Getting to Istanbul felt like a real milestone and our first city with a noticeably different culture. The vastness of Istanbul is not to be down-played with many a bike tourist choosing the easy option of a ferry in avoiding the infinite number of horn bashing cars, buses, taxis and lorries all over the roads.
On arrival we checked into a funky jazz hostel which was the place that the Mission Oz team would turn over 80 litres of Cay in the next few days. The cleaner of the hostel was surprisingly happy to take on a huge pile of stinking clothes that had been gathering all sorts of awful aromas over the past few weeks trapped in our panniers. Our good fortune ran out when discovering that the cleaner had shrank all of our fleeces to under 11 boys size. Cheers mate.
Istanbul was where Sam's folks flew out and met us bringing with them some much needed essentials for the road with a memorable highlight being a packet of Percy Pigs AKA 'morale in a bag'. Eating them we couldn't help but dream of a Marks and Spencer's sponsorship providing Percy Pig air drops all over the world.
The Lonely Planet website regards Istanbul as so vast, 2 weeks in the city would not do it justice. With that in mind we tried to see what we could in the few days that were spent there. Visits to the Grand Bazaar, Egyptian Spice Bazaar, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and Taksim Square were some of the highlights. Oh, and not to forget the local McDonalds round the corner who were selling a Mega Mac, a double sized Big Mac that would sky-rocket the obesity epidemic in Britain to gargantuan proportions.
Reading in a tourist guide book that bartering for goods was advised in the Grand Bazaar we took this advice to the not so barterable Spice Bazaar. Wanting a selection of spices to throw in our meals for the road ahead we set about trying to get an absurdly low price for them. Jamie offered 5 Lira for a selection of spices advertised at 18 Lira in which he swiftly got the response 'Are you stupid, can you not read the price tag?!' To which Jamie replied 'Yeh, says 5 Lira!' After having a similar conversation with the next 10 stalls we decided to put in a better offer which was reluctantly settled for at 10 Lira. However this didn't stop Jamie returning to all the previous stalls waving the selection of spices at the stall owners shouting out '5 Lira, 5 Lira' much to the amusement of the owners employees who were laughing behind their bosses back with their thumbs up.
Leaving Istanbul was surprisingly easy which brought us past the 'Welcome to Asia' sign, our second continent! The next few weeks would cling us to the Black Sea coastline which on the map was seemingly flat. Predictions of terrain as you might have noticed has not been one of our forte’s throughout the past four months, the most recent of which was to be the worst yet. The first 300 miles of the Black Sea coastline were mixture of 20%+ gradients and a group illness from foolishly drinking the local tap water. We even told one of the locals that his own tap water was fine to drink after he warned us to stick to the bottles. Oops. A three day course of some strong antibiotics, 86 bog rolls later we were on the mend and the little man that had been constantly doing back flips in our stomach was dispelled.
Now with our group being a 5 man team, the amount of hospitality that we receive is understandably less than if you were a solo bike tourer but every now and then we meet a mission saint that is willing to bring in 5 scabby looking vagabikers. In Turkey this came in the form of Ozer and Aras who found us cooking dinner on a rocky outcrop by the sea. One hour later we were beer in hand sitting in their flat chilling out after a hard day on the bike. Cheers lads!
Once we left the warmth and shelter of Aras’s flat the weather started to take a turn for the worst and we were in for our 1st dose of rain for over 5 weeks. With a storm on the Black Sea horizon we turned our thoughts to finding some decent shelter for the night, instead of being confined to the tents as soon as we stopped. We soon came across 2 abandoned beach huts which looked to be part of a restaurant, so we were quick to jump in too avoid the brewing storm. Three hours later after we had made ourselves at home, a car pulled up. Quickly realizing that the huts are in fact not abandoned and getting quite worried at the fact that 4 men just jumped out of the car we had no choice but too pull out our trump card…The magic letter (a letter explaining our trip in the language of the country we are in). This seemed to do just the trick and the guys welcomed us with open arms and even gave us a huge double airbed and a load of fresh fish cooked on their BBQ.
After around 10 days of brutal hills and illness, to say we were excited to reach the city of Samsun and the ever elusive flat road would be an understatement. In our eagerness to get to Georgia and apply for our Azerbaijan visa, we rode 380 miles in 4 days to get to Batumi beach. Batumi is a city with a lot of brand new swanky hotels but not a lot of people filling them. We capitalized on this situation by treating ourselves to a spa day at the Radisson Blu hotel…free of charge. Shorts on underneath our jeans, a confident greeting to the hotel security and a fake room number later, we were all laid in the spa’s relaxation room sipping our complimentary drinks trying to decide whether we should use the sauna first or the steam room.
Three working days and 210 Georgian Lari later we had secured our Azeri visa and were off to cross the lower Caucasian mountains which we had been warned will take us over 2000m high on an unpaved dirt road. Sure enough 2025 vertical meters, 1 snapped chain and 30 miles of uphill, unpaved road later we were at the top of the pass. The temperature at the top was considerably lower and we were kindly given a full bottle of vodka by a worker to warm us up. We swiftly drank the vodka which after 4 hours of hard climbing on little water, went straight to our heads, only adding to the fun of the long descent ahead of us.
Once the mountains had been conquered we headed into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for a few days R&R before riding the final 400 miles to Baku. The journey from Tbilisi to Baku was an interesting one to say the least. There is only one main road which takes you through the flat plains; therefore there is a good amount of traffic. This is something we are used to; however we certainly were not used to the absolute outrageousness of the Azeri drivers, who made the 5 lane Istanbul motorway seem extremely safe. The Azerbaijan road builders don’t seem to get the concept of a simple fly over; instead every couple of miles there is a break in the central reservation. This allows cars going one way down the 110km/h dual carriageway to just switch to the other side and proceed to drive along the wrong side of the road, usually on the outer edge of the road right where we were cycling.
Not too mention the fact that 90% of the drivers find it necessary to beep their very loud horns when they are right behind. One guy even thought it a good idea to pull up next to us and whilst maintaining the same speed as us hold his hand down on the horn, deafening us whilst his passenger hangs out the window waving with a big smile on his face. Although this was meant to be a friendly gesture from the jolly chaps, they were met with a rain of abuse and sent off up the road looking rather confused.
These crazy drivers coupled with a strong headwind made for a very tough 4 days riding. The final night before making it to Baku we rode into a small town after 96 miles into a headwind and were taken pity on by some locals who invited us to sleep in the community’s cay (tea) house and allowed us to use their cooking stoves to make our diner. The next day we finally made it to the city of Baku after exactly 4 months on the road. We are extremely happy to have made it here for a well earned rest and to prepare for our winter assault.
We would just like to thank a few people who will be mentioned also in the next blog for all their help and support in Baku. Paul and Maria, thank you for looking after us and cooking us a superb Sunday Dinner we have all been craving for since we set off and your ever ending help during our stay! Thank you to DJ Dave Lawson for the large donation to charity that will be a huge help in reaching our target! Keep on working on your mixing skills Dave. Thanks to all the rest of the lads in Jimmy’s bar for donating money and obviously Jimmy for supplying a top English breakfast and a mad night out. Thanks to AMEC for treating us to 6 days of ‘Business lunch’ and thanks to Akshay for taking us for a top Azerbaijan Kebab. Most of all a huge thank you to Andy and Linda Bliss for letting us crash in their apartment for the duration of our stay in Baku! Absolute legends, we can’t thank them enough!
