20 June, 2009. Day 2

Daily Stats:

Trip total: 154.9 kms

Day total: 81.23 kms

Time riding: 4:17 hrs

Got up at 9:00, victualized and hit the road by 10:00. I stayed on the same highway as yesterday (550/E87,) with direction to Eceabat, a port town, with the intention to cross the Helespontus/Dardaneles from there. E87 hugs/kisses the coast and the view of Helespontus is magnificent, as you can see for yourselves by looking at the picture below.

Riding was easier today as the wind had subsided. As a result, I arrived at Eceabat in time. It looked as if the boat was waiting for me. As I entered the town I ran into a group of gypsies that stopped from store to store playing music and dancing. I am not sure what, but they were celebrating something.

Eceabat is a small and I must say really neat and beautiful town. The picture below is taken from the ferry.

The ferry left at 14:00 and in about 35 mins we were across to Asia to Canakkale, which is a bigger town and also a summer resort, equally neat and beautiful. I made a vow to spend a few vacation days there in the future. What has impressed me with the Turkish towns I've seen is that they are all very very clean, neat, and one can feel a certain underlying order. The photo below is of the Trojan horse, which features at the port of Canakkale.

I would have liked to stay longer, but the call to duty was strong and I headed for the highway, Actually, the same as before. After about half an hour of riding the first disaster of the trip occurred. My impenetrable and doubly fortified back wheel went flat!!! The back wheel is twice as difficult to change, especially is there is no flat spot to rest the bike, the tools, the wheel, etc., as was the case with me. I haven't repaired a bike flat since I was a teenager. So, when I finally put in the inner tube and started pumping, the wheel wouldn't inflate. I had no idea what had gone wrong until I realized that this inner tube was also punctured. I put the blame on my inexperience. As I was pushing the tire back on the rim, after I had inserted the inner tube, the inner tube was caught between the rim, the tire, and my tool. That is the only thing that can explain why the tube was punctured in two different spots. I had to start from the beginning. This time I was successful. I packed up and continued. It was already after 18:00, this incident had cost me more that two and a half hours.

I continued down on E87, realizing in dismay that I wouldn't make it to Troy tonight. As if to compensate me, the view from the Asian side is also very beautiful. Still better, decide for yourselfs.

Trting to find my way I realized that my google map printou was much more detailed than my other map. The bad part was that there were lots of hills, nothing but hills, which made riding difficult. The picture below is very telling.

Taking the advice of locals, which is a rather difficult to do as nobody speaks anything but Turkish, I carried on and despite my original preditction I did make it to Troy or Truva, as the locals call it. I found a pension (Helen and Paris) that was less than half a kilometer from the archaeological site and spent the night there.

Incedentally, my Turkish is getting better by the hour. For a Greek speaker this is natural once he realized how many Greek words derive from Turkish. My guess is that more than 20% of everyday Greek words come from Turkish.

See you tomorrow