Day 37-43: Turkey II

Lenard accompanied me on my journey to the East. We drove to Samsun where Ben joined us again to visit the Black Sea Coast. To be honest, I was disappointed about the Black Sea. Maybe because of the December weather giving a grim impression, maybe because of the great time in Istanbul but most certainly because of the highway along the coast, there was no natural beauty for me.

 

 

  

Considered as one of the touristic hot spots of Turkey, all the beaches are wasted because the 4-lane highway is never more than 100 meters away and keeps the traffic noise on a constant level. What a mess! Furthermore, a lot of the beaches were covered with trash. You can describe it as dreary.

And finally, a lot of the people didn't like strangers... especially Germans. I had to discuss for one hour until a shop sold me snow chains. Before, any business was refused with the words "Merkel problem".

But I had a good time anyway as we met some wonder full people and nice places too, further away from the sea. For example, visiting the Monastery Sumela feels like a winter fairy tale. We couldn't visit the place itself due to construction works. Anyway, I was too busy with enjoying the scenary to be disappointed.

The beautiful view on the way to Sumela Monastery, which was build in the 4th century

And there are Khaled and Abdullah in Rize. Both are Egyptian students studying in Turkey. They did not avoid any effort to find a shower for us. As we were not allowed to enter their students dorm and hotels insisted to be payed the full price of a room for one shower, they brought us to an Imam school up in the hills. There we met Imam Ibrahim and his friends.

He offered an amazing hospitality. We could shower and had a wonder full evening in this multi-cultural gathering. The mixture of Muslims and Christians, Turkish, Kurdish, Egyptian an German people was delighting.

In Ayder, we found a winter wonder land, similar to the alps in Austria. Muhammet offered us to sleep in his warm cafe and we had a lot of fun with his friends. The best experience was the sledge ride towed by an old Land Rover with a maniac driver. In the morning, we visited the hot springs. Being the only visitors in the hot water, it was pure joy to forget the cold winter outside.

Thank you very much, Khaled, Abdullah and Muhammet.

Ayder: Snow like in the Alps

At the most eastern side of the Turkish Black Sea coast, we wanted to enter Georgia for one day but the traffic jam in front of the border dismissed our plans.

We drove on to Kars because Lenard needed to get his flight back to Istanbul. The way to Kars led trough an icy desert. The temperatures far below zero and nothing but white mountains, it was monotone but impressive at the same time.

In Kars, we got hosted by Mustafa. I think he may saved hour lives as his apartment was warm while the temperature outside reached -30°C in the night. At midnight, I started my car and let it warm up again as i feared a damage from the cold. Thank you for this advice Mustafa! You saved my engine. In the morning, the car started at -24°C after 30 seconds, pedal to the metal and with black smoke suitable for a steam locomotive. I'm in love my Land Cruiser.

Lenard and I said good bye at Kars Airport and I drove to Dogubayazit, the last Turkish city before reaching the Iranian border.