Today we started a bit slow. HJ woke up thinking about the passport and if the Turkmenistan visa was going to be in there. As soon as Hakan was awake, they called the DHL distribution center, figured out where the passport was going to be at and went there soon after breakfast. Scott stayed back to catch up on the blog and load some pictures.
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| Today's breafast stop...sun in the background... |
The weather was rainy when we awoke, but we could see that the storm that we had been following (or that had been following us) was passing. By afternoon, the sky cleared and it was looking like a good day of riding...
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| View from Hakan's apartment towards Taksim...waiting for the guys to come back with the passport |
The guys finally returned about 3pm with the passport...no Turkmenistan visa...this deflated us. We really wanted to travel through this police state...Looks like we will need to take a different route (Baku-Aktau, Kazakhstan then down to Uzbekistan).
As we were loading up the bikes, Charles Erkelens (EMBA friend) called to let us know he was coming our way. He was in town with some friends and took advantage to say 'hello' and 'see you soon'.
We were off, sun on our backs and some clouds on the horizon. Our stop is Bolu and we would be arriving at night...something we try to avoid. We eventually caught up to the rain...appropriate since we have had rain every day since we started except for the Sofia-Istanbul leg.
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| Thanks for coming to see us off Charles! |
We arrived into Bolu and Mr. Tom Tom (despite downloading the Turkey maps) does not have any indication of city streets in any town - super annoying. We stopped and asked a couple of youngsters if they could indicate where the hotel was...after a few minutes, we were on our way with our new Bolu posse to the Remay Hotel. Tomorrow would be another long day of riding...hopefully we will not get more rain...
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| Getting directions from our new posse - we eventually made it perfectly to the hotel thanks to the new crew |
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| We had a little help from these bricks to get our bikes up on the sidewalk to park for the night |
Sorry to hear about Turkmenistan. What route are you taking? Following Black Sea coast up through Georgia, cutting across Russia and follow Caspian Sea coast into Kazakhstan to Aktau?
ReplyDeleteThat is a bummer no Visa for Turkmenistan! Wouldn't a little money help you to get one at the border?
ReplyDeleteHave a fun, safe and dry trip thru Turkey!
Eric, we will take a ferry from Baku on to Aktau directly. It takes about 2 days. From there, we will ride to Beyneu then down into Uzbekistan to Nukus.
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