It was a great surprise and a very generous offer to be given a night in the hotel for free again. I managed to charge all my electrical equipment and the only thing I woke up to that wasn't charged was my body. I had a good sleep but after my usual routine (you know what that is by now I hope) I laid on the bed still drained at 11am. I really wanted to get going but I knew it would be another struggle.
I left the hotel at 11:30, these late starts really aren't ideal for me as I find myself rushing against daylight to put any significant mileage under my belt. My new philosophy is take my time that's true but its also very demoralising when you look how far you've gone on a map after a few days and you haven't managed the width of your little fingernail! For this reason I should get a more detailed map but anyway I cycled away from the hotel in a rare direction - Due South. I was heading straight down today, no diagonals, just as the crow flys to South Africa. On the same good highway with an extra lane for slowcoaches and me I managed a good pace without my legs feeling the burn.
This lasted an hour until the wind picked up and unfortunately for me it was a headwind. At some points I almost came to a stop when cycling down hill, a combination of headwind and literally nothing in the tank. I'm supposed to be eating around 4-5000 calories a day with the amount of miles I'm covering. Today I was nil by mouth and all my energy I consumed yesterday was lining some pipe works no doubt. I had to have a rest and maybe a small something. I chose a nice bit of grass at the front of a Total garage and went to sleep. Just a nap of 30 maybe 45 minutes I thought and that should help me with maybe 2 more hours cycling. I woke up at 3:30. I had stopped at 2!!! It did feel good though and I had an energy bar that one of the cyclists from the club gave me yesterday so I had that and was determined to put some more effort in, wherever I could find it from!!
The highway followed the dried out river basin so thankfully was pretty flat throughout. Turkey provided me with some very green, very mountainous scenes which I was not expecting. I couldn't get a perfect picture though as there were always roadworks, railway works or factories just plonked in the middle of what in some countries would call "national park" status surroundings. To add to random factories, there were a lot of plastic bottles and bags littering the edges of the roads. I couldn't help but notice the contents of most the bottles revealing to me that there are some very dehydrated lorry drivers in Turkey! Ray Mears recommends a light straw colour which is what I aim for but in recent days my morning colour has been a mix between common fox fur and Irn-Bru! The bottles were filled with liquid of very similar coloration also.
As I wasn't stopping to buy food and had no real energy to ride I chose not to speak to anyone today. One man called me over as I was waiting at a traffic light. He was sat with about 15 others on the terraces of a cafe and offered me tea. It was just after my sleep so I declined but said thankyou. They're tea mad over here! I thought the Brits were supposed to be the stereotypical Tea drinkers but in Turkey, its almost a substitute for oxygen. I never had tea in England, too much effort for very little flavour. If the Turks offer me an orange juice/squash then I'm all theirs, I used to drink squash neat out of a tumbler when I was younger and pretend it was whiskey. Tea however, and then sit their for 10 minutes to let it cool down, ill just carry on thanks.
So today was a very quiet day, I didn't even talk to myself! The only time I said something other than no thanks was when I was approached by the dreaded random dog, two in fact. They were up ahead a good 20 metres and as I was going so slow at the time I could put Marco's theory seamlessly into practice. I didn't throw Nigel down, I just slowed almost to a stop and walked along whilst still straddling him (there was no way I was mustering the energy to get off the bike completely) I puffed out my chest like a dominant silverback and gave the two of them the coaches/teacher stare. It's been a while since I've done any coaching but I still know how to crack out the stare that makes kids freeze without a noise leaving my mouth. Boom! The dogs got the stare combined with a long drawn out "Noooo!" and boy did they cower. Barking was stopped immediately, I thought one of them was even welling up. I walked past them like Eric Cantona in his prime. As I cycled away I threw out a "YES Marco! Get In!" and that's pretty much all i said all day.
I found a great camping spot off the highway down an unused track and felt for the first time that I was back in the bush camping game. It seems ages since I've had to find a place to sleep away from civilisation but I love the outdoors and was ready for a bit of nature today. In the end I managed to cycle nearly 60 miles in 4.5 hours so was really happy with how I scraped the barrel today despite the very tough start.
I really hope tomorrow brings a healthy start, a restored body and an increase in confidence when passing gas! That's all I'm asking for!
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