4651km greetings from Samson

Hi again,

Time for a new update. We survived the trip from Safranbolu to the coast of the black see ;) n the end the map had fooled us and the highest point of that trip was only at about 1100 meters. The climb to that point was very doable and it turned out to be quite an easy day in the end. We arrived at the coast at a town called Amasra. It's an ancient town with quite a bit of history. It has been an important port that dates back to the Byzantine times which is still visible by the 3 meter thick wall scattered around in big parts of the city. From Amasra we followed the popular and scenic route all the way to Sinop. We came to love and hate this route at the same time. Its a very beautiful route with the most amazing views from the top of the hills. But it's also been quite heavy since every time you reach a top, the road takes you back all the way to the sea level. Most climbs have percentages between 6-18 percent making it not easy at all. One day we covered about 2277 altitude meters in a single day. t seems we are getting more and more used to the elevation in the terrain. On this route we actually met another cyclist (a very rare thing here in Turkey) who cycled all the way from Beijing to Turkey ( http://beijing2paris.blogspot.com/ ) and plans to move on to Europe as well. So at least we are not the only ones battling the hills n Turkey here ;)

We stopped and slept in a few little harbour towns on the way (Cide, nebolu and some others) and managed to reach Sinop two days ago. Sinop is, lke Amasra another harbour town with Byzantine history. The walls here are even more beautiful then in Amasra and also more intact. Reason for this is that when the Ottomans took over the rule of the town they decided to develop Samsun as their major port (because of better land connections). Leaving most of Sinop intact. In Amasra we could clearly see Ottoman influences after the takeover, but not n Sinop. t was a bit quite though in Sinop and it seems that the holiday season is now truly over. Lots of shops, but hardly any customers left. Meaning also that the Hotels we can find are getting a little cheaper.

By now we actually reached Samsun. We managed to cover the 174km from Sinop to Samsun in a single day. Almost as much as our day in Romania but not a record yet! The terrain was actually quite friendly on this route with only one serious hill and a nice little wind in the back for the entire day. Samson is a quite large town 475k inhabitants, but it does not have a lot to offer from a tourist perspective. We therefore don't plan to stay here much longer and will be moving on eastwards tomorrow after a single day of rest. The next goal will be Trabzon and after that we will move on to Erzurum, where we have been told it will be a bit colder. Well we can't have this beautiful weather all the time suppose ;) We only had one day of rain on the black seacoast so far.... For all you optimists out there expecting us to be in ran already, check your map :) !! This country is huge and it will take us at least 2 or 3 weeks more to make it to their border ;)

Our main worry for the moment is the bike. Lets hope the bike makes it in one piece because by now the chain, cassette and front chainrings are getting ready for a replacement. And that after only 4500 km :( We are currently looking into maybe ordering something from internet, because no bike shop here has Shimano LX-parts and the best we've seen so far is about 21 gears of an inferior brand. Its gonna be hard to reach Esfahan on these components we think. suppose time will tell and we'll find a solution for sure.

Bye Bye for now from Samsun
Erik en Tjeerd