6.05.2001 Cappadocia - Final Preparations

Rosal writes...

A storm breaks over Cappadocia...lightening veins the blackened sky casting the already eery landscape into even more striking colours. We had felt the force of the oncoming storm in the form of a headwind - the bane of cyclists. Riding with our fully loaded tandem from the little pottery village of Avanos, we experienced a small taste of what is yet to come.

Since we touched down in Turkey our first priority has been to shed some kilos - to the bike that is (hopefully nature will take its course with ourselves over the next few thousand kilometres!) Loading up the bike in Istanbul airport we had a very shakey beginning to our 7000km ride. Now we seem to have the wobbles under some degree of control but we are still carrying a heavy load having not had the heart to jettison many excess items. I'm sure that will change after our first long ascent. Some seasoned tourers we are!

Cooker, sleeping mats and bags, tent, spares, desert clothes, mountain clothes, wet weather clothes, guide books, phrase books, history books, cameras, cables, batteries, chargers, adapters, Psion computers, mini discs...the list goes on. Carried in a full outfit of watertight bright yellow Ortlieb panniers it is quite a striking sight.

Christened with a sprinkle of Cappadocian wine, the tandem has finally been named. Referred to as The Limo by various Turks on the trip so far, we couldn't go past such an apt title for what will essentially be our wandering home for the next four months. It has received nodding approval from circles of veiled Turkish women chatting on the streets, as well as with Turkish men sipping chai and waiting for the next call of the azans.

We had a bit of a scary ride on a multi-lane highway out to the Otogar (bus station) in Istanbul, but luckily the tandem fit smoothly into the belly of the big luxury coach that whisked us here to Central Turkey. Besides a couple of precarious moments in traffic-ridden Istanbul and a few necessary tweaks to the bike, we are itching to cycle on our way... after our little Cappadocian holiday.