Day Total: 70.32
The morning surprise was, you guessed it right, a flat tire. The rear tire was flat. People at the hotel were helpful to advise me where to find a bike repair store open on Sunday and they even offered me a ride with their van there. We loaded Spithas and went to the bike repair store which happened to be the same one as yesterday. The two kids/assistants that were there both recognized me from yesterday and went heads over heels to fix the tire. On top of that they did not ask for any money, which I gave to them anyhow.
I hit the road at 10:30 and by 11:45 I was at Iskenderun.
View of Iskenderun from farI spent about one hour going up and down the ocean front that was also the city center. On a Sunday morning this is a calm, relaxing, fantastic place to go and enjoy coffee with one's friends.
A couple of pictures will speak more clearly
I then left for Kirikhan. Everybody I asked for directions looked at me in a strange way and one of them even said the word "deli," which means crazy in Turkish, çok rampa (lot of uphill.) Unfortunately they were right, there was çok uphill. The next 25 kms were nothing but steep uphill. I guess flatland happiness isn't meant to last for ever. I must say that for the first time the wind was moderately helpful. Still I deserve to receive a lot more.
When I reached the top I really felt relieved.
View from the topAccording to a sign there was another 28 kms left. This time the kms would be downhill or flat. As I started descending, the wind turned really strong. It was not head wind it was rather hitting me on the flanks but it was so strong that I couldn't keep the bike balanced and a couple of times I almost fell over the cliff as there was no shoulder. It was as if I was on a sail boat, lurching to the right and to the left and as I was going downhill at a high speed it was really dangerous. I did not have full control of the bike. It was the first time in this trip that I felt I was in danger. First gas station I saw I stopped and was scared enough to stay there for more than an hour unable to make up my mind to continue. Finally, I had to bite the bullet and rode Spithas further down. The wind did not stop but as I reached the bottom it had somehow subsided. And this time the wind was my friend. I covered about 6 kms on flat land almost without pedaling. This is the easy life, when the authorities are biased in your favor. Just as socialism is when you are one of the key party members.
When I saw a sign for Kirikhan, I attempted to initialize the odometer as I was looking at the sign simultaneously I pushed it out of its socket. It fell on the ground behind me bounced a couple of times and landed somewhere on the bushy ground next to the highway. I immediately stopped to look for it even though I knew that looking for it would be futile. Still I spent about an hour searching for it, so that I could at least say to myself that I did loose the war, but not without a battle. It is difficult to imagine, unless you have the experience, what important tool the odometer is, on making decisions about riding resting, etc. I Made all the possible calculations involving my speed, the wind's speed, the bouncing force but to no avail. I really kept looking for it and nobody could say that I went down w/o a fight. After about one hour, I decided that I would try once more and then call it a day. Since this would be the last attempt I decided to make it different and search a little bit further from where I had stopped. And then the impossible happened. I FOUND IT.
Really happy I biked on and in 45 mins I was entering the town limits. I stopped to catch my breath and three very polite highschool kids approached me and in a very polite way started asking me all kinds of questions. I was so happy for having recovered the odometer that I did not mind answering and even initiating more questions. When I told them I was Yunan they got very favorably exited and even more questions were fired at me.
I biked on and entered the town, headed for the center and at a small roundabout I stopped to ask for info. The man started answering and then stopped short and pointed in the opposite direction and insisted that I look. It was a police car and the policeman was nodding me to go over. It took a while for me to obey and the policeman's body language turned impatient. I went over, he got out of the car and started talking to me in Turkish in an aggressive way. I did not know why he had stopped me and what he was saying. At some point I understood he was asking my name. I told him that my name is Vassily and he pointed at me and said inglish? I said yok ben yunan (no I am Greek.) He then turned to his fellow officer laughing and said something in Turkish where I understood the word yunan. The other officer laughed and they nodded to me to leave, which I did as fast as I could. Finally by asking I ended up at what appears to be the only hotel in town which is the öğretmen evi (the house of teachers.)
Incidentally, the story I tell everybody that asks is that I am a highschool teacher from Greece and when they ask me how much money I make I tell them 10000 EUR because this is how much I decided a teacher makes in Greece (I think i am not too far off.) This story make everything a lot simpler. So here I am staying at the teacher house
I strolled in the town which reminded me of a frontier town. People are rough but nice and hospitable. And then I decided to take a haircut. I thought that if these barbers are open till 22:00 it is only because they are so good that people demand that they can access them at all times. This is the first haircut I've even gotten at 21:00.
Tomorrow or the day after I will enter Syria. I have no idea what the internet access possibilities are there.
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