Friday the thirteenth

September 11th 2002 we start crossing the Turkish mainland from north to south. Just past Inegol we leave the far too busy E90 and cycle on the 595 direction Mediterranian Sea. This road is far narrower and more quiet than the first one. Unlike the major roads it doesn't avoid the mountains, but traverses them in the highest gradient possible. Turkish roadbuilders prefer the shortest way up in order to safe asphalt. It's warm, luckily enough there are small stone pillars with taps everywhere. After a short break we continue our long climb, when I suddenly start shouting. My gears acted very funny the last minutes, now I can't cycle at all anymore. My snow-white sportsbra, that I tied to one of the rearpanniers to dry, has shaked itself of the pannier and wriggled between chain and pinion. The wheel is stuck as firm as a rock. After ten minutes of pulling, pushing, wrestling and washing our hands we have to say goodbye to the garnment that's completely destroyed. However, the pinion is really clean now.

The few cars on the road are very considerate; in a big curve they drive around us, cheerfully waving and hooting. In the descent towards Domanic we improve our speedrecord with over 80 kilometres per hour. When we are ready to call it a day, we sneak into a forest over an unpaved path. It's not easy to find a nice and level spot for the tent. A big treeroot in the path is fatal to me: my frontwheel slides away and with a beautiful somersault I land next to Peter. "Is this the spot you've chosen?" he asks carefully. I look at him with contempt, take my bicycle and walk on into the forest. Half an hour later we're sitting on a clearing in front of our tent and look out over the valley. When my grazes and bruises are attended to and we've stuffed our bellies, all pain and misery is forgotten.

The next day it's Peter's turn. In the vicinity of Tuncbilek there is a lot of opencast mining. We cycle in between trucks filled with coal, coal burning powerstations, storage yards and dark dustclouds. A sharp dustparticle pierces itself into Peter's eye. It hurts and he cannot keep his eye open. We pour water in it, I try to find and remove it, but the intruder doesn't show itself. In the village we stumble upon a small hospital. A bunch of very helpfull Turkish men direct us inside. After two glasses of tea a doctor commiserates himself over Peter's eye, but he's not able to find the nuisance as well. He calls for a nurse who has to get anti-biotic drops. Moments later five giggling nurses group around Peter while the doctor puts the drops in his eye. Very interesting, such a blond man… We're not allowed to pay and wave affectionate whilst cycling away. The dustparticle still is in Peter's eye, but it will disappear on its own. The same evening the doctor turns out to be right and Peter has complete vision again.

Then it's Friday the thirteenth. What will happen on this day? We could decide to safely stay in our tent the whole day to avoid any risks on this dangerous date and travel on tomorrow. We decide otherwise though: we'll just have a nice day cycling and see what will cross our path.
The landscapes in the Turkish interior are grand, mountainous, wild and varied. The roadbuilders economized even more on today's stretch than they did yesterday. The result is that the hills are even steeper, which I don't like very much. The landscape is beautiful though, the weather perfect and the people in the villages extremely friendly.
We decide to stop in Yesilkoy. We get some water and do some shopping. A German-speaking lady talks to us when we tap the water. She asks us to wait a minute before moving on. She walks into her house and returns with a plastic bag filled to the top with paprikas, melons, tomatoes, figbread and apples. Hm, those groceries weren't necessary after all. We thank her from the bottom of our hearts and go looking for a quiet place to spend the night. We succeed just outside the village, on a nice grassfield under two mulberry-trees next to a murmering brooklet.

When the tent is put up we see a villager standing a little bit further behind a tree, who's watching us; after all it's quite an experience to see two Dutch people on a bicycle. Then he sends some small boys to us with four apples, three melons and a sunflowerhead for the seeds. We accept the gifts gracefully and start worrying about how we're going to take everything along with us tomorrow.
Three minutes later a little girl comes to fetch us. She takes us to an orchard, where her parents are hitting walnuts out of their trees. They offer us walnuts, melons, bread, tomatoes and water. We eat some of it and help harvesting the nuts, to their discomfort.
One hour later we're sitting in front of our tent, admiring the day's harvest, when a farmer passes by with his donkey-cart. He stops to look at us and takes two big handsful of tomatoes and paprikas of his cart. So, they're ours. We look at each other and try not to laugh. We thank the farmer very much.
By now we start looking around us very cautiously whether we see another good soul with an arm full of good intentions. The people are more than fantastic, but this has got to stop. We do not travel by truck; we don't have a small cart behind our cycles.
"Shall we hide in the tent and pretent not to be here?" Peter asks me. "Then they can't give us anything, can they?"
I don't even have time to answer him. The next load arrives: a Turkish couple just returns from working in their garden, that's situated near the place we've put our tent. Especially for us they brought a whole bag of vegetables. HELP!!
Now we are the proud owners of 6 melons, 38 paprikas, 14 big tomatoes, 9 apples, 2 pieces of figbread, a bag of walnuts and a sunflower.

From shear necessity we prepare a huge pan of tomatosoup. Just when we're ready to eat our first spoonful, a truckdriver from the village brings us 8 more of those big, red, juice babies. Pfff, finally, we thought he'd never come.

Friday the thirteenth really turned out to be a disasterous day.