Bye Bye Turkey

Heading north, the Turkish military presence exploded. I had to present documents at checkpoints, replete with battle tanks, every 15 minutes or so. As I've said before, I find playing the dumb American so painful, yet alarmingly natural. I passed without incident.

I attempted in vain to ride up the base of Mt. Ararat, which many have sought to prove is the final resting place of Noah’s ark. As one historian puts it, “I don't know of any expedition which ever went looking for the ark and didn't find it." I didn’t.

That the national symbol of Armenia, the stolen patriarch of Yerevan’s skyline, sits within modern Turkey is a sore spot for the beleaguered nation of just 2.8 million. So too it stings that their ancient capital, Ani, decays just out of reach.

Soon after Ani, I met a couple Slovenian bikers and we decided - or rather I decided - that we would ride together for a little while. It had been some time since I'd seen other bikers, and in general I just wasn't meeting as many as I'd hoped. I shouldn't always paint my journey so idyllically. It was often quite lonely.

As a bicyclist I later met noted, every country seems to have its own "Switzerland." In Savsat I stumbled upon Turkey's. I camped in a little shelter and whiled away the afternoon eating pistachios and watching trout jump out of the lake's glass-like surface.

I happened upon some visitors who cautioned me that black bears roamed these woods. Black bears, I confirmed. No problem. Still, I tend to be unduly fearful of wild animals at night, and because I don't carry bear spray, I went to bed with my chain lube at the ready. In the morning, a local guide informed me that the bears were, in fact, the bitey brown kind.

Harriet and co. were camped out in Hopa, where I was going to hit the Black Sea en route to Georgia, so I hurried to intercept them. Though the road was serpentine, the wind was not so sibilant, buffeting me as the weather grew foul. Then suddenly the air became heavy, sticky, and sweet. Tea plantations crowded my periphery. I had not expected such a warm welcome from the Black Sea. A fine place, with fine company, for a final night in Turkey. 

In the morning we raced to Georgia - and I lost.