We have arrived in the north of Turkey. We have slowly wound our way through the mountain roads and the Black Sea spreads out in front of us. It's rough and grey and very windy, plus it's raining again for a long time. And it's going to rain for a few days. Luca's friends from St. Gallen should have received a parcel in Ordu. Unfortunately, it arrived when they were already far over the mountains (ok, in this case the border to Georgia). So we pick it up for them. They travel by bike and Milan's sleeping mat broke at some point. After some linguistic confusion with the parcel receiver, we end up with it in our luggage and enjoy the coast. Or so we thought. What we didn't know, however, is that the Black Sea coast east of us is completely built up. The highway bangs towards Georgia and on it countless trucks. Standing on the beach actually means sleeping next to the main road. Peace and quiet are out of the question. So we quickly make a detour into the mountains.
Flying above arab tourism
Uzungöl is supposed to be "the Switzerland of Turkey". Somehow, every country has its own internal Switzerland. We want to meet Metin here, a tandem pilot we met in Kayseri. The small village is in the middle of the mountains, next to a lake. Very beautiful to look at, but apart from the nature, hardly anything here reminds us of Switzerland. It is infinitely touristy. We wonder if families really still live here among all the resorts and hotels. Probably not. There is an incredible amount of hustle and bustle. Compared to Ölüdeniz, however, nothing here is written in pounds or English, but in Arabic.
Many tourists come from the Arabian Peninsula, because the place is quite high and is a pleasant place to cool down for many in summer. We park our car next to the amusement park and get to know the different pilots over tea. Shortly afterwards Metin joins us. There is no flying today, the clouds hang much too low. We eat together and arrange a flight for the next day. In the morning, Luca is served a typical breakfast of the region: it's called muhlama and is probably the Turkish version of a fondue: melted cheese, butter and polenta. Our Swiss guy glows with happiness.
Then we drive up the mountain, but the fog is getting thicker. The clouds hang over the small town and it takes quite a long time until we are finally above them. The view here is fantastic, but flying into a valley where you can't see the ground is just too dangerous. You don't do that. In fact, it would be stupid... But we can take off after all at a low-lying take-off site. The flight is short and cold, but beautiful. Only at the landing it is a bit strange again, we have to reduce altitude above a hotel and watch out not to land in the lane of the go-karts. But we both make it.
We meet friends!
The weather doesn't get any better over the next few days... so we just crack a few more hazelnuts together, exchange numbers and set off again.
On the next day we meet Daniela and Milan in Findikli. On the one hand, to drop off the parcel, on the other hand to have lunch together, but also to exchange ideas with someone from home again. We've been following their journey for a while now, and it's really nice to suddenly find ourselves face to face. Luca and I also want to do our next workaway in this village - on a hazelnut farm. However, the owner writes us that they are not there at the moment and we can only start the next day. So we spontaneously decide to load Daniela and Milan into our car (they came by bus) and drive to Georgia for a beer.
The chaotic part of the journey: in the early morning hours of the same day, a rockfall occurred that covered everything: a truck that had been in the queue for the border crossing for days, its driver and part of the road. This blocked everything and we had to take a small mountain road, which suddenly became the main traffic route. The precipices, which only allowed us to brake and drive through at 20km/h, were ignored by the locals as usual and we were constantly overtaken. Respect...
a little bit of Georgia
Crossing the border was relatively easy (Milan and Daniela had to cross on foot - good thing, because we were checked to see if anyone was hiding in the car), we bought car insurance online and quickly tried to get to grips with the new money. From 18 Lira = 1 Euro we now had 3 Lari = 1 Euro. Ok, sounds doable. That's settled, now let's go into town: Milan and Daniela are currently sleeping in Batumi. We park the bus next to the Radisson (fancy fancy) and enjoy a warm shower and really delicious bread in their hostel. And then we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of Batumi's nightlife. In one bar we get to know the Georgian wine culture (highly recommended) and in the next one we find bad, much too loud music, drunk, young tourists from Switzerland, a much too small puppy and the obligatory, racist-like harassment when the bar closes. Everything that goes with "going out" and that we hadn't experienced for months.
unexpected changes
Batumi was a nice change, but we want to be somewhere again for a while, where we can settle a bit. And an eco-house where you can pick hazelnuts sounds excellent. So we happily drive back across the border the next morning. Today, however, there is much more going on. Bianca has to get out of the car and walk across and then wait almost 2h for Luca. And then the surprise: In Georgia we had no internet. You don't need it all the time, we thought. Well, for once it would have been quite practical: The workaway host contacted us sometime in the morning and cancelled. Private problems. We call him and it sounds like they are in a break-up. That sucks of course. For everyone.
What now? We don't fancy the coast here any more, so we turn around and head back to the border. On the way we pick up two backpackers from Poland. They started in Poland 7 days ago. They do everything by hitch hiking and want to go to Azerbaijan. We are impressed how quickly they are on their way, but also tell them that the country borders to Azerbaijan are closed. This confuses them. After the car has crossed the border again, we pick them up once more and drive to Batumi together. There are many other campervans of all shapes and sizes on our site. However, there are rarely any smaller than ours. More like massive explorers, from Land Rovers to trucks, everything is there, mainly from German-speaking countries. We join them, get to know a few people who have been on the road for ages, and yet apparently have not been able to shed certain racisms. It's amazing how people can travel the world for years and never question or even become aware of basic colonial ideas and Eurocentric attitudes... Well, we try to move on anyway and soon make a new plan...
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