Trip Archives: To the Caucasus and Back

Four months and 5000km of cycling around southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Middle East in the summer of 2011.

Malbworaan – Shekhkaya

Posted on August 31, 2011 by todd

Left Malbworaan after a hearty breakfast and with 6 liters of ice-cold water. I still felt somewhat weak, though, and cycling the 70km to Dohuk didn’t seem very realistic.

After maybe 20 kilometers I was stopped by a man waiting on the road-side with his little daughter. He invited me over to his house for lunch, in Mahad, a village just 2 kilometers down the road. I refused at first. He insisted, and insisted even more when he heard I was from Germany – his sons work in Munich. I still refused, though. Then he mentioned he was Yezidi, and that flipped the switch for me and I agreed to have a short rest at his place.
I stayed for maybe 2 hours and was fed with a full-blown lunch – salad and rice and chicken. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel well anymore at this point and couldn’t enjoy the food as much as I would have liked to.

Now who are the Yezidis? As far as I know, they are a long-misunderstood and long-hunted Muslim sect, also called the devil worshippers. However, they themselves say they are not Muslim.

Rashid and his lovely family showed me a wedding video (of someone in the family, not sure whose exactly) and a photo album. Interestingly, girls and women don’t wear head scarfs and join the men for gossiping. However, they don’t seem to join them for eating.
Rashid’s brother drove me up the next hill with his pick-up from where the road was more or less flat.

A few kilometers down the road I stopped at a tiny shop to buy some coke, but I was over-exhausted again and couldn’t move any further from there. I had a long break and talked to the owner of a car repair shop who spoke German. At the end of the day he invited me to his place for the night.
Khalaf is Yezidi, too, has 6 children, and his oldest son is married and has 6 kids of his own, and they all live in the same house.

Had a great evening sitting in the living room with the 15 people and some more friends and relatives. The food was great again.

I’m sleeping on the roof of their house next to the entire family.

Cycled: 30km
Hitched: 8km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | Comments Off on Malbworaan – Shekhkaya

Shekhkaya – Unnamed rest area at motorway O-52

Posted on September 1, 2011 by todd

Everyone woke up with first light and Khalaf and I had breakfast. The girls and women, again, did not eat with us.

Khalaf mentioned that he had business to do in Dohuk, some 30km down the road and my planned destination from yesterday. He offered a ride and I happily accepted.

I decided to skip the visit to Dohuk, though, and instead go directly to Zakho and the Turkish border, which was about 50km from where Khalaf dropped me of.

Trucks started queuing up a couple of kilometers from the border. Border formalities where pretty easy on both sides, and a friendly Iraqi Kurd living in Aachen, Germany, and on vacation in Dohuk made things even smoother by negotiating customs and passport control in Kurdish for me.

I hadn’t even left the border complex on the Turkish side when I was approached by little kids shouting “Bakshish, bakshish”. Welcome to Turkey, eh?

Not 500m after that I was stopped by a truck driver. “Hey, you want a ride? I’m going to Mersin!” Mersin is one of the easternmost port cities on the Turkish Mediterranean coast and it’s en route for me, though about 900km to the west. Within a split second I ditched all my plans for eastern Turkey. “Hell, yeah”, was my reply, approximately, “but I have no [Turkish] money”.
“No, no! No money, no money!”, he said.

Selim is actually an archeologist, but limited employment opportunities in his field made him a truck driver. Our common languages are limited, but somehow we managed to make ourselves somewhat understood. In the afternoon we stopped in Nusaybin and I hoped he’d call it a day here. Nusaybin straddles the Syrian border and had I been on the bike, I would have tried to cross the border to have a look at a Kurdish-Syrian town for a day or two. Well, Selim just met a friend there and I was too hungry to not be eating. After about an hour we continued our road trip.

Until the last minute I did not have the slightest idea how far we were going to go today or where I’d be sleeping tonight. But that’s part of the adventure.

At 10pm we stopped at a rest area at the motorway and went to a hamam. Then we continued some 20km more to another rest station were Selim shared his dinner with me (I still didn’t have any Turkish money to buy my own).
I’m sleeping in the upper bunk bed in the truck. Another first.

Cycled: 60km
Hitched: 461km
Top speed: 72kph

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: , | Comments Off on Shekhkaya – Unnamed rest area at motorway O-52

Unnamed rest area at motorway O-52 – Mersin

Posted on September 2, 2011 by todd

We left our rest place early in the morning, heading west.

In the early afternoon we met friends of Selim’s, left the truck behind, and made a 250km side trip in their car a an “archeological site” that Selim was interested in. Located on the bank of a tributary of a reservoir lake, it supposedly used to be a Roman settlement, but there was nothing to see at all. The only interesting things to see were a couple of natural springs.

We continued our drive towards Mersin at nightfall.
Selim dropped me off a few kilometers from Mersin’s city center after midnight. This guy left an awesome first impression of Turkey.

I cycled on and found a good hotel and even food! I <3 Turkey! Cycled: 12km Hitched: 638km [gallery]

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | Comments Off on Unnamed rest area at motorway O-52 – Mersin

Mersin

Posted on September 3, 2011 by todd

Mersin is a city of about 800.000 people, and Turkey’s biggest Mediterranean port is located here. Temperatures are warm (not hot) and very pleasant. I’m not sure I’ve actually found the city center, but the area I’ve spent most time in today (between the hotel and the sea) has everything I needed: plenty of opportunities to eat Turkish staples and drink tea, a fruit and vegetable market, hair dressers, etc.

Speaking of hair dressers, I finally found a theme for my trip(s): Going to a barber in each country I visit. I’ve been to one in almost every country so far (Slovakia, Romania, and Iraq are missing) but failed to describe most of my experiences here. Now it’s almost too late, but I’ll try anyway and start with today’s Turkish barber.

He started with the obvious cutting of hair and beard, then asked if I wanted the hair on my cheekbones removed. I’d seen that previously at a different barber, it’s a procedure that reminded me a bit of having one’s teeth flossed. I agreed, and I got more than I had bargained for. He put a ‘natural mask’ onto my face and after removing it he waxed cheekbones, nose, nostrils, and earlobes! Then he used yarn(?), both hands, and his teeth to remove any remaining hair below my eyes. Interesting indeed. Got a quick shoulder and arm massage as well. This was certainly one of the more elaborate hair cuts.

Later I tried tantuni, a regional speciality. A lady sitting there at a table next to mine started a chat, but the language barrier prevented us from doing any serious talking. She shared her roasted pumpkin seeds and peanuts with me, however. I tried myself at the art of opening the former with the teeth without crushing the whole thing, but didn’t quite succeed.

At another place I had künefe, a dessert the region (as in the Arab-influenced Near East) is well-known for.

In the hotel lobby I met two men from Cloppenburg, about 60km from my home town Bremen. They are of Turkish descent but live in Germany since 30 years and are here on vacation. They were curious about my trip and we chatted for a few minutes. At the end they said: “If you need any help, we are there for you.” I have encountered this kind of friendliness and readiness to help everywhere in the Caucasus and the Middle East throughout my trip. It is an amazing thing that has gone missing in the West.
I wonder if they had offered the same had we met in Cloppenburg or Bremen and not in Mersin.

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | Comments Off on Mersin

Mersin – Taşucu

Posted on September 4, 2011 by todd

Today’s destination was the little port town of Taşucu. It has an official camp site nearby. The ride wasn’t spectacular in any positive sense. The road was a 4-lane highway all the time and more or less flat. That included a flat tyre after 45km. Hey Schwalbe, what happened to “unplattbar” (“puncture-proof”), eh?!

Somehow it took me ages to reach Taşucu. Actually, I was on the road for eight hours!

The campsite is located directly at the sea and an extended swim in the blue and warm waters was the first thing I did after arrival.

I was having dinner next to my tent (it’s pitched under olive trees directly above the sea) when a neighbor came over with a plate-full of water melon, some Turkish bred and yoghurt. “For you”, he said, smiling, and returned to his camper van.

Cycled: 99km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | Comments Off on Mersin – Taşucu

Taşucu – Girne/Kyrenia

Posted on September 5, 2011 by todd

The night was pretty rough. It was hot inside the tent and I discovered too late that outside there where too many biting insects to leave the door open.

I woke up before sunrise and watched it appear over the turquoise waters. First order of the day: swimming. Then: fixing the next flat tire. Another swim after breakfast.

Then I backtracked a few kilometers to the town of Taşucu to board the ferry to Cyprus.

Two hours later I was back in the EU! Hm, almost.

The island of Cyprus is home to two countries, but ‘country’ may not be the right word for Northern Cyprus.
After some clashes between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority in the 1970s, the northern part, then occupied by Turkey, declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1983. So far, only Turkey recognizes the TRNC as an independent country. That leads to an interesting fact: The Republic of Cyprus (the southern part) is considered by everyone else, including EU and UN, as the country that has control over all of (the island of) Cyprus.
So, while I’m in the EU from the EU’s point of view, I’m not from the local government’s one.

I’m in Girne/Kyrenia, where the ferry dropped me off. It’s hot here.

Cycled: 8km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: , | Comments Off on Taşucu – Girne/Kyrenia

Girne/Kyrenia – Gazimaǧusa/Famagusta

Posted on September 7, 2011 by todd

I spent the latst 48 hours mostly inside, trying to get rid of that stomach bug I must have contracted in Hawler/Arbil, Iraq. It made me feel both hungry and sick at the same time during the last weeks and probably contributed to my overall not-so-fit-ness.

Today I set out to conquer Cyprus’ north coast. It was my plan to go about 50 kilometers to the east. Instead I cycled a bit more and ended up in Gazimaǧusa, aka Famagusta, in the southeast of the island.

Cyprus looks a bit like southern Spain, with yellowish hills, and olive groves and pine trees scattered around. Oh, and then there are those ‘villa villages’, newly built luxury communities (“Private Property! Keep Out!”) where one house looks like the other. Some of them were not even finished and have already been abandoned and now rot away.

After 40km I turned south and crossed a narrow chain of hills that stretches along the northern coast. From there the countryside was pretty flat.

Gazimaǧusa looks like a fun town to be in, but it was getting dark when I arrived and I was tired and I didn’t see much of it.

Cycled: 94km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | Comments Off on Girne/Kyrenia – Gazimaǧusa/Famagusta

Gazimaǧusa/Famagusta – Larnaca

Posted on September 8, 2011 by todd

As I mentioned earlier, Cyprus is divided in two parts. The UN has a peacekeepig mission here to keep the Turkish and Greek sides apart. Famagusta is located very close to the border, and on the map it looks like about half the city is military no-man’s land. Last night I accidentally ended up close to the deserted quarters – the empty houses look quite eerie in the evening sun.

Today I crossed the border into ‘Cyprus proper’. It involved getting an exit stamp on the Northern Cyprus side, and a quick glance at my ID on the southern side. Welcome to the EU, finally and for real!

The ride went along the border for a couple of kilometers and past another village in no-man’s land that had become victim of the fights between Turkish and Greek Cypriots and subsequently had been abandoned.

Finding a hotel in Larnaca was a bit of a challenge as most centrally located ones where booked out. I’m now staying in an EasyHotel, an EasyJet off-spring. Just like with the airline, you pay for everything extra, even TV…

Cycled: 42km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: , | Comments Off on Gazimaǧusa/Famagusta – Larnaca

The End

Posted on September 11, 2011 by todd

I decided to end the trip here on Cyprus and fly back home this coming week.

I have traveled for almost 4 months, have come through 12 countries, cycled roughly 5000km, and am now looking forward to going back home.

It was definitely an amazing trip. The hospitality and friendliness of all the people I’ve met on the way were unbelievable. The image of those countries our oh-so-righteous media paint for us is very one-sided and has little or nothing to do with the people living in those countries. For example, there is no such thing as ‘The Kurdish Problem’. There is a PKK problem, no doubt. But not every Kurd is member of the PKK, or even sympathizes with it. And along the same lines one has to add ‘there is a Turkish government problem’.

Of course, not everything was always great but other than the Azerbaijani love for honking nothing was seriously annoying for more than a few minutes. Except for the heat maybe, which peaked well above 50°C in the sun a couple of times.

The route through South-East Europe, 2540km

The route through South-East Europe, 2540km

The Caucasus/Middle-Eastern part of the route, 2506km

The Caucasus/Middle-Eastern part of the route, 2506km

Trip: To the Caucasus and Back | Country: | 1 Comment