From Lake Bafa we continued southwards to Bodrum. Empty secondary roads.. beautiful scenery.. we lost our way... some extra kilometers uphill... no problem for us of course!
..a small tea house at the summit. Albert chilling out in the sun, enjoying his book. Very rewarding.
While I had to repair a puncture. Pushing up the bike uphill because Albert had the pump is no joke..! ; )
Datça. Datça is situated almost at the tip of a peninsula, where the Aegean Sea meets the Mediteranean. It is a one way road so cycling there would mean backtracking 70km up down, up, down, up, dpwn. Even though looking back, the scenery was so nice and there was almost no traffic at all, maybe it would have been worth it. But our knees would have different opinions about that, I guess. We decided to take a ferry directly from Bodrum to Datça and and cycle from there instead.
There were only two ferries per week. Still three days to go. The whole town seems to be laid out for mainly tourists. At this time of the year, the town is a ghost town. Good for us, we enjoyed walking around in the narrow cobble stone streets between white houses. We pitched our tent behind some empty apartments in the middle of the town. A friendly Turkish couple invited us to stay at their place for two more nights.
We don't get too lucky with ferries. Another thunderstorm. The ferry was cancelled. No buses to Datça that would take our bikes and the rain was coming. But we get lucky with the people we meet. Servet, a man from Datça who Albert had been in contact with per e-mail for some time (while looking for eco-farms) was expecting us. When we told him the ferry was cancelled, he gave us instructions by phone, advising us about bus companies and time schedules.. he called us every hour or so to keep track of us!
We were very much looking forward to meeting Servet in person, so finally we hopped on a bus to Mugla in the evening. The rain was pouring. Mugla was only 80km or so away, about a third of the way to Datca but at least we felt like we were going somewhere and finding solutions. In fact, it turned out to be more than worth it. We pitched up the tent right next to the bus station and cycled to town in the morning for breakfast. Mugla is situated at an altitude of 660m, at the slopes of a flat-topped rocky hill that you can hike up and from where you can overlook the vast scenery with snowcovered mountains at the horizon. Mugla's old town -like Bodrum's, but just a lot more authentic- has narrow streets and all the houses are white.
The day was so beautiful that we decided to ride our bikes in the afternoon. Down to the coast and to Marmaris, from where the road to Datça would start:
Wild donkeys that were on the side of the road.. Beautiful, healthy and strong looking donkeys. I believe they were running away from us but Albert is convinced that they were just coming along (because they liked us?).
The ride was hard. Neverending ups and downs. We thought we could get some food on the way but there was simply nothing. So our lunch consisted of carrots and organges. It had already gotten dark and started to rain when we finally arrived in Datça. Servet came to meet us on his bike. A gray bearded man with high-tech bicycle outfit, "to celebrate that you are here now", he said and brought out a bottle of liquor "and this one for the energy." He held out a dried fig for each of us.
We spent some enjoyable days in Daçta. Unfortunately, the weather was not too good and we couldn't go to the beauttiful spots that must be spread around the peninsula and people had told us not to miss.. but we joined Servet in his daily routine of having a simit (sesame ring) and tea by the seaside and simply enjoying the view.
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