istanbul carpet sales men...

ok, one quick blog about an interaction that piper and i had in istanbul with a carpet sales man. if any of you have been here you know how the story goes, for those that have not been to istanbul about half of the turkish people walking the streets are carpet sales men and they will walk with you trying to engage you in conversation to lure you into their "brothers" or "uncles" shop. the usual question is "where are you from"? piper and i grew tired of the usual answer and decided to be creative. this is an actual conversation that we had with a guy named musul. (do any of you watch ali g?? if so you might find this hilarious.

m: hello my friend. where are you from?
t: the punany.
m: dapunani??
t: yes. the punany.
m: oh. i have not heard of this "dapunani". where is it?
t: its in america.
m: oh yes america. my name is musul.
t: hi musul, nice to meet you. are you a carpet sales man?
m: YES!! ( he says this with extreme exuberation as if no one has ever asked him this or as if it isnt obvious and we blindly guessed.)
t: oh yeah, thats what i thought.
m: my uncle owns a very nice carpet shop, maybe you would like to buy something for your mother??
t: no thanks musul, bye.

hope that you enjoyed that. we are leaving istanbul today and will be heading for the bulgarian coast. no pictures today because this free computer has no usb port. the guy at the hostel says that it is the "first computer in turkey"

snots and kisses-
timo-piper...

quick blogging by timo

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Yes please you to paraglide??

For Tims birthday i wanted to take him paragliding in this town that Lonely Planet quotes is the best place in the world to fly! OluDeniz is this wonderful little cove.. at the base of the BabaDags (big daddy mountains- rough translation) We camped at a lagoon and enjoyed the most beautiful clear blue water and white sand beach... The next day we found ourselves in the company of Hector- a dark and husky Turkish paraglide pilot with a sandal tan that some would kill for and a lovely sister named Sonja, who practiced her english with us over fanta and cookies while we waited to leave town for the take off point.

Trundling up the BabaDag with three Brits and a slew of pilots and random people jumping on board our rugged jeep bus of sorts...the views just kept getting more dramatic..as did the knots in my stomach... Passing by makeshift shepherds huts and rocky cliffs, we continued up for quite some time...finally, the top! 900 meters up was a turnaround for the jeep buses, bags and gear were being flung to the ground and 10 yards off, a paragliding sail caught the wind and a lone body scurried down the rocky take off and sailed straight out from the cliffs edge and up up and away...

'yes yes..you to paraglide... please.. here your pilot...suit for you?? yes yes... (latch latch clip clip) start run now and no stop...GO!' I didnt even have time to think 'hey wait, dont i need to sign a waiver for this or something? i dont even know my pilots name!' I was first, and I was off! Thermals kept pulling our sail higher and higher...over the butterfly valley and out over the Med... it was the most peaceful experience ive ever had.... Tim didn't have such a smooth ride, but luckily he wasn't the one to puke... poor old brıt guy!

Fruit is like friendship,s currency

On our ride to our pension in Koycegiz we stopped for some shade under a tiny tree. Soon after a truck driver (who had already passed us twice and double backed) stopped to hand us some of the freshest oranges that we have ever eaten.

Riding up a pretty big climb to Gocek.. we pulled over at some springs to cool off and buy some fruit at the conveniently located stand 2 ft. from the faucet.. the wind picked up and took with it this poor guys whole fruit stand... so we dropped our bikes and began helping him pick up fruit..dusting it off... set his stand back up... went to pay for our cherries and he refused to take our money for helping him.

In OluDeniz..we befriended a 'spice boy' who just loved our bikes...evidently not many americans came to this town.. and he was a ski instructor in Turkiye! He had us try these traditional fruity sugar patties... and i immediately piped in that we would have to come back the next day and buy some for our ride- sensing that thats why he wanted us to try them 'no no..' he said 'friendship means more to me than your money...' grasping our hands earnestly...

Riding up (yet another big climb) on some back roads to Olympos... to farming women stopped us and literally forced into our handlebar bags loads of these tiny peach-like fruits... we felt compelled to stop and practice our limited Turkish with them... but they were content just sitting and watching us enjoy the 'fruits' of their labor...to feed our labor.

Turkish people are fantastically kind

Mr Rhodes Wild Ride

So we jump off the ferry in Rhodos, dark, late, groggy and walking in the wrong dırection. We must have looked a bit confused because this tiny Greek man ran past us with thıs makeshift hostel sign and asked simply but suggestivly, "Youth Hostel?". Oh yeah, this is our man!! So with bikes and BOBs all geared up we began to follow thıs guy in his rediculously tiny mini bus through the narrow and cobbled streets of medevial Rhodos- the oldest continuously inhabited medevial city in all of Europe (an acid trip for history buffs!) It was one of the craziest chases of my life. We snaked our way through the labrinth of streets that is Rhodos, on a saturday night, making turns down streets that were lit up and resonated with jumpy techno music and night owls dressed to kill *girls in heels and cobblestone is the funniest thing ive ever seen ... then we make a sudden turn down a dark and eerie alley way and all would go silent again. Feeling slightly creepy and dungenous...you truly felt like you had just entered a time warp. What a crazy way to enter the city.

A few days later we took a sweet ride through the moat of the medevial city...now a park path. On one side of us was the city walls with barraks and turret holes and on the other sıde was the moat wall, no frills, just lots of greenery. The moat wall seems to hold back the modern city of Rhodos, keeping cars and modern buildings at bay, leaving the old city to exist in its massive bubble. How many wars have been fought here? How many people have died in this moat that we are biking through?? (well, the little signs tell you, but we were riding too fast to read them!)

So our last ferry ride through the mediterranian, and the most expencıve and shortest, took us to the Turkish port town of Marmaris. We quickly unloaded our bikes, coated in salt, purchased Turkish flags for the trailers and began on our overland journey. It all feels like it begins today.

total mıles: 454

Beatles and Beetles...Drafts and Draughts

ok, so the saga contınues...
On an all day ferry from Crete to Rhodos, we came to realize two very crucial ironies-

People (especially bikers- who are not unlike beetles scurrying over various continents and terrain) are all united by The Beatles: this guy who was hanging out on the deck of our ferry, with his acoustic guitar, played the whole Beatles songbook and people from all over the world up on that deck were singing along. Its amazing how certian types of music (like beetles) can span thousands of miles and cross so many borders and even bring people together.

Our second realization was that one word, meaning a few different things, brings much happiness to bikers- drafts (biking in someones wake requires less exertion on your own part- yaay!) and draughts- beer and biking good! ** side note, leaving Crete, our ride to port was quite a climb...we celebrated at the top with a brew...neither of us even realizing until much later in the day that it was Timmys birthday!

This is us!!

Megasoarass ain't just a dino....

Sad to leave our cute little hut of a camping spot in Southern Crete.... we packed the units and started riding east on the rolling winding coastal highway. Tiny towns with turquoise waves crashing below... the serenity of the Greek islands was starting to get a bit ridiculous! No sooner did those thoughts cross my mind, that our route turned north, and we began an 8 mile 10% grade (steep as all get out) climb, no breeze, no shade...just hammering away at the peddals...

...brutal saddle sores in my gluteaus region... I should've gotten a cream for that. I have acquired a cream for everything else on this trip thus far; sun rash, bug allergies, why not butt cream? silly me... and Tim??? He's doing just fine, no soars, no rash, no bug bites...just a huge craving for Greek Coffee.

So we climbed and climbed. 8 miles, one beer, one coffee, and lunch by a roadside shrine later... we reach the top of our mountain pass ride and fly down nearly 16 miles to our final destination- through vineyards, wind farms, monasteries, cool little towns of 50... I kept screaming 'Ahhh!! the fruits of my labor!!' like an idiot, and was glad Tim was too far ahead to hear me! Coasting down hill at 38 miles per hour makes you feel pretty good, and makes you forget all the pain and discomfort that it too to get you there. And the views were great as well. its is amazing to be on top of a mountian on a small island and see the North coast and the South coast. woah!!

Once in Sitia... we got our act together to get to Rhodos (next island stop) and found a great little pension to stay for the night... Did one short coastal ride without the trailers, the next morning, and hopped on our ferry (just barely) to our next destination.... an 11 hour ferry ride... I have exactly 26 bug bites on my left leg, and 16 on my right....