Today felt like old times again. Not only were we rejoining our original itineray again, but we had almost 300km on our riding menu, and the sun and the heat were present too.
We left the lovely city (but not that lovely hostel…) of Amasya around 9:30am. The first part of the journey, ie the morning, was nothing spectacular. The roads were ok, the scenery pretty dull, the sun was hitting hard already. After a little more than 3 hours of riding, and about 180 km, we stopped for lunch along the road. I was starving and so the Pide and the Koefte we had tasted really good and the portions were more than enough to motivate us for the ride left, approx. 100km.
The scenery changed not long after our lunch break. Suddenly it was there again, on our right hand side, the Black Sea. Whereas when entering Turkey at Batumi the coastal road was at sea level, the road to Sinop was around 100 to 200 meters above sea level, up on top of impressive cliffs with mediterranean like forests of pines and the like. There is nothing like smelling the salty sea in the air, and all these other smells that go with it, the pines, the fruits, the holidays… The roads were nice, but not without challenge. Although the tarmak was quite ok, the many curves along the hills and cliffs required serious concentration, all the more that the roads were not really broad and needless to say that there is no barrier on the cliff side of the road. So, watch your “step”, and the traffic ahead! Luckily, the roads were not too crowded, and the few trucks on our way were nice enough to let us take over whenever safe. At some point, we were following a truck full of melons… Although I was about 100m behind the truck, I could still smell the melon scent in the air. Maybe, that was just a placebo smell deriving from the mere view of the melons, but whatever it was, it was so much nicer than the usual black making-you-cough cloud emitted by most heavy vehicles. Finally, after a few days of dull distance riding, we were back on our discovery track… After a couple of hours of such a lovely road, accompanied by a persistent, yet not too strong side wind which had the nice effect of cooling down the air a bit (sometimes, in my black Night Rider Gear, I have the impression to melt in the sun…) we reached our daily destination, Sinop.
From the top of the hill, the road led us slowly down to the sea level, where we discovered a lovely harbour with terrasses and restaurants. The second hotel we randomly picked had not only a very decent big room with view on the harbour, ie the SEA, but it was also affordable ! and the manager was friendly and basic English speaking. What to want more ? We checked in. I went to the internet cafe, while Mark sat on a terrasse reading. After a long walk along the sea shore, I picked Mark up for a …. sea food dinner. YES! For the second time in 79 days we had fish for dinner, and even some local white wine. While the fish (scorpion fish they call it) resembled strongly (though not as tender as) our Swiss ”filets de perche” and was a real treat, the wine was not breathtaking (however, it should be mentioned that it was already an achievement to find some wine, since many restaurants in the region do not serve alcohol). As a desert, we treated ourselves with a local icecream. The day seemed perfect, and so I went to bed with a full belly and a smile on my face. Mark headed to the clinic and then aired through the lively streets of this cute holiday resort. I would do so the next day, in the early morning, going for a run along the coast. Ciao!
