Alrighty... last left ya in Bucharest... cool city! Too bad my digital camera was stolen right out from beneath my nose; literally! It was in my handlebar bag, covered in a rain sack, under my cookie bag... good god they were stealth! So, no more pics for the blog... oh well... I've shed my tears.. moving on...
So, Agro (not in a bad way) tourism in Romania- pretty cool... you can camp on people's farms/ villas... very nice... and listen to them tell you all night to be careful of gypsies in the next town... WHO, by the way, really do wear long flowery skirts, gold jewelry, and head scarves... and are really really poor..... and loud.... and scary.
...and Romanian drivers....ROMANIACS! by far the scariest drivers we have encountered yet.... Tim, wear your helmet for chrissakes...
BUT the terrain/mountains are stunning... swiss alps meets gypsy ville.... it's breathtaking... and we've been blessed with good cycling days... watch it dump rain tomorrow...
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
a few photos from the road:
piper about to head to the bulg...otherwise known as bulgaristan, in turkey,
tims betterhalf, his shadow and piper and tim enjoying a kebab nearthe blue mosqu, istanbul. tim near the town of bulgari and piper filling water at a road side spring.
a top ten list of commando camp spots.
1) Xanthos, turkey. camped within eyeshot of a lycian ruin in a golden brown feild atop a hill on a saturday night. belw us was a small town bursting with turkish music and the shouts of young club goers!! oh and all this under a full moon.
2) a heli pad nead egridir, turkey. after our hitch hike ride ended at about 8pm we found ourselves scrambling for a camp spot. we found a secluded hill and what would you know, there was a helicopter landing pad on top!!! so civilised to live on concrete huh?? so we camped on it! no helicopters landed that night.
3) antalya, turkey. the day that we biked with skot! we camped on the coast of the med. with city lights reflecting off the sea and the sound of the lapping sea lulling us to sleep:)
4) a vineyard in bulgaria. that night we drank wine and the next morning we ate oats with rasins. ode to the grape in the vinyard!!
5) in a sunflower farn in the bulg. so many sunflowers you couldnt imagine!! we camped in the shadow of an endless field as the sunniest sunflowers. they look to the east and they were all facing us. like a thousand brown eyes with yellow eyelashes starring at you...kind creepy, kinda cool!
ok, thats only 5, buts it good enough!!
more photos and stories-
here is the lovely couple in the aya sophia in istanbul. probably the biggest, uglyest building ever!!! ha just kidding. it was awesome, kinda makes you gasp and then shut up because it is so amazing on the inside. we make it better though:)
so pipers camera broke after the big rain storm in kitten bulgaria so we can bring you up to date on photos until that point, and from there on words will just have to do:)
after the storm of the century( which didnt break our big agnes tent!! ) we set off for burgas, the third largest city in bulgaria ( better know as the "bulg" ) we had a great time biking through historic sozopol to get there and in the morning we were craving coffee!! we needed a little american coffee shop but none could be found. but do you know what the bulg has?? tiny little esspresso vending machines!! how perfect. 0.30 leva, about 20cents american you can get a piping hot perfectly brewed vending machine espresso!! we were in heaven!! "piper, quick, how much change do you have? espresso is only 30 cents!!" and now we come to our interactive part of the blog. the bulg has named their coins "stotinki" so we leave it up to you guys to make up the best rhyme/poem and you need to make sure you rhyme with the word stotinki...such as stinky or pinky:)...have fun and be clean!!
so biking from nesebar bulgaria to shipka was great. a flat gently inclined road with a great road surface. definatly beat all the roads in turkey!! we passed through a mini city called sliven that had an interesting landscape. a nuclear power plant in the distance and farmers on horse and wagon in the foreground. quite the dichotomy, quite the contrast. we climbed up and over shipka pass ( pipers story ) which was pretty easy. 8 miles up and 3000 ft climb. we topped out at 1300meters and a sweet view with a huge communist shrine at the top to commerate a huge battle between the russians and the turks where the russians won. russian shrines are very blocky, very rough.
we descended the pass and found our selves in an akwardlittle city called gabrova where we got a little "missplaced" but this guy riding a bike pointed us in the right direction and then asked us where we were from. when we told him "america" he bust out in joy, reached for tims hand, pulled it to his lips and kissed it!! he then rode away screaming "VIVA LA AMERICA!!" woah. most people roll their eyes after we tell them where we are from. this was a nice supprise:)
we stayed at a little creek side monastary tucked into dramatic canyon country that night. there was a qurious little drain under our window thatpointed to the creek. tim noticed that when you took a shower the drain proceded to dribble. hhhmmm...quriousity. what happens when you flush the toilet?? yup you guessed it! no bathing in this creek!! here is a gross image for you: watching out of a second story window your toilet flush quickly draining, falling 2 stories, splashing and your poo floating down a bulgarian stream into the unknown. bon voyage little poo!! be safe and godspeed!!
from the monostary i think pipe has filled you in with the bulg's president and the highway ho's, so enjoy, and until next time!!
timo-
total miles: 1206.3miles
total ride time: 132.23hrs
oops- this image came up somehow...it is a fresco from the aya sophia. piper and I a completely bored with frescos now... we've seen too many, now they all look the same...
photos
hey everyone!!!finally got to some photos-
this is a turkish kid wearing tims hat:) above is the piper on the turkish coast, and in olympos.
below is cappadocia withthe baloon. tim after a long day ready to eat a pound of pasta and timo once again near egridir turkey after a brutifull hill climb!!
Back to the Bread-land, Grande Senor, and Road Ho's
Well, we've made it back to the land of good bread with every meal... Bulgaria was a little lacking in that dept. We did, however, enjoy everything else about "the Bulge"- as we've lovingly termed the country. From Shipka, we rode to a cool little monastery town Dryvanovo (or something like that,) where they clone monks. Then to Veliko Tarnovo- the old capital of Bulgaria, built on the hillsides of a crazy river gorge.
Our passing, from there, into Romania, was interesting to say the least. Starting off early, we left our campsite in a sunflower field, and hit the town of Ivanovo.. lots of people were gathered at some important looking building, with camera's and such, and according to a Columbian woman who spoke spanish with us, the "Grande Senor" was about to arrive.."el Presidente Bulgarie".. so we got to see (and photograph) the President of "the Bulge" up close and personal, in a po-dunk border town- GO FIGURE!
Entering the *real* border town- nasty nasty Ruse.. we encountered a cultural phenomenon enmasse, that we had been suspecting all along- the "Highway Ho", or roadside prostitute.. about every 100 meters... they *loved* Tim.
Crossing into Romania, alas, another nasty border town where we got charged double the price for lunch (aka Stupid Rich American Tax,) we happily discovered that we had returned to the land of good bread- yaay! And *that* my friends, makes a happy biker!
miles to date- over 1200!!!!
Our passing, from there, into Romania, was interesting to say the least. Starting off early, we left our campsite in a sunflower field, and hit the town of Ivanovo.. lots of people were gathered at some important looking building, with camera's and such, and according to a Columbian woman who spoke spanish with us, the "Grande Senor" was about to arrive.."el Presidente Bulgarie".. so we got to see (and photograph) the President of "the Bulge" up close and personal, in a po-dunk border town- GO FIGURE!
Entering the *real* border town- nasty nasty Ruse.. we encountered a cultural phenomenon enmasse, that we had been suspecting all along- the "Highway Ho", or roadside prostitute.. about every 100 meters... they *loved* Tim.
Crossing into Romania, alas, another nasty border town where we got charged double the price for lunch (aka Stupid Rich American Tax,) we happily discovered that we had returned to the land of good bread- yaay! And *that* my friends, makes a happy biker!
miles to date- over 1200!!!!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Right up the Shipka!!!
Heheh... biked across Bulgaria in about 3 days... Nessebar-Kazanlak-to the infamous Shipka pass... you go from about 400m to 1100m in 13km... not horrendous, actually it was quite nice!! The pass has some historical value- this was a decisive battle in securing Bulgarian freedom from the Turks in 1877..so it's pretty cool in that respect...
We haven't encountered any gratuitous honkers in Bulgaria's driving populace until today though- This guy in a brand new VW SUV comes racing up this steep pass... gets right up my shipka and LAYS on his horn... does the same thing to Tim (come to find out) 1 mile up the road...
.. so, me being the Texas girl that I am, I spot his SUV by a restaurant at the top of the pass... park my little shipka right next to his table, and give him the "RIGHT UP *YOUR* SHIPKA PAL" stare-down..
..hope I didn't embarrass Tim too much ;D off to Romania tomorrow...
We haven't encountered any gratuitous honkers in Bulgaria's driving populace until today though- This guy in a brand new VW SUV comes racing up this steep pass... gets right up my shipka and LAYS on his horn... does the same thing to Tim (come to find out) 1 mile up the road...
.. so, me being the Texas girl that I am, I spot his SUV by a restaurant at the top of the pass... park my little shipka right next to his table, and give him the "RIGHT UP *YOUR* SHIPKA PAL" stare-down..
..hope I didn't embarrass Tim too much ;D off to Romania tomorrow...
Monday, July 03, 2006
takin' turkey and bulgaria by storm...literally!!
so we last left of with a quick note about istanbul carpet sales men, but i didnt have time to write about the rest of turkey and the stories that went to those 4 random photos didnt post with the photos. so real quickly- that "smelly" looking guy is another bike tourer who is on his way to vietnam via "stanlandia". we took that photo before a tearful departure. we mat skot! in olimpos and rode for about 90km with him to antalya where he kepr on the coast and pipe and tim went north for egridir. we shared one of the best camp spots ever. a quiet nook 10meters above the sea overlooking crystal blue waters and the city lights. we even had our own private mediteranian beach. awesome. good luck skot!!
so from the historic down town of antalya we shot north towards egridir, a tiny lake town that the tourists seem to over look. we peddled for about 40 miles into a head wind before this random turkish guy pulled over and offered us a ride. we must have looked pretty desperate because we didnt even have to thumb for this ride. so we accepted and this nice guy who spoke absolutly no english took us about 25 miles up the road to our turn off. after showing us photos of his entire family, twice, and reviewing the maps with us, twice we parted ways. tim can still hear his voice in his head "blah blah blah blah, o.k. timmy?" thats about all tim could get from this guy, and boy did he like to talk. it was as if he thought that the more he spoke, the more we understood...not the case.
on our ways to egridir we climbed and climbed and climbed...we coined a new term: brutifull. beautifull and brutal combined. let me explain. everywhere in turkey is beautifull, but on the way to egridir we climbed for 5 miles at a 10% grade and then descended for 2 miles at a 5% grade...thats brutal!!! but all together the day was brutifull:)
when in egridir we decided to change all of our turkey plans and take a bus to cappadocia for a few nights. cappadocia is one of the tourist highlights of turkey-surreal cone like rock formations, homes built into the walls of the hills and underground cities. so we went, checked it out, took some photos, and then jumped the bus back to egridir and then to istanbul. with puffy ankles ( from all the bussing ) we hopped off the bus in istanbul and began biking into the city.
istanbul was great. pipe and I are already planning to go back. with the exception of pushy sales men it was awesome. clean, old, new, exotic. the Aya sophia nd blue mosqe were definatly not let downs and in taksim square we found some turkish hiphop:) i'll mail it to you soon bert. slip it in the mix.
from istanbul we rode some 156 miles along some of the most beautifull rolling country hillsides we have ever seen to the bulgarian border. we realized that turkey and turkish hospitality would soon be behind us and so we decided that we would not say no to any offers for tea or lunch, which has pretty much been a daily occurence. in one day we shared lunch with a family of bread makers and coffee with a town drunk and his female companions, one of which did an impression of a whirling dirvish. bravo!! we met 2 bike tourers along the way as well: one going to istanbul and another going to india!! we wish them good luck. we crossed the border on tims moms birthday. (happy 21st mom!!) and were introduced to bulgarian roads. bumpy as hell!!! more pot holes than nyc!! up and down we trundled through a bird reserve, very scenic. so now we are spending bulgarian leva and stotinki instead of turkish lera. and the fashion has gone from consertive turks to flashy east bloks.
through the reserve there were many slow uphills where the fly's feasted on pipe and tim. they were going fro our eyes, nose and ears, as if they were looking for a new home. pipe and i both agreed that we wished that we had a pet frog to sit on our shoulder to eat up the flies. but Tim wished that he had a pirate frog. kinda like a pirates parot. this frog would be dressed as a pirate nas well. pegleg and all. Tim dosent want him hopping away!!
we also rode through and lunched at the tiny village of bulgari where every june there is a "fire dancing festival" where the locals, dipping into their ancient bulgarian history, throw a huge party and walk on hot coals. we didnt see that, but we saw a picture, and when we were eating lunch this nice old lady came to sit with us and made some weird gesturing of fire and walking. so we are pretty sure that she was a fire dancer. of course:)
we finally made it to the bulgarian black sea coast and shared a huge plastic bottle of beer ( for 2.50 lv!! ) on the peacefull serene beach at our camp. and in the middle of the night, whats this? gale force winds? bullets of rain comming down in buckets?? and wait... BOOM!!!!!!!...thunder as loud as i can hear right over head?? yup. it rained and stormed all night. at one point we had a pond under the tent. watching the lights turn on and off with the flickering of lightning was pretty sweet and luckily by morning we were still relativly dry and ready for the day, but the storm wasnt ready to let go yet. we eventually jumped ship for a ratty little bungalow that was a warm welcome for our soaked bones. the tent eventually buckled under the pressure of the wind and we decided that trying to keep the walls up all day was not how we wanted to spend our day off. once in the bungalow life got much better:)
and we are off for more of the coast tomorrow. hopefully the wind stops soon, its still blowing like mad outside. we did laundry and the clothes "blew dry". seriously.
so from the historic down town of antalya we shot north towards egridir, a tiny lake town that the tourists seem to over look. we peddled for about 40 miles into a head wind before this random turkish guy pulled over and offered us a ride. we must have looked pretty desperate because we didnt even have to thumb for this ride. so we accepted and this nice guy who spoke absolutly no english took us about 25 miles up the road to our turn off. after showing us photos of his entire family, twice, and reviewing the maps with us, twice we parted ways. tim can still hear his voice in his head "blah blah blah blah, o.k. timmy?" thats about all tim could get from this guy, and boy did he like to talk. it was as if he thought that the more he spoke, the more we understood...not the case.
on our ways to egridir we climbed and climbed and climbed...we coined a new term: brutifull. beautifull and brutal combined. let me explain. everywhere in turkey is beautifull, but on the way to egridir we climbed for 5 miles at a 10% grade and then descended for 2 miles at a 5% grade...thats brutal!!! but all together the day was brutifull:)
when in egridir we decided to change all of our turkey plans and take a bus to cappadocia for a few nights. cappadocia is one of the tourist highlights of turkey-surreal cone like rock formations, homes built into the walls of the hills and underground cities. so we went, checked it out, took some photos, and then jumped the bus back to egridir and then to istanbul. with puffy ankles ( from all the bussing ) we hopped off the bus in istanbul and began biking into the city.
istanbul was great. pipe and I are already planning to go back. with the exception of pushy sales men it was awesome. clean, old, new, exotic. the Aya sophia nd blue mosqe were definatly not let downs and in taksim square we found some turkish hiphop:) i'll mail it to you soon bert. slip it in the mix.
from istanbul we rode some 156 miles along some of the most beautifull rolling country hillsides we have ever seen to the bulgarian border. we realized that turkey and turkish hospitality would soon be behind us and so we decided that we would not say no to any offers for tea or lunch, which has pretty much been a daily occurence. in one day we shared lunch with a family of bread makers and coffee with a town drunk and his female companions, one of which did an impression of a whirling dirvish. bravo!! we met 2 bike tourers along the way as well: one going to istanbul and another going to india!! we wish them good luck. we crossed the border on tims moms birthday. (happy 21st mom!!) and were introduced to bulgarian roads. bumpy as hell!!! more pot holes than nyc!! up and down we trundled through a bird reserve, very scenic. so now we are spending bulgarian leva and stotinki instead of turkish lera. and the fashion has gone from consertive turks to flashy east bloks.
through the reserve there were many slow uphills where the fly's feasted on pipe and tim. they were going fro our eyes, nose and ears, as if they were looking for a new home. pipe and i both agreed that we wished that we had a pet frog to sit on our shoulder to eat up the flies. but Tim wished that he had a pirate frog. kinda like a pirates parot. this frog would be dressed as a pirate nas well. pegleg and all. Tim dosent want him hopping away!!
we also rode through and lunched at the tiny village of bulgari where every june there is a "fire dancing festival" where the locals, dipping into their ancient bulgarian history, throw a huge party and walk on hot coals. we didnt see that, but we saw a picture, and when we were eating lunch this nice old lady came to sit with us and made some weird gesturing of fire and walking. so we are pretty sure that she was a fire dancer. of course:)
we finally made it to the bulgarian black sea coast and shared a huge plastic bottle of beer ( for 2.50 lv!! ) on the peacefull serene beach at our camp. and in the middle of the night, whats this? gale force winds? bullets of rain comming down in buckets?? and wait... BOOM!!!!!!!...thunder as loud as i can hear right over head?? yup. it rained and stormed all night. at one point we had a pond under the tent. watching the lights turn on and off with the flickering of lightning was pretty sweet and luckily by morning we were still relativly dry and ready for the day, but the storm wasnt ready to let go yet. we eventually jumped ship for a ratty little bungalow that was a warm welcome for our soaked bones. the tent eventually buckled under the pressure of the wind and we decided that trying to keep the walls up all day was not how we wanted to spend our day off. once in the bungalow life got much better:)
and we are off for more of the coast tomorrow. hopefully the wind stops soon, its still blowing like mad outside. we did laundry and the clothes "blew dry". seriously.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
