I did read on the website that the Turkish port opens only at 8 am, so the captain had all the time in the world to maneuver his ship so that the hatch opens not before eight. We were greeted with a nice, but somewhat cloudy, sunrise.

I watched the docking from behind the bridge (the place where the ship is steered from) - when I saw something funny "going on" on the window of the deck - it was a kitty playing around with the plants. I tried taking a photo of it, alas, only its tail can be seen. During the docking maneuver, the door of the deck opened up, it came running out, behind a female third officer - the cat trying its best not to have to return to the deck.

The houses of Tasucu showed up...and the ship next to us was probably transposed from the computer game Minecraft...anyhow, this was probably the ugliest pain job on a ship I have ever seen.

We were one of the first to board - and one of the last to leave the belly of the ship. After arrival, the majority of the passengers had left the ship, knowing the wait would be long, I sneaked into one of the cabins and took a nice hot shower, it did wonders!

Now came the enigmatic border control procedure, somehow we figures out where to go to, it was anything but evident. Passport control, car papers, customs clearance. It did not last all too long, when we were done, we realized now the physical customs check came, we had to take out Ella´s suitcase, place it on the ground, open it - really, for nothing. Oh well.

In contrast to me in my tent, Ella had not slept through the night, so I was amazed that she was ready to begin our 1,200 km journey back to Batumi, of course only after a compulsory café. For the fifth time on this trip, I had to adjust the watch, back to Turkey time, it now being two hours ahead of Vienna.

We took pretty much the same roads back, they were even more scenic and/or interesting than on the way there. I sometimes felt we were traveling on the surface of the moon...

Chapeau to Ella, she drove over 700 kilometers that day, starting at around 10 am, finishing around ten hours later, we even crossed a mountain pass (something we wanted to do during daylight, but there were more passed waiting for us the following day.). When the evening fell, we almost hit a couple of stray foxes on the pavement. Our stop was in a small town called Suşehri, where the hotel was outright crappy. The electric plug was hanging out of the wall, the heater was brooked, the bathroom tiny, the walls thin - still, both of us slept quite well.