The hotel was not for free, they made us pay!! We were incredulous, but in true British style did not complain...I guess we have been very lucky so far and it certainly didn't break the bank despite the luxury. The day perked up later, though, when the road became flat and it has been ever since!!! All my dreams have come true!
Once the morning of hills from Gerze were over, we flew to a little place called Derekoy we were doing 26km/h on the flat it felt amazing. In the morning I didn't think we would make it past 80km...and we did 100km that day.
It was dusk when we finally reached a reasonable place to camp, on the beach. We set up camp and had supper, Humphrey was settled in his sleeping bag and I was on the phone, when I saw a dog. Panic struck I rushed back to the tent, the dog by then interested and heading in our direction, I brandished my rolling pin and tried to make myself as big as possible! Thankfully the dog was a friendly one and brought with him his owner, Hamit, who happened to speak great English...What a turn up for the books. Hamit is a true eccentric, we exchanged numbers and as we were ringing his it started playing lovely classical music, he said that most of the time he doesn't answer his phone because he likes listening to the music too much!! We chatted to him for a long time and then he invited us for breakfast the next morning.
We woke early, 0615, and Hamit came and took us to his home. A place with a view of the sea and very strangely an array of ancient pottery on the balcony, all dating back to Byzantine, Roman or Greek times and all registered with the government! Breakfast was wonderful, he knows his food. Two types of honey one of which was honey comb, beautiful strawberry jam, three cheeses, and the most delicious halva I have tasted. Every bit had a story or was locally produced. There was also brown bread on the table, the first time I had seen it in Turkey and a real luxury. Hamit seems to know everyone and he spent alot of time trying to get in touch with some local press friends of his. We set off not really thinking much of it and continued to enjoy the flat road.
We were just outside Samsun, the next big city when Hamit called and said someone was coming to meet us. A very bizarre few minutes flashed past as we were asked alot of questions about why we were doing the trip and then asked to pose for photos, (these will follow shortly). There are not very representative as we are cycling side by side and we both have huge grins on our faces!
After our brief media interlude we realised we still had a long way to go to our next stop so we put our heads down and cycled to Unye, making it a 120km day. Both very tired and hungry we ate and then went to bed.
It's bed for me now. We are in Trabzon at the moment on a rest day and we are two days from Georgia, we are both looking forward to a change. I will update more later...
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