As we have embarked on week 11, our last full week “on the road”, we’re sorry to have to break a tradition we have forced ourselves to upkeep over the past 2 and some months: the daily postings. As you can astutely derive from the title, I am grouping 3 days in today’s post. Now before you unleash all that hatemail on us, let me try to explain:

As much as I resisted this move, I was finally convinced by Clarisse’s argument: WHY SHOULD YOU BE AS BORED BY THESE DAYS ADVENTURES AS WE ARE? Indeed, since my unfortunate little mishap on saturday, we have been confined to Kars, waiting for my hand to heal enough to hit the road again.

We’ve been confined to a couple places along the way for a bit - Kashgar, Ashkabad, Tbilisi – but each of those places held some interest or had multiple sites to visit. Not so Kars! Despite it being a very pleasant little town, there is but one thing to see here: the ruins of Ani which we dutifully roamed around on monday afternoon (day 71). Monday morning as well as tuesday and today, our main activity has been to dutiefully watch the grass grow. This all-important activity has been punctuated by several daily rituals, which, to satisfy your curiosity, I shall list, chronologically if you please!

• 10 AM: I head to the clinic to change the dressing on my hand while Clarisse reads or naps
• 11 AM: we lie on our beds reading
• 1 PM: we emerge from the hotel room and debate whether to have another doener or another pide/lagmacun (turkish pizza – we’re still unsure of the difference between the 2 types)
• 2 PM: back in the room reading
• 3 PM: internet cafe
• 10 PM: I head back to the clinic for another change of dressing
• 11 PM: sleep

Frankly, it’s very unexciting. I must commend Clarisse on her goodnatured patience, as she seems to be taking this forced rest very well. I on the other hand am tired of being here and can,t wait to leave. Perhaps it is because I blame myself for falling and putting us off schedule… or maybe I am impatient for my hand to recover and our departure will mean just that… either way, the doctors seem to think that the wounds look much better. My mood was bolstered when Murat, the very friendly EMT who received me on Saturday said I sdhould be able to leave on Friday! Finally… still, It will have been 6 whole uneventful days days in Kars, lived according to the schedule I laid out above. So yes, we decided to spare you our daily ordeals of nothingness. Still thinking about hatemail? No? I didn’t think so.

As I mentionnrd above, in this sea of uneventfulness, one excursion is a must: the only reason to come to Kars -why we came in the first place- is to visit Ani, the ruıned capital of western Armenia, a kingdom long extinct. Ani was an important political and commercial capital around the year 1,000 when many of its buildings went up. Located on a triangular plateau, it is rendered impregnable by deep river gorges on all sides (today these gorges are lined with tall barbed wire fences and watchtowers separating Armenia and Turkey, an indication of the inimity reigning between both nations):

Only few of the distinctly armenian looking buildings remain, but what is standing, along with the sheer extent of the plateau is testimony to the importance this ancient city once had.

To me, perhaps the most gripping feature of the site are the 1,000 year old paths (see above) that visitors still follow around the site. All in all a very worthwhile visit: well worth a detour through Kars when in this part of the world. However, take care to avoid accidents: although the clinic is decent and the people friendly, you don,t want to be stranded here for longer than it takes you to visit Ani.

With that I leave you be and hope we write on friday with the exciting news that we are someplace else!

After a long and eventful day, Mark and me enjoyed not to have to wake up at any specific time. Nevertheless, I sneaked out of bed around 9am, looking for my favorite breakfast: fresh bread and chocolate… When I came back to the room, Mark was finishing the very last book he still had… After a quick hop at the hospital to change his bandage, we then went for lunch: Pide and Lahmacun, a sort of light pizza on a thin crusty foccacia dow, with lamb on top. Not bad at all! After that, we looked for a “Pastanesi”, a pastry place, where I had a delicious sweet rice pudding and some chestnut baklava, while Mark was more conservative and opted for a chocolate pudding. With a full belly, the idea of a nap was quite seducing. Mark fell for it, while I made my way to the internet cafe, where I spent the rest of the afternoon writing emails, making some phone calls without ruining me, and trying to find – once and for all – a company able to ship our bikes back from Istanbul to Beijing… Not an easy task.

 Well, as you can see, this was just another Far Niente day, a very much needed one. We’ll be more enterprising tomorrow… Ciao!

Today began like any other, a clear blue sky soaring above the steep, multicolored canyon walls. The road meandered along a river, gushing with the last of the winter’s snowmelt, eventually leading us into slightly more wooded land. All of a sudden the road began to climb, and in next to no time we were no longer in the canyon but above it. Alpine terrain and vegetation reappeared en route to another 2600m pass.

Thin raın greeted us at the summıt, but quıckly faded as we cruısed down to a hıgh plateau, the cool mountaın aır pleasantly rushıng through our gear. This side of the pass, green meadows extend as far as the eye can see:

Eastern Turkey has some of the most dıverse scenery I have ever wıtnessed, packed ınto a few tens of square kılometers: a hıghly recommended destination for roadtrıps!

After lunching on doener kebab agaın (what else?!?), we headed northeast to check out the Cildır lake and the Seytan Castle, apparently a must. The roads were a dream, the surroundings magnifiscent, but where was the castle? As we rode on, a military jeep flagged us down: we had entered a restricted borderzone, just a few kilometers from Georgia. Luckily the guards recognized us as lost tourists and after taking our passport numbers (security measure?) led the way to an outlook on the castle ruins.

Fortunate are we to have missed the turn! The old road looked overgrown, narrow and unpleasant. Moreover, as the guards informed us, it would take 3 hours to get there! We snapped 2 photos from a distance and headed on.

After rounding the lake, the road dipped down, making for the plain in which lay Kars, our destination. As the distance to town dwindled, the road widened. First 2 lanes, then, as the map clearly showed, a motorway. Not any kind of motorway… it was the last bit of highway on this side of the country that was still being built, and hence, instead of a smooth surface, a wide expanse of gravel greeted us.

The fırst couple of kılomrters went just fıne. But then,  wıh a car ın front kıckıng up sıgnıfıcant dust, I faıled to see that the track ı was followıng had fılled up wıth gravel. The bıke skıdded from sıde to sıde and although I closed the throttle to regaın control, down I went. Unfortunately, thıs tıme the fall dıdn,t turn out as ınoccuous as the prevıous occasıons. Hıttıng the ground wıth my rıght hand, the gravel sıgnıfcantly dammaged 2 of my naıls. Immedıately 2 cars stopped, one chap bound my hand wıth gauze and rushed me off to the nearby clınıc, where we pottered about from 5pm tıll 8ısh.

GOOD NEWS: thıngs could have turned out sıgnıfıcantly worse. No bones broken, mınor hand ınjury only and 2 lost naıls. BAD NEWS: It wıll be a few days untıl I can use my hand as ıt has to be kept bound upş so we are stuck ın Kars for a few days and wıll have to modıfy the ıtınerary.

Tonight I go to sleep torn between gratitude and anger: I am positively delighted that the injury is minor, yet I am upset at fate… why could this trip not have gone by without any bodily harm… so many people undertake such journeys and few get injured. Why me… it’s not fair. Then again life isn’t always fair and we must make the most out of the cards that we are dealt. The next challenge is to heal fast enough to get out of here. However long it takes, we will be in Istanbul on the 24th!

7 am, and we were ready to leave, but it did not seem to be early enough, the sun was high already and the temperatures rose at increasing speed. We drove off, following for a while the same coast road we had taken the day before, heading back to Of, where we would head south, into the country’s ribs. The coast road was delicious, with a smooth morning wind cooling down the air. The road south was even more beautiful, taking us through a long canyon, where the pavement was not as smooth as on the coast, but the scenery green and watery, and the canyons offered us a fresh shadow, protecting us from the burning sun. This pleasant ride continued until we reached Ispir, where we were to head east towards Yusufeli. However, there were no indications in the village, and soon we ended up on a small country road which was obviously not the one we were looking for, although it would most likely also lead us towards Yusufeli. However, given the hot temperatures, we opted for better roads… and turned back to the village. There we asked our way, and were told that the road to Yusufeli was blocked. Luckily, only temporarliy. As it appeared, works were done on the cliffs, creating avalanches of stones, and traffic was only permitted through every 2-3 hours for about 30 min. It was 10:30 and next opening time would be 12pm. Althoug Ispir seemed quite a small village at first sight, it appeared to be a very welcoming one with a lot of facilities. An internet cafe near where we parked our bikes provided Mark with high speed internet access, where he spent almost 2 hours. I had had my share of blog updating and email writing and took advantage of a free hour to read. I sat in front of the internet cafe on a small plastic chair. The owner of the internet cafe,  a young Turk – Fati -, was kind enough to offer me some turkish tea and try to converse with me, every now and then. He would interrupt me with a “sorry” and then ask a question in English, which I suspect he had prepared in advance, before coming to ask me. So, the 1.5 hour passed quite quickly. Besides the great internet Cafe, Mark was even able to send a Fax and it took him only 5 min. As we had not really understood that the road was to open only for a short while, we decided to go for lunch before leaving. But where to go ? There were imbisses everywhere, and none of them seemed more or less appealing than the other… So we asked Fati, who sent a friend to take us to THE kebab place, wher we had a quick doner kebab, and what a kebab! Afterwards, we bought some home made turkish ice cream… We were finishing our ice cream, when Fati came over to warn us that we’d better hurry before the road closed again… and off we were.

The road was similar to the one before, taking us through more canyons, whereby these ones became rockier. The quality was so so, since there were many works on the road causing a lot of gravel and sand on the road. But we made our way, curve after curve until we were close to our daily destination Tekkale. Because of the lack of precisness of our map, I couldn’t really figure out how many km were left to Tekkale, and at every village or houses we passed, I was afraid it would be it and we would miss it… I asked a few locals who all seemed to indicate that it was further away. So we rode another while. After another 15 km, I started again to worry. As a jeep was following us, we stopped, let it pass and asked the occupants about Tekkale. Again, they toled us it was further away, kindly indicating that we should follow and they would tell us. 5 min later, we had reached Tekkale, where the jeep driver even led us to the pansion we were planning on staying at (it was anyway on the main road). The pansion was a raviscent house built along side the river. As it was still early in the afternoon, I went for a walk, while Mark went for a nap. I was astonished by the variety of trees and plants (especially wild fruit trees growing everywhere). Water works miracle, when it is in abundance… After I came back, I joined Mark for a nap, and at 7pm dinner was served. The owner had prepared some grilled river fish with bulgur. Delicious. It was actually the first time on this trip that I remember eating fish. What a nice change!

We went to bed with a full belly, the flowing river as background noice, and a fresh mountain air to revigorate us during our sleep.

Another perfect day, and what a nice people the Turks seem to be! Ciao!