Having done 900 kilometers out of 1,200, we had about 300 km to go for the following day. There was a bit of a misunderstanding, we discussed we would meet at 7 am, Ella thought we would leave then, I meant the meeting time for breakfast, which is included in most Turkish hotels. Well, this was not the only misunderstandings we have had, but then I don´t speak Russian at all, Ella does not speak English too well, we often communicated via Google Translate.

Mountains

We were on the road by 7:30 and riding on a wide 3-.by-3 lane autobahn, we soon reached had our first view of the Mediterranean.

First view of the Mediterranean

We then rode by some castles on the coast, but did not stop there.

Tasucu

I was full of energy,. We strolled around, Ella wanted to sit next to the shore. I found a shop that rented bikes. I got a pretty crappy bicycle (the store owner was Russian for a change...), but it cost next to nothing, less than €3 for 4 hours, but it would end up costing me more. I told Ella that we meet at the ticket shop at 5 pm, where we had to check-in anyhow.

On the way into town, I saw a large castle on a hill in a neighboring town, called Silifke, so I headed for it. I rode back on the main road, then took a steep uphill road, Google Maps leading the way. I got up to a small village on a rather bumpy road, where I hailed a motorcyclist, him confirming I was on the correct road. Here I noticed something unmistakable - my read tire was losing air, the third time on this trip. Oh darn, I decided to push ahead, get closer to the castle, then figure out what to do.

Now I was riding with a completely flat back tire, that uphill, very unpleasant. To make matters worse, the chain kept being thrown off and getting stuck next to the frame. Frustrating! I was only a kilometer away from the castle, which until then I had not seen. After a curve in the road, it showed up right in front of me...was impressive. Behind me were the remains of a Roman viaduct.

Men playing Okey

I checked the exchange rates at banks, they were not stellar - and knew what to do...in front of a restaurant, I asked where the best rate would be, they said if I made the exchange with them...true, I got a very good rate.

From others, I heard the castle was closed due to renovation works, but with my crappy bike, with the chain being thrown off, I thought the best course of action would be to return to Tusucu. It was around 4 pm that I reached the bike shop, where I scolded the store owner for renting bikes in such condition. He took my comments very stoically.

Next to the bike shop, at a restaurant, I met on their bike from Lebanon, they had been riding from France, riding through Italy, Greece and now Turkey. They were doctors, doing on charity ride - and were trying to find a ferry to Lebanon, as Syria is not the place nowadays for biking...

I reunited with Ella and we went to get our boarding cards at check-in, with departure still hours away. We walked a bit, next to "pirate" ships, this place must have a lot of tourists in the summer - now it was rather quiet.

Pirates

We went for some groceries and some goodies for the crossing, at around 9 pm, we went to the port. Wow, have you ever tried going from Turkey to Northern Cyprus? Not the most fun thing to do.

Firat, we had to enter the port, this was not too hard. Then park the car and wait and wait. An officer of sorts told us the ferry was delayed, so the border control would start later. An hour later, we had to line up for passport control, went rather quick. Then there was another line, which was traffic police check, in Turkey, there are section controls everywhere, so if the system finds you were too fast, you have to pay a fine - without that, no boarding. Luckily, we were not registered, but there was a long line of people lining up - I asked an English couple, they told me it was a bearable amount, around €20. There was then a customs line, where they asked for the car papers and produced some sort of a document. The worst part about this procedure was that there was no explanation of the order of things, we just stood in whichever queue, not knowing what we were lining up for. Then we entered the car, a customs official checked our papers again, then a policemen if we had everything, then we had to park the car just ahead of boarding.

Boarding was interesting - we drove onto the ferry, then in batches of three, they were lowered to the deck below on a gigantic elevator. The bottom picture below is us between two decks.

My private deck

The scheduled departure time of 11 pm came and passed, I wanted to watch the departure, but even an hour later there was no change, so I decided to retire. I think it was around 2:30 that I woke up for a bit, we were already on our way, but the lights of Tasucu were still very much visible. With the crossing taking about six hours, but Cyprus being an hour ahead, I guesstimated we would be there only around 10 am, local time.

Here is a quick look at the map of the day.