Travel Tips

Our route took us due south on the worst road of the journey. A new highway was being built, but the old one we were forced to ride had been left to degenerate. There was little hard shoulder, which itself had degraded to a treacherous camber of 45 degree angle, so we rode on a rolling edge, fighting to stay out of the ditch on one side and avoid the convoys of trucks and coaches the other.

It grew worse and worse over the days. At times we could only cycle a couple of hundred meters before deliberately crashing our bikes into the ditch to avoid getting hit.

After four days we decided it was just too dangerous to continue. We were exhausted and our nerves stretched to breaking point. We played the death card and bused the last stretch to Antalia on the coast. Better smeg than dead. And that I am here to write about it probably means it was the right decision. A shame though, as some of the mountain scenery was beautiful.

The drivers, on the whole, were very courteous. Especially the truck drivers who more often than not honked and waved and called out to us with beaming smiles. And Im sure the flags helped. The coaches, however, were the reapers of the road and I grew to hate them.

Antalya was a large city spread some 20km along the coast with beaches and tourist area around the old city. Our first problem was how to get back our helmets we had left on the bus we had arrived on. Dip-sticks! Several hours of waiting and harassing the staff at the station and they materialized once more.

We spent one night in a nasty little dump run by a nasty little runt who tried to rip us off. It nearly ended in a fist-fight out in the street, engaging the owners of neighboring pensions who, thank god, took my side.

We moved to the more amiable Ozmans Pension for a couple of nights, spending our day off trying to cash travelers cheques, the best offer coming in at 15% commission!

Back on the bikes and we took on the big hills in a conversely westerly direction before flying down a steep 11km downhill into our little piece of paradise; Olympos.

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