We just woke up in a friendly hostel in Araç, where we checked in yesterday mainly to do our laundry and recover from the broken previous night. The cause of this broken night was our nice but rather noisy wild camping spot as the “empty” building behind us appeared to be a nightclub/dancing with very loud live music until 4 AM…..

The other day we had our goal set for Kocaman, which is a very small village with about 25 houses and obviously no supermarket to buy some food. But this was no single problem because we were spontaneously invited for a delicious and generous diner with rice, meat, beans, tomatoes, figs, grapes, melon, dolma’s, baklava, and multiple rounds of tea. Thank you very much family Akyüz for your kind hospitality!

As the nights are cooler now, we always wake up in a wet condensed tent. In order not to loose too much time we dry it during lunch as a standard daily procedure. We buy some bread, cheese, meat, fruit and juice and try to find a nice “drying-spot”. Sometimes on a square, one time in a pretty harbour.

In Kocaman we decided to alter our track a little. We left the coastline and went land-inwards in order to have a more straight line to Samsun (where we plan to have our next day off in a couple of days). This was a very good decision as the roads are empty and the environment is really beautiful with wild mountains and (mostly still dry) rivers. Here we met Jan, a fellow biker from the Netherlands who already biked 18.000 km since March and has a grand total of almost 300.000 km on his bike now; respect!

It might sounds a little strange but it’s easier to bike in this kind of real mountains than the up and down hills at the coast line. Now we have to climb for a while, but are rewarded with nice tracks downhill with spectacular views of high mountains and deep rivers.

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