route in Azerbaijan – even if we end up cycling them from East to West. He's going to fly to Baku today to finalize plans. Apparently, Miles has obtained his Iranian visa, so he can drive the big van from Kars to Turkmenistan.

Buses Suck

Bus from Kars to Ankara
August 12th

Up at 5am for breakfast and loading the bus. Departed at 6:30am from Kars. Arrived in Ankara at 1am the next morning. 18.5 hours on a bus is not much fun, especially when its a tiny bus with no toilet and luggage piled on all the empty seats. I felt like the star of an Immodium commercial, but thankfully my stomach is feeling much better.

It was a bit depressing to drive back across Turkey towards Istanbul. I was really hoping to cycle EFI from coast to coast across Europe and Asia, but there will be a big gap in the middle now. We'll miss 5 days of riding in Georgia, and I suspect that we'll miss most of Azerbaijan as well, since we fly all the way to Baku – which is on the east coast. The tour company is going to try and do a 3 day “loop” that starts and ends in Baku, but this really isn't the same thing. Perhaps I can come back some day to cover the distance across Georgia, Armenia or Iran.

No photos taken today, but here are a few random ones of me that Nicole took:

I really liked the look of this pedestrian bridge:


Sporting my new jearsy after reaching Istanbul:


The stylish orange umbrella that lets me create my own shade while waiting at the top of hills:

I look pretty tired in this one:

Tourist Day

Kars
August 11th

Loaded the bikes into our small van that Teresa and Aman will drive to Ankara over then next two days. Four of the bikes, including mine, did not fit in, so they will travel on the bus to Ankara with us tomorrow.

Paid about US$500 for the group flight from Ankara to Baku. There will be extra charges for our bikes and heavy luggage too, so this is going to be an expensive detour.

Given the break, I've sent my parents a wish list of spare bike parts that I'm hoping they can send to me in Baku. Poor mom and dad are now scrambling around trying to find these somewhat obscure pieces. It looks like my dad will end up driving to a Toronto bike shop, which is the only place that keeps them all in stock. What nice parents I have.

Spent the rest of the day playing tourist. Took a bus to the medieval city of Ani, which was the capital of Armenia for several hundred years. Its now a large dusty site with several old ruins on the Turkish side of the Armenian border, 45km from Kars.

The Ani site:

You could walk anywhere you liked on the site:


Present day Armenia is on the other side of the river/canyon:

Interesting caves in the canyon walls:

Detour Begins

Gole to Kars
August 10th
83km (1,743m vertical)

Today was originally supposed to be 135km to finish at the Georgian border. We would have crossed in tomorrow. Instead, we veered South to the city of Kars, where we can find transportation to Ankara and then a flight to Baku. The upside is that we only rode 83km and we're in a hotel tonight instead of another bush camp.

Slept through the night and ate a full breakfast this morning, so perhaps I'm on the mend. Joan (the doctor) gave me some Immodium to take at night and while riding, which made things more comfortable. My stomach is still doing somersaults, but I felt some of my energy coming back on today's ride.

Every day in Turkey seems to have had a major challenge, and today's was a serious headwind. We spent the first 45km climbing into the headwind, which is a hell of a way to start a day. Poor Nic was exhausted and ended up walking up the steepest hills. At 45km, the road went sharply down and we sailed for the next 15km to lunch and then on to the hotel.

A few things I should have mentioned in my entries for the past few days, but forgot to as I focused on my own issues:

On Thursday, Clive had a fall on his bike too...so I wasn't the only one. He's ok but spent yesterday in the truck to make sure that his shoulders were ok.

On Thursday, Paul received the lame duck for going out drinking and forgetting to set up his tent. He ended up banging on Max's hotel room door at 3am, and sleeping on an extra bed there.

On Saturday, Louise rode the truck after breaking her seatpost clamp. She was able to borrow a replacement from Mike in camp. James also rode in the truck, which he has done a few times now from general fatigue.

Another stone villiage (this one was abandoned...we should have camped here!):

Riding upstream usually means riding up hill too:

Pause for cattle crossing:

A lake at the top of the climb:

Georgia Troubles

August 9th

Due to the conflict, we've just been told that we will not be cycling through Georgia as planned. Instead, we'll ride to the Turkish city of Kars, spend 2 nights there, take a bus to Ankara (the capital of Turkey), spend 2 nights there, fly to Baku, Azerbaijan (skipping Georgia) and then cycle on from Baku as planned. All of this is still in the earliest planning stages, so it might still change.

It is disappointing that we won't cover the entire Asian continent by bike, but the matter is really out of our hands. I don't want to cycle through a conflict zone! I'm actually not as upset about it as I thought I'd be...partly because my stomach really needs a rest anyways! Plus, Georgia is a pretty small part of the trip. We were only going to cycle through for a few days before going South into Azerbaijan.

Its ironic that after all the worries over Chinese visas, we are forced to turn back at Georgia...where Canadians don't even need visas! I suppose its all part of the trip. Time for bed...I'm spent!

Grueling

Yusufeli to Gole
August 9th
124km (2,797m vertical)

I slept well in the hostel last night and felt refreshed, but my stomach was still churning. Decided that I would try to ride anyway. It was a really tough day for everyone, and by the end I was completely spent. Not fun at all. Several times I wondered aloud, “Why the hell am I doing this?”

My stomach was in knots and I kept rushing into the bushes every hour or so. I had no appetite so I only ate 3 pieces of bread with peanut butter for breakfast, and 1 piece for lunch. I had 2 granola bars en route and that is all that I ate before dinner. As a result, I ran out of energy in the afternoon. (I did drink about 8L of electrolyte enhanced water on the day to keep me going...although it tasted like I was drinking warm salt water.)

It was also damn hot. My computer showed 111F after sitting in the sun for a while, but the riding temperature was at 100F for most of the afternoon. That kind of heat really gets to me.

The road was terrible. It was rough at best and sometimes it disappeared altogether. There were stretches several km long under construction that were nothing but loose sand and rocks – felt like riding through quicksand. My shoulders are both pretty stiff from my fall, and they didn't appreciate the rough roads. (I can't even reach behind me to scratch my own back...which is annoying itself.)

Finally, but importantly, today was the second most amount of climbing on the trip...only 12m less than the day with the most. What a day to be sick! Climbing can be fun when you're healthy, but it is torture when you are sick! The 5km climb we were told about at the end of the day turned out to be 20km long, and the camp was 5 km further than anticipated. This was pretty tough on me mentally, when I had been counting down each hundredth of km all day.

Nic and I didn't get in until 5pm...after 10 hours of riding!!! My butt is really sore. I didn't have time to shower before dinner, so I made due with a baby wipe bath in my tent. The toilet area tonight is across a creek and up a hill. Not ideal. I set my tent up far away from the others, and plan to use for nearby bushes tonight as needed. Not sure how much more of this I can take. Every day is just such a challenge.

More mountains and rivers:

Tiny mountain town:

Nic reaching for water between climbs:

A patch of sandy "road":

A tiny community of people still living in stone houses. Its already getting darker and I'm dead tired, but this was fascinating to cycle through:

Recovering

Rest Day in Yusufeli
August 8th
0km

Had a quick dinner at the hotel last night and then went to bed. Another rough night with many rushed visits to the restroom. Joan, the tour doctor, gave me some antibiotics, a “gut relaxer” and some electrolyte replacement powder this morning and I'm feeling a bit better. Took the pills and slept another 3 hours.
Spent the afternoon relaxing and playing on the internet. Unfortunately, the hotel is full tonight so I'm moving to a hostel room at the campsite. I won't get air conditioning, but I'll keep the en suite.

I hope to ride the full distance tomorrow, but that will largely depend on how well I sleep tonight. If I feel miserable again, then I don't think I'll have the energy for a long hot day on the bike. Its upsetting to think that I might not get to ride EFI on the trip, but at this point the matter is really out of my control. Either way, I hope to be feeling better soon.

EFI

Bush Camp near Pazaryolu to Yusufeli
August 7th
135km (2,471m vertical)

EFI = “Every Fucking Inch”. It means that you covered all of the distance from A to B under your own power...never riding in the tour bus. Is the goal of most riders on trips like this, and it is tough. Today my EFI status was seriously tested. I was sick and the day was miserable for me.

Our “toilets” last night were an area of the exposed, rocky hilltop about 200m from the tents. My stomach was having all kinds of troubles, and I spent most of the night trekking back and forth to these toilets. At one point, I lay down and tried to sleep out there, rather than walk all the way back to my tent.

Needless to say, I was not in great shape this morning. I was hoping for a short, easy ride. Instead, I got the third longest distance of the trip across rolling terrain with several steep climbs that (according to my altimeter) made it the second most climbing of the trip. The sun was baking at 95F in the afternoon, the roads were rough at several points, and there was a headwind for most of the day.

At about 100km, I hit rock in the road and fell off my bike. I should have been paying closer attention – it was flat road and I was only riding at 15km/h or so. Thankfully I didn't hurt myself or my bike seriously, although my left shoulder is very stiff and I've got some scratches on my right forearm. Because the heat had melted the road, I also ended up with black tar all over myself. It ruined my cycling gloves, covered my clothes and got stuck in the hair on my arms and legs. Just what I needed.

It was a real shame too, because the scenery today was truly amazing. We rode beside a river through two different rocky canyons.

Nicole was nice enough to ride with me all day, even though I had my slowest ride of the trip at only 16.5km/h. Paul, the silk route historian that was riding sweep, was also very helpful. We were on the road from 7am until 5:30pm...our longest day in the saddle yet. Somehow, we still arrived at camp at the same time as about 8 other riders, who must have had a leisurely day of photo taking. Instead of joining the others in a campsite, I checked into a hotel next door where close proximity to a real toilet was a huge asset.

The amazing view of our road from the top of a climb in the first canyon:

The tall, steep, rocky walls of the second canyon:

One of many scenic vistas:

Mid-afternoon stop at the side of the road. I was not in good shape:

Me fighting up a short, steep climb: