Trabzon to Cayeli - 100km

I had another wonderful breakfast, Humphrey went for an egg mcmuffin and MaccyD's! We set off, with regret, at 0930, we were both sad to be leaving the hostel. Our target for that day had been Rize , amazingly the kilometres seemed to fly by and we arrived there at 1430, 75km in five hours! We set off to find somewhere to stay but we both took an instant dislike to the place, I think it may have been the constant calls of 'where are you from', 'what is my name?' (I don't know, what is your name?!!) from little children on bikes. We eventually decided to push on to the next town and made it to Cayeli, we had decided to camp that evening to try and make the remains of our Turkish lira last until we got to Georgia. Humphrey got another puncture just outside Cayeli, so we limped into town. We had been told to ask the Jandarma about a suitable place to camp, which we did with no result, so I left Humphrey reparing his broken bike on the side of the road to try and ask the police. They also had no idea but suggested we go and ask the local hotel if they had space in their garden...I pedalled off as fast as my little legs could carry me, the sun was due to set soon so we needed to find somewhere. I arrived at the smartest hotel we had seen so far on the trip, and I tried to make myself look a little more respectable, but the oil stain on my t-shirt was not coming off and my hair had a serious helmet problem. I went in and tried to explain the situation, when they finally understood they took me round to the scrubland at the back of the hotel out of view of the hotel windows and just underneath the main road...at least it was private and if we put on our best togs we might be able to use the loo!

I raced off to get Humphrey, who had attracted a crowd of little girls and boys. We went back to the hotel and the chap rushed out and said 'no camping, the ground is very bad'!!! My face fell, but then he said, 'but you can stay in the hotel...for free'!!! Woohoo, we were a little cautious as we had been bitten before by this free hotel offer befor, but this seemed a little more genuine. He led us up and showed us into the little room with twin beds and an ensuite shower! It was luxury...when he closed the door we both did a little dance of joy, and then went to watch the sunset from the roof, as I think our rooms were the servants quarters so in the attic! What a stroke of luck, but it got even better, the man came up again and told us to come down and help ourselves to the buffet supper!

At supper we met another cyclist who was coming to the end of his tour of Armenia and Georgia. John was an absolute wealth of knowledge, he had literally toured the world and was now tackling those forgotten corners like the Caucasus. We chatted to him all evening whilst stuffing our faces with the most delicious food we had had so far in Turkey, it is not known for its fine cuisine.