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Turkish Delight
As we sped across the narrow channel separating the Greek Island of Chios from Turkey, I thought surf hunting was finished for a while, but I was getting used to being wrong. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ABAAEAAAIBRAA7 https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...o/P1040962.JPG The Mediterranean coast of Turkey reminds me of the Big Sur Coast of Northern California with limestone cliffs shooting up dramatically from the blue waters below. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-q...o/P1050414.JPG We‘ve become horrendously lazy tourists. Our first stop in Turkey was the ancient city of Ephesos and the only reason we were stopping there was because the guy who owned the pension on Chios had told us about it. This was the place we were about to blow by without a glance. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...o/P1050026.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...o/P1050006.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...o/P1050053.JPG Hardly worth the trouble, eh? https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-H...o/P1050041.JPG We just go where someone happens to tell us to. Case in point, when a taxi driver in Ephesos brought us to a carpet shop. Smart idea, right? Let your taxi driver bring you to his friend’s carpet shop instead of where you want to go. We readied ourselves to endure an hour-long hard sell of $3000 Turkish carpet. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5...o/P1040968.jpg Fortunately, the folks there were incredibly nice - the owner showed us around the place and how the carpets were made. A woman tended to a hundred fluffy little white balls inside a metal tub with water that seemed to be magically spinning. These were the silkworm cocoons being unwound as a single strand and then combined with other strands to make the silk thread that would eventually be used for the carpets. Each carpet is made by a single woman from start to finish, and sometimes they take years to complete the incredibly intricate process of knotting the carpet into various designs. I’d never seen anything like it. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...o/P1040976.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...o/P1040978.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-x...o/P1050082.JPG The next stop on the Turkish moto express was even more rad than Ephesos. It might look like Jamie is walking around bare footed in a glacial pool, but the water she’s standing in is actually quite warm. This is a massive mineral deposit, a travertine, blanketing the surface as minerals, mostly Calcium, precipitate out of the hot spring that flows down the cliffside. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/P1050198.JPG At the top of the cliff, we found the ruins of the Roman city of Heiropolis. With a defensible position atop a cliff and a hot spring flowing right through town, I couldn’t think of a nicer place to make home in 700 BC. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D...o/P1050180.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...o/P1050187.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sg...o=w873-h491-no https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...o/P1050124.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...o/P1050163.JPG At the center of the plateau, we saw one the most surreal sights of the entire journey – a crystal pool of the mineral-rich water with remnants of the glory days of Heiropolis enshrined at the bottom. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-L...o/P1050105.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-b...o/P1050111.JPG We kept up our eastward trajectory along he Turkish coast, winding over craggy headlands, and up and down stream valleys filled with meandering crustal waters. Some days we battled rainstorms, while others were clear as a bell and begging us to get riding. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...o/P1050409.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...o/P1050230.JPG At every stop along the way, we could hardly go for a walk, without tripping over ancient cities that mostly had relics from Roman and Byzantine times. There was always a theatre of some sort, and when we got tired of waiting for the show to start we put on our own. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...o/P1050207.JPG The village of Cirali enchanted us more than anywhere else. With clear streams spilling down the towering white cliffs rich with vegetation, it was about as close to riding into Rivendell as I’ve ever felt. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...o/P1050231.JPG As beautiful a place as it is, the tiny village of Cirali has not yet succumbed to the trappings of a Mediterranean tourist destination. From Cirali, we walked along the rugged coastline historically occupied by the ancient civilization of Lycia dating back to 1250 BC. Control of Lycia was bandied about, fought for, annexed, and succeeded by various pre-eminent civilizations through the centuries including the Persians, the Athenians, and the Macedonians and finally the Romans and Byzantines. |
Turkish Delight 2
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Throughout all of this, Lycian port cities often prospered through trade and Lycia enjoyed periods of self-rule and semi-autonomy from the big boss of the era. The early government of Lycia was a federation with Republican principles, which ended up influencing the framers of the constitution in the good old USA. In addition to a good example for running a civilization, the Lycians left us another great legacy: one of the greatest long-distance trekking routes in the world. Along the Lycian way, you can walk for 500 kilometers along the turquoise ocean and from time to time hopping over ruins from the Roman and Byzantine eras. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...o/P1050255.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...o/P1050431.JPG We walked beneath the shadow of Mt. Olympus, which was confusing since I thought Mt. Olympus was in Greece. Later I found out that there are like 20 Mt. Olympus’s scattered around Turkey and Greece and it seemed rather less impressive. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-m...o/P1050288.JPG The trail climbed over jutting rocky points and dropped down to cobble-strewn beaches that we had mostly to ourselves. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...o/P1050282.JPG We rested our tired dogs and Jamie started doing some weird hippi dance on the beach. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Q2...4=w654-h491-no https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...o/P1050272.JPG We rode high above Cirali to find a fissure in the earth that has been on fire for thousands of years, through countless winter storms. The idea is that this place is the inspiration for the monstrous fire-breathing animal of Greek Mythology, the Chimera, first described by Homer in The Illiad. Wisps of flame whipped at the ledges of stone, through a score of fissures climbing up the slope that became ever more luminous as darkness fell. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Hq...WjpOLY=s491-no https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-a...o/P1050341.JPG After we’d seen our share of wonders from the ancient world I was about ready to ride for the coast to see if there were any waves to ride in Turkey. We didn’t have much swell in Israel, but the waves we’d found in Greece gave me hope that I wouldn’t come up empty-handed surfing in the Mediterranean. We’d been lucky all day riding, with the rain threatening, but never delivering. But as we rode into the coastal town of Alanya, our luck ran out and rain came down in buckets soaking us to the skin. In Africa, getting caught in a rainstorm was no big deal since it was rarely very cold, but we weren’t in Africa any more and we were soon shivering in the wind with nothing to do but keep riding. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a...o/P1050522.JPG As we rode along the coast the next day, I was disheartened by what I saw – only the most meager waves lapping onto the shore. Before arriving to the coast I’d connected with the Alanya Surf Team (check them out on Facebook) who invited me to come for a surf at their beach. Surfers have only been riding waves for the last 5 years on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and there are still only about 10 regular surfers. These guys are among the first to ride a board on a wave on this stretch of coast. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/PI...Y=w654-h491-no https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/P1050467.JPG Mehmet-Ali (not pictured) was the first surfer here along with Mehmet (top photo). They told me that initially the coast guard kept trying to drag them out of the water during such dangerous ocean conditions. They first had major difficulties just getting some boards here from Europe, but now they are slowly growing their local surf scene. The water isn’t very cold here, even in the winter, when the storms bring the swell, I was only wearing a 2mm short arm suit and was plenty warm enough. There is a pounding beachbreak that will give up the odd barrel here and there, innumerable peeling reefbreaks of varying quality, and a rivermouth wave. The different breaks are all in a small area and face different directions around a small point, so it’s often easy to surf where the wind is offshore. So close to Europe, it could be an ideal place for European tourists to come learn to surf rather than braving the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...o/P1050468.JPG I’m always happy to meet a local surf crew, but I honestly wasn’t sure exactly what we were going to ride until a few hours later. Along the same stretch of beach I’d seen on the way into town, the surf had tripled in size in the space of a few hours. It was amazing. I raced over to meet Mehmet and Mehmet Ali at the surf club – a hotel run by Mehmet Ali, with boards and suits piled up on top of tables in the lobby. It felt great to jump in the water and paddle again, but it became immediately clear that I was in shocking condition. It seems that sitting on a motorcycle for months on end does not do wonders for one’s physical fitness. After an hour or so, the sun was on its way down and I looked up to the cliff that we were surfing beneath to realize that there was a huge castle perched on top of it. By then I couldn’t stop smiling. I was surfing in Turkey, under a castle. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Xb...U=w655-h491-no https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-x...o/P1050531.JPG The next few days the swell stayed up, and every day the guys were on top of it and sent me a message to come surf. I honestly couldn’t believe how good the waves were, by far the best I’d surfed in the Mediterranean. The waves weren’t the weak-feeling short-fetch windswelly stuff that I’d expected – they had similar punch to plenty of your average beachbreaks in California. Yours truly having a delightful day in the water. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_.../Image%2B8.jpg https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D.../Image%2B7.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-j...02938786_n.jpg Mehmet found some trim. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...Image%2B10.jpg Cagri ducked for cover. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/GV...E=w740-h491-no After surfing one afternoon, I was surprised to find a full camera crew assembled on the beach. Traveling surfers are still a rarity in Turkey, so much so that Mehmet had alerted the local news station to my visit and they showed up on the beach with cameras blazing. With Mehmet translating for me, I told them about the journey, what I was doing in Turkey, and what I thought about the waves in Alanya. It was all pretty funny and I got my moment of fame that night on Turkish television. Never imagined I’d be able to make such a claim. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4.../Image%2B5.jpg https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q.../Image%2B2.jpg Turkey really wasn’t on my radar at all for a place to come surfing, but leaving no stone unturned sometimes brings the spoils. It’s been a blast riding waves with the stoked surfers of Alanya. I got to taste again what I had loved so much about surfing in West Africa: the excitement of a new surf scene and the welcoming nature of surfers pioneering their own territory. Surfing is a great way to connect with people. No matter the cultural divides, love of riding waves binds our global tribe together, and I feel so fortunate to be reminded of that in the most unlikely of places. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...o/IMG_0628.JPG |
Black Sea Riders
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We’d bided our time in the south of Turkey as rainstorms came and went every other day. If we’d know how high we would have to climb to get through the interior to the Black Sea, and how much we’d suffer for the cold, we may not have left the Mediterranean at all. After a day a final day riding east along the coast we turned north into the mountains. While it was cold, and we had on about every piece of clothing we were carrying, were lucky and avoided rain nearly the entire day. We were headed towards a place called Capadocia where we’d heard about a city built from caves thousands of years old. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...o/P1070743.JPG We spied the white caps on the mountains in the distance and hoped that we weren’t headed straight into them. To our relief we only skirted along their sides for most of the day. Again and again I thought a descent to lower elevation was just around the corner, but with every small decent came another climb back to the snowline. The warmest gloves I had were some that I’d gotten for $5 on the street in Egypt, and they weren’t quite doing the job. At one stage two fingers on my left hand went completely numb and then ached we slowed down and they thawed out. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Yo...0=w702-h522-no It was nearing sundown and we were almost to our stopping point for the day when we started climbing and kept climbing until we were well above the snowline. Then it started snowing. We’d never ridden in the snow. The novelty wore off quickly as my visor fogged up and the scene ahead disappeared into a gray fog. I pulled over to wipe my visor, which quickly fogged up again. I put my visor up, but the snowflakes colliding into my eyeballs stung something fierce. We were on the motorway twith a barrier along the roadside and no exits, so there was nowhere safe to pull off. The best I could do was to creep along slowly on the shoulder, stopping every kilometer or so to wipe the inside of my visor. Cars and trucks barreled out of the gray haze behind us. It felt like a totally unsafe riding situation and there was nothing to do but keep going and endure. Finally, we began to descend. We only had 10 kilometers left to ride but it was a very slow 10 kilometers. By the time we’d found a place to stay our nerves were completely fried. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/bZ...s=w695-h522-no The fates were kinder to us the next morning, with chilly air but not a cloud in sight. We rode into Capadocia to the astounding sight of an ancient high-rise condominium. We spent the next few days exploring the wonders of this place, where the ancient caves aren’t just a relic from the past, but still used as dwellings by the locals. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-r...o/P1050606.JPG Homes, churches, and monasteries are built from rock pillars strewn throughout the region also known as hoodoo or fairy chimneys . They were formed by deposition of volcanic tuff and lava flows from nearby volcanoes many thousands of years ago. The harder volcanic rock protected softer rock directly below from weathering and erosion. Through crack and fissures in the volcanic rock, some of the material below was eroded and transported away, leaving the isolated pillars that we see today. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...o/P1050593.JPG Human settlement in Cappadocia goes back to Kalkolithic age beginning 9,000 years ago and has been occupied by one civilization after another ever since. From the 5th to the 11th centuries, Capadoccia became a refuge for Christians and many of the churches here are still really well preserved. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...o/P1050580.JPG It snowed for days in Cappadocia, and when it finally let up, we were happy to drop 3000 ft. of elevation riding towards the Black Sea. We in arrived at the small rocky headland about a hundred kilometers northeast of Istanbul to find a surfer’s enclave on the Black Sea. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZA...haMI=w730-h523 They’ve been surfing about 8 years on the black sea coast –3 years longer than on the Mediterranean coast. With such a craggy coastline, looking around for surf in the area is slow going as the roads are small and seem to twist along every nook and cranny, and sometimes there isn’t much of a road yet. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h...o/P1050640.JPG Our host was Toggy who runs the Danube Surf Academy in this sleepy little village on the Black Sea coast. He’s former motorcycle racer turned die-hard surfer and is at the center of the surf community here in Turkey. He shapes his own surfboards, puts on youth surfing and skateboarding training events, and his daughter is a competitive surfer, regularly traveling to Europe for contests. Toggy toured us around to all the spots in the area, but we weren’t quite as lucky as we’d been on the Mediterranean coast. The local’s usual chunk of reef to find a pitching lefthander wasn’t giving up the goods today. Nonetheless, it was fantastic to have a look around another place where surfers were just beginning to discover there own coast and the waves that they have to ride there. Toggy didn't even charge us for staying at the surf house - what mate! https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8...o/P1050635.JPG With Toggy and is daughter headed off to Portugal for a contest, we rode to Istanbul. While the rest of Turkey seemed to be empty of tourists, Istanbul was in full swing and costs were busting our budget. On April 1st, the price of our accommodation doubled and so we retreated to the Black Sea coast while waiting for some visas to process. I’d learned about a beach club near the town of Kilyos owned by a surfer called Hakan. When we stopped in to say hi to Hakan, we found that a rare subtropical cyclone had ripped the place to shreds last fall and they were still picking up the pieces. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Kc...ijJc=w695-h522 The surf was dead flat for the moment anyway, but Hakan said that there was some swell on the horizon the following week. Unfortunately, the swell arrived with the storm right on top of it. With the water either a messy disaster or dead flat, we returned to Istanbul without ever riding a wave in the Black Sea. Can’t win them all. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/N4...of20=w698-h522 Riding over the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, we crossed from East to West, a bridge to Europe and back to the world more familiar for us. |
Thank you, once again, for a wonderful perspective of yet another country--Turkey this time...The crazy thing about your travels is that just one of the countries, taken in isolation, would be the 'trip of a lifetime' for me. Yet, here you are, traveling to country after country after country and showing us how amazing they are! I didn't know how great your thread would be after Africa, but it was, and STILL IS!
I know it won't be as 'exotic' but once you get back to the US, you should do a west coast and/or east coast surf/motorcycle ride. Someone definitely needs to go with you (i.e. Jamie) to film a documentary! :scooter::funmeteryes: |
Stunning Pictures, Report and a beautiful landscape :thumbup1:
Surfy |
It keeps getting better. I really am enjoying the mixture of history, surfing and sartorial elegance. The safety pin is a grossly underrated piece of motorcycle gear, never leave home without several.
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Quote:
Ok :Beach: couldn't resist... I think I thought we were on Advrider or something... |
My wry sense of humor always got me into trouble with humorless people in California. I am a radical leftist by Arizona standards but I was never hip enough, cool enough or radical enough to feel comfortable in Santa Cruz. Life strikes me as a weird mathematical error that slipped through the net cast over most planets by the universe and we should not take ourselves too seriously as a result. Not everyone agrees.:oops2:
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Thanks so much you guys the kind words make the effort worthwhile. Glad that the humor comes across and I don't offend too much.
The adventure has certainly lost some of its grit since leaving Africa. We're now in the Balkans and the camp sites are ridiculously nice. Don't worry, we'll keep it interesting by wild camping where we're not supposed to. :-/ Gary |
rumors
Hey folks - tales of Running Down Rumors at the Bottom of Africa in the current issue of Australia's White Horses!
White Horses | Issue Twelve Available Now https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...43.54%2BPM.png |
Barreling through the Balkans
Turkey had been a fantastic place, but after weeks of riding through snowy mountain passes we were ready to move on. You might say that we were ready to quit cold Turkey.
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ABAAEAAAIBRAA7 https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y...o/P1050706.JPG We left the towering pillars of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque in the distance, riding for the Bulgarian border. We didn’t quite make it before dark so we motored into the forest and found a spot to make our camp for the night and cook up some dinner. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...o/P1050727.JPG Once into Bulgaria, we wound our way out to the Black Sea Coast along twisting mountain roads of poor asphalt with holes and lumpy patches. The scenery was gorgeous, so was the weather, and there was no traffic. We had a fantastic day riding and it felt like motorcycle adventuring is all about. We were headed out to a coastal town called Ahtopol, where I’d been told that there was a pointbreak and some surfers. They had a surf club and even had a national surf competition there. Alas, the Black Sea let us down again without a wave or a surfer to be found. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-u...o/P1070810.JPG We blazed across Bulgaria without stopping for much. It was actually a shame that we didn’t have more time to spend, with accommodation and really good food abundant and very cheap in Bulgaria. But after all the time we spent in Turkey, we had just three weeks to get through the Balkan states and across Europe. Somewhere in the mountains of Bulgaria my fork seals blew out and oozed a lovely oily mess down onto the brake caliper. With no fork oil for dampening, we’d be pogoing our way across the Balkans. In addition, the lower chain roller had just about disintegrated and was making a low growling noise at certain rpm’s, and we had less than a millimeter of rubber on the rear tire. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...o/P1050730.JPG Did I mention how nice the weather was? We tried to just enjoy the nice weather and ignore our poor girl falling to pieces beneath us. Just hang on for another thousand miles girl! https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/P1070823.JPG https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-u...o/P1050743.JPG After a brief stop in Sophia, we rode on to Serbia, where spring had most discernibly sprung. Along every country road, farmers were out tilling their fields readying for the growing season. The roads followed the streams closely and it wasn’t hard to find a picnic spot for our usual on-road cuisine. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...o/P1050767.JPG https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/3u...c=w703-h528-no We continued south to Kosovo and ended up spending the night in the capital of Pristina. The funny thing about entering Kosovo is that since Serbia still doesn’t recognize Kosovo’s independence, you never actually leave Serbia, but Kosovo stamps you in. It’s the youngest country in Europe and the capital city felt lively. The hostel we stayed at was packed with locals that came out to see a music show that night. The young guys who owned it had high hopes for the success of their place as European backpackers began to discover Kosovo. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0q...g=w703-h528-no On we rode into Macedonia and Lake Ohrin, a world heritage site for both the beauty of the natural landscape and the town itself. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...o/P1050790.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-b...o/P1050775.JPG https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...o/P1050795.JPG We found quite a few more holes in the road as we crossed into Albania. It’s one of the poorest countries in Europe, but the people were warm and welcoming, and there were plenty of long twisting country roads and nice spots to camp. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...o/P1050816.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...o/P1050823.JPG The truth about adventure motorcycling with your girlfriend: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...o/P1070853.JPG Scattered all over Albania in cities and tiny villages alike there are these concrete bunkers. During times of trouble, they are stocked with weapons and all of the men would be called to arms to defend their homeland. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...o/P1070832.JPG Riding into Montenegro, rocky headlands of the Adriatic Sea were covered in beautiful houses and the harbors were crammed full of sailboats and yachts. When we looked up, we’d sometimes see a rocky gray ridge looming above with a castle perched at the top. The castle of Kotor sits above the ledge of an inlet to the Adriatic Sea that drops straight down from the shoreline so abruptly that a massive cruise ship could park right next to the village as though it was a bus pulling to up to a street curb. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...o/P1050828.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-U...o/P1070845.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...o/P1070843.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D...o/P1070847.JPG The gorgeous coastal scenery continued as we rode north along the Adriatic into Croatia. There was no shortage of places to camp, which was good, since any other type of accommodation had quickly soared out of our range in this ritzy region. With the grass as our bed, we had the view of a 5 star hotel. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...o/P1050872.JPG In the town of Dubrovnik, we found a suspiciously familiar looking Harbor. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r...o/P1070857.JPG If you’re a fan of the Game of Thrones series (like we are) you might recognize it as King’s Landing. These are the waters of Blackwater Bay, where Aegon the Conqueror first made landfall in Westros and Tyrion Lannister defended the city by destroying Stannis Baratheon's fleet with a barrage of wildfire. It’s also a nice place to go kayaking. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-J...o/P1070861.JPG Here’s the same spot Westerosi style: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...23.14%2BPM.png Of course there is a rich history to city of Dubrovnik that really happened and actual cultural significance to all these buildings but who cares about that. Anyone know the way to the Sept of Baelor? How about the Red Keep? https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...o/P1070864.JPG Loads of the Kings Landing stuff from the series was filmed in old city of Dubrovnik as well as just up the coast near the city of Split. The Klis Fortress sits on a huge rocky ridge high Split. It was here that Daenerys Targaryen showed up outside the gates of Meereen ready to break some chains. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-L...o/P1050976.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/P1050988.JPG |
Barreling through the Balkans 2
We rode from the sites of fictional battles to the scenes of real battles in Bosnia and Hersegovina. The city of Sarajevo has been at the center of conflicts in the region throughout the 20th century. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenburg, in Sarajevo was the event that triggered the First World War. It happened just next to the Latin Bridge that crosses the River Milijacka in the heart of the city.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...o/P1050949.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...o/P1050966.JPG In high school I remember vaguely knowing about the conflict happening in Bosnia, but not having much idea what it was all about. With the breakup of the Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence, plunging them into 3.5 years of war against Serbian and Croatian forces. Sarajevo was under siege from the Serbian forces from 1992-1996. During this time, the only way in or out of the city for people, food, or weapons was a tunnel built beneath the runway of the airport, which was the weakest point in the Serb forces. Think we went and crawled around in the tunnel? You know we did. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...o/P1050941.jpg As we drove out to the airport, we stopped at an intersection where the taxi driver pointed the spot where a massive white sheet had been tensioned between two 8 story buildings with ropes to try hide people from snipers in the surrounding hills. Nearly everyone here has stories about that time. It sounded pretty rough. No water access, no power, and little food. Those with the skills made weapons by hand. It’s unimaginable thinking of a city persisting like this for 4 years. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...o/P1050939.JPG We stopped at the Sarajevo Brewery to hoist one in tribute to all the brave souls who weathered the siege and fought to defend their home however they could. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...o/P1050924.JPG Our next stop was the little town of Mostar, which also played a part in the war when Croat forces invaded and occupied the west bank of the River Neretva that flows through the town. They occupied the huge hill right next to the town and shelled the crap out of the place. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...o/P1050905.JPG The beautiful footbridge that is a primary tourist attraction today, and during the war was the path to the front lines of the fighting. This is a fantastic BBC documentary about Mostar during the war and some totally heart wrenching stories. Here's what the bridge looked like during the war, from the BBC: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-E...09.23%2BPM.png Our taxi driver back in Sarajevo wasn’t optimistic about not seeing another war. “Every forty years or so, we have a war. It’s just the nature of the people here,” he said. After getting to know the place and the people here, I hope he’s wrong. We crossed back into Croatia leaving the big problems of the past behind and managed to find some small problems of our own. We were along the coast approaching the Palenica National Park when a screw found its way into the rear tire and quickly deflated the tube leaving us squirming along then breaking the bead off the rim. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-f...o/P1070893.JPG No problem, I’ll just patch her up. But when I examined the tire, I found that it wouldn’t be quite so easy. Though our rubber was wearing thin I’d counted on making it to Munich, but my Kenda 761 had other ideas. The tire tread had separated from the steel belted carcass all around the tire and the side knobs were cracking off. Looking at the tire it seemed idiotic to go riding off onto the high-speed motorways of Europe on this thing hoping for the best. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...o/P1050993.JPG So here we were in this tiny town with a shredded tire and I had no idea where to get another one. Oh, and there was a storm on the way. Luckily though, fortune sometimes favors the poorly prepared just as well as the bold. The tire had popped off the bead just 300 meters from the cheapest pension in town, so that I could just heave the fully loaded bike over to the parking lot. They had wifi so I got online and found reports of a dude in Zagreb, in the far north of Croatia who had helped some other bikers that had come this way. I was pretty shocked when he sent me an email back immediately and said that he would check first thing in the morning for tires in Zagreb. By 10 AM he had arranged a 17’’ Metzler Tourance to be delivered to a hotel just 1 km away from where we were holed up. Unbelievable. Now that is some global biker solidarity. Doobie, you’re a legend mate. If your headed through the region, check out his bed and breakfast place in Zagreb, Croatia - it's called Labagola. He's also serves as a contact point for motorcycle repairs and logistics throughout the Balkans from Turkey to the Alps, so if you're in a tight spot, drop Doobie a line. (He's FRgich on the HUBB) https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...o/P1050992.JPG And that was it for our quick blast through the Balkan states. There was natural beauty, famous battlegrounds, war, strife, hope, and another round of helpful strangers. Hard to imagine much more that you you can ask of a motorcycle trip. |
Still looks like a great ride! Kind of bittersweet to know it is coming to and end :(; but I know I will re-read many, many of your posts. But, still cannot wait to see what is next. Since one of the destinations I would like to get to on my bucket list is Turkey, would you consider turning around and going back through? :mchappy::thumbup1: :cool4:
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glad you're still digging it Yuma. Bittersweet for me too, for sure. Turkey was surely one of the highlights of the journey. If there is a place to head back to, Turkey is at the top of the list. ..
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Castles, Caves, and River Waves
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With only a few countries in Europe still ahead, completion of the trip felt so close, but with the Alps still ahead and a road weary bike beneath us, the finish line began to recede from grasp. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ABAAEAAAIBRAA7 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...o/P1060009.JPG I love riding through places with a weird or striking natural landscape and on this stretch of the journey it was the Karst topography of Slovenia that served up the goods. Karst terrains are formed when limestone goes into solution in water moving beneath the surface, creating subterranean caverns and the like. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...o/P1060040.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E...o/P1060038.JPG The stalactites and stalagmites that we roamed between belonged to the Postojna caves. With a row of lights to guide us we walked through an absolutely gaping cavern 115 meters below the surface. The entire cave system is more than 20 km long and in the cold and damp air I found it hard not to think about the millions of tons of earth perched above our heads. I can see how the dwarves get into this scene. We left the caves, and zipped along on the motorway north. I pressed up over 80 mph a few times passing trucks along the way. And then Dyna Rae stumbled. When I pulled over to assess her condition, she wouldn’t idle. It was as though I’d pushed her too far, taken her steadfastness for granted and she finally spoke up about it. She’d been punished all the way across Africa (twice!), climbing goat trails, rattling down corrugated roads, and sucking diesel dust. She’d done all this with a minimum of fuss and I didn’t even get her some new shoes until the soles peeled right off the ones she was wearing back on the coast of Croatia. And now I wanted her to hurtle down to motorway keeping up with all the Audi A6’s and BMW M series. She wasn’t havin’ it. As the rain started to trickle down, we pulled off the motorway into a beautiful little town called Bled to sort out the problem. I could think of worse places in the world to be stuck camping in the rain. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...o/P1060092.JPG Battling the wind and rain on the motorway and then battling Dyna Rae’s issues had worn me down. When we found the campsite, all I could do was hug a tree. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-B...o/P1060087.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...o/P1070912.JPG The inlet filter to the carb wasn’t clogged, so the inability to idle pointed clearly to the need to dig into the carb to clear the pilot jet of whatever crap had blown in there when I stirred things up blasting along the motorway. As it turned out, there was plenty of gunk in the bottom of the float bowl. And check out this little mystery nugget I found chilling in the fuel line. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r...o/P1060053.JPG Unfortunately I’d lost my little screwdriver ages ago and never managed to replace it. Jamie came to the rescue, with the perfect sized set of tweezers to remove a pilot jet. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-h...o/P1070920.JPG The needle has seen better days. I found a severe notch on one side along with erosion of the plastic spacer on the other side. The way the bike runs is very sensitive to very small changes in these tiny little parts, and it’s a good bet that some of Dyna’s rough running of late can be attributed to what you see in the image below. The needle sits in the middle of a slide that moves up and down by the pressure gradient created in the carb when you open the throttle. With the needle and spacer in this state, the needle is probably sitting cocked sideways and messing up fuel delivery. While I have a spare needle, I don’t have a spare one of those little spacers. Oops. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...o/P1070924.JPG Taking your bike apart at home is one thing, but on the road is another, especially if you’re a crappy mechanic like I am. When you mess up and break something or strip a bolt, replacement or extraction may not be so easy. I know that I know how to put everything back together, but even so, looking down at my pile of carb in a random sink in Slovenia still inspires just a little bit of anxiety. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...o/P1070928.JPG With her bits cleaned up and reassembled, Dyna fired right up and idled like a champ. It was time to climb into the Alps and I was happy to have a running bike again. Austria seriously looked like the Sound of Music film the entire way across. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...o/P1070938.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-B...o/P1070944.jpg We rode through more than 20 miles of tunnels crossing the Alps and lucked out, only hitting a few showers along the way. We made for Munich, where I’d heard for years about a standing river wave with a crew of local surfers. I’d met German surfers in places like Dakar that had learned to surf only on this river wave. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...o/P1070951.jpg There’s even a local surf shop, where I got a board and suit to use. Only problem was that I no longer had a board rack on the bike. But I had a plan. Sort of. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...o/P1070981.JPG We were kind of a scene. I can’t really think of a better way to get pulled over by the police than riding all over downtown Munich like this. We weren’t in Africa any longer where 30 chicken cages loaded onto a 125cc is standard practice, and the Germans are rather fond of their rules. Against all odds, we made it to the Eisbach River wave in central Munich unmolested. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...o/P1060436.JPG The locals were ripping it. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O...o/P1060410.JPG It looked so damn easy. Just jump on, stand there, and boogie around the thing. After all, I’m a surfer from California. I’ve spent my life surfing waves in the ocean. How hard could this be? Pretty sure I was going to rule it. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...o/P1060384.JPG I may have been slightly overconfident. As I stepped off the ledge onto the board ready to slip down the wave face and felt every drop of the River Eisbach trying to push me up and over the crest and down the river. Before I knew it I was sucked under, rolled around on the rocky bottom and then floating downstream and swimming for the bank. Alright, I thought, had to get that one over with, now I think I’ve got it. My second wipeout was even more comedic than the first. You had to be really precise with your position on the wave to stay down in it and not have it suck the nose of the board under. Looking down at the mesmerizing of white swirls and eddies, it was difficult to judge position on the wave face. With every humbling trip down the Eisbach, I imagined an ironic narrative from the crowd of spectators gathered on the bridge above, “Those German surfers rip. The guy from California sure sucks.” After enough bounces on the riverbed, the local guys gave me some tips that helped immensely. Jamie managed to capture a few glorious seconds that actually made it look like I could actually ride the thing. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...o/P1060367.JPG http://www.bugsonmyboard.org/wp-cont...7-1024x769.jpg It was loads of fun when I wasn’t floating downstream cursing. We retired to our campsite and I licked the wounds to ego and flesh. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-j...o/P1060451.JPG awwwwwuuhhh! https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...o/P1060455.JPG In Dachau, outside of Munich I finally managed to get our fork seals replaced at the local moto shop and the pre-load increased on the rear shock. We’ve had about no oil in the fork since Albania, which makes the bike ride like total garbage. Our girl’s legs now finally feel back in shape. In Dachau, we also got a chance to take in some history with a visit to the Dachau internment camp from the holocaust era. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...o/P1070984.JPG The camp was complete with gas champers and crematoriums, a model upon which others were constructed throughout Europe in the Nazi regime's zeal to cleanse society of whomever they deemed unfit to belong. In 1930’s Germany, national socialism consolidated and radicalized a number of political positions – nationalism, imperialism, social Darwinism, and resentment of liberalism. The Nazi movement strove towards a racially pure body, wherein all elements that weakened it or didn’t fit in were eliminated. The Jews were painted as scapegoats for Germany’s economic woes following the First World War and were the focus of racial hatred preached by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As World War II wore on, treatment in the Dachau camp worsened: people starved, were experimented on, and executed on the whim of the brutal SS officers. The words printed on one of the buildings where people were forced to labor day after day reads ‘work brings freedom’ in a mockery of hope for the prisoners. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...o/P1080006.JPG You certainly can’t accuse the Germans of forgetting their history. They’ve got it all on display and the stark images and words of Dachau leave a lasting impression. The day we were there, the place was filled with school groups come to learn about this terrible episode in history. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-c...o/P1080029.JPG We rode north out of Munich and stopping at Nuremberg to camp for the night and paid a visit to the castle. The campsite was packed and no one bothered to ask us to pay, so we didn’t. The party didn’t stop for most of the night at the campsite and we didn’t really understand what the occasion was on a Thursday night until the next morning when a girl drove up to us on the bike, rolled her window down and asked, “You guys know which way to the AC/DC show?”. In that moment, The World War II era Germany couldn’t have seemed further away. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-C...o/P1060469.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...o/P1080051.JPG We’re just about to the end of our road in Europe now and enjoying every mile left. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6...o/P1060459.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...o/P1060475.JPG |
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