Up and over the Taurus Mountains

I was lucky to find a last minute couchsurfer host in Tasucu when I arrived with the ferry at about 11 at night. And since Tasucu is a small town I managed to find my way through the dark. The next day continued on towards Marsin. The road was flat and I had a tailwind for the first time in a while, so I had a nice bike ride to too Mersin in record speed. The people that I had stayed with in Alanya had arranged for someone that I could stay with in Mersin. On my way in to the center of town I met two other cyclists who showed me the way to a bike shop so that I could by some new brake pads and have a look at the chain. I stayed there and waited for the guy that I was staying with to show up. I had tea and met some nice people while I was there. One man gave me his phone number and told me to call if I needed anything. At about seven a clock the guy showed up and told me that he was too busy to host me. But he bought me dinner and then showed me a place where he thought I could set up my tent for the night. It was a narrow park between the water and a big street. There were a lot of people in the park and I didn’t really feel comfortable setting up camp there. So instead I called Ulas, the nice guy that I had met in the bike shop and he was happy to host me. I cycled on for a while and found his place where I was welcomed by him and his family. I had a great time with them, got some advice on what roads to take and had nice conversations in to the night.

The road between Mersin and Tarsus was really bad. A lot of traffic and most of it was big trucks going by fast. But after passing Tarsus I cycled on a smaller much nicer road that headed up towards the mountains. I cycled on for a while up the hill before setting up camp on a little hill. The “road” up to where I set up my tent was rocky and bad, but it was worth it and I had a great night’s sleep and prepared for the big hills in the morning. The road would go up to 1370 meter, but I thought it would we worse than what it was. The road was good all the way up and the weather was great with sunshine and a light breeze in my back. I met some other cyclists on the way, but they were not going all the way up. But it was nice to have some company for a while. And the funny thing was that they had heard of me through Ulas since they were also working at the university.

I reached the top sooner than expected and from there the road went down for a while towards the town of Pozanti. I set up my tent not far from there in a valley. It was hard to find a nice flat surface in a place where the road goes through a valley since there is not much space on the sides. The only problem with the place I was sleeping at was that the railway was just next to it with many trains passing by. And it was also the coldest night in the tent for me so I had to put on extra clothes and a hat for the first night.

The next day I thought it would be easy cycling. But the road just kept going up more and more. The scenery was just beautiful with the big snow covered mountain so close. By midday I was at the top at 1600 meters with snow by the side of the road. And after that it was downhill to the Anatolian Plateau and mostly flat landscape with mountains surrounding it.  

After a cold night in the tent it was great to know that I had a couchsurfer to stay with in Bor. I arrived there earlier than him and waited in town for a while. While I was there more and more people came by and after a while I was surrounded by curious people who were trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing. Some of them knew some words in English, but not at all enough to have a conversation. But it didn’t stop us from having a nice time and as soon as I finished my tea more was on the way. In the afternoon I met up with my host and could wash off three days of climbing uphill and sleeping in a nice and warm couch.