Riding East Anatolia
Days 16, 17 and 18, 5600 km
Day 16 - The Bros Motorcycles crew just dropped a message this morning saying our bikes won't be ready until tomorrow, Wednesday. So, it looks like we get another service day here in Erzurum! Perfect chance to check out Erzurum Castle and the Double Minaret in the city center. We grabbed our freshly cleaned motorcycle gear from the laundry and strolled through the lively streets of the inner city to the Kepez Bath. The hammam was on the agenda for tonight. Two men scrubbed, washed, and massaged us on stone tables with soap and water. With our loincloths wrapped around the hips we then moved into the steam bath area to rinse off with warm water. Unlike Roman or Greek baths, we washed ourselves with running water instead of immersing in standing water since this is a requirement of Islam. And so we did.
Day 17 - Back on the bikes! It feels like home as we settle back on our DRs, heading eastward. We’ve decided to make our way to the mountains in the far north-east corner of Anatolia, near the Black Sea. We anticipated high mountain plateaus, but instead, we were greeted by red sandstone and endless canyons, making us feel as if we were riding through Arizona or Nevada! We followed the winding paths and tunnels along the Çoruh stream, which flows in the same direction as us, eventually leading into Georgia. Upon reaching the city of Artvin, we met the adventure riders
(thank you for the coffee man, and yes, we were a bit jealous of your splendid Husky 901!) and Caglayan (thanks for allowing us to camp in this amazing spot!) and spent the evening chatting with the incredibly friendly Furkan, who is traveling the world by foot with just his backpack and tent.
Day 18 - Georgia! Our destination today. At least, that’s what we thought. We made our way to TET Turkey section 11 North, which took us through some incredible canyons, climbing higher and higher towards the Arsie plateau that borders Georgia. We were close to military security zones here. The view though is probably the most breathtaking we’ve seen so far. It’s almost a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding Anatolian mountains. We were just about ready to pass the peak… when we hit snow. A show stopper for our heavy adventure bikes. After an hour of digging a path through the snowfield and laying stones to give our knobby tires some grip, we made it through! Only to encounter another snow field some 500m later. This one was impassable. People had warned us that even May is too early to cross the Turkish mountain passes. We had to turn back, but with the delays caused by the snow, it was too late to reach Georgia… and too late to descend. We braced ourselves for a night with just hot tea and began searching for a camping spot. Someone must have put a good word in for us… down in the village of Pinari, my bike fell and Octan, the village head came to help. One thing leads to another: Orkan offered us food and led us to a hut in Balık Gölü where we could spend the night next to a warming wood stove rather then freezing in our tents and fight the Anatolian brown bears. We started frying the provided eggs and bread and called it a day. Beautiful Turkey. Good people. Georgia will have to wait.
Day 18 cont - There’s nothing quite like cooking fried bread and eggs in a cabin nestled in the Turkish mountains, especially knowing that Georgia lies just beyond the peaks. We feel as if we've been transported to a different corner of the globe, far from our home, having already traveled over 5000 km from Brussels to the borders of the Caucasus . It’s time to whip up a simple meal and add some more wood to the stove. This is what adventure motorcycling is truly about. Being out here, relying solely on what you carry on your bike and on the kindness of strangers, concentrating on the essentials, cooking together, and being marvelled by the beautiful surroundings. We make some tea and then it’s time to hit the sack.
