86 | Cycling World
January 2017
11Stage
Sivrihisar – Gaziantep , Turkey
( 12 – 22 Dec )
Total miles cycled : 3,250 ( 5,230km ) watery landscape , barely discernible through the gloom . And then I get my first puncture – swiftly followed by my second .
Each puncture takes nearly half an hour to fix , my fingers numb and swollen like frozen chipolatas . By the time I ' ve finished , I ' m feeling particularly grumpy and go into a nearby cafe to warm up . Here I ' m given free tea and a pair of ( much-needed ) earmuffs by the kind owner , and meet R , a 49-yearold veteran tour cyclist from Washington DC , who cycled here from Budapest . R is a friendly chap , and we decide to ride together to a pleasant , affordable hotel down the road run by the Turkish Automobile Association .
We part ways the next day near Tuz Gölü , Turkey ' s vast salt lake . I continue to Şereflikoçhisar , a grey , overdeveloped urban smudge that proves as unattractive as it is unpronounceable , and leave the next day for Ürgüp , Cappadocia . I then get another puncture , realise I ' ve run out of patches , fail to find a shop selling any – and , knowing I ' ll now never arrive before dusk , jump on a bus .
It ' s a comfortable journey through craggy , russet-red terrain , and I ' m picked up at the end by U , my Couchsurfing host . U is a cheery , balding 30-something , who immediately wins my heart by whisking me out for a glorious kebab feast . As we eat , he confirms my belief that Turkey is a country irreconcilably divided . ' You say Erdogan ' s a liar ; they say he ' s fixed the roads . You say he ' s a dictator ; they say he ' s strong . You say he ' s destroyed the legal system ; they say he ' s created stability . It ' s impossible .'
I leave U the next morning to spend a few days in Goreme . It ' s a magical , otherworldly place , clustered with phallic , rose-tinted ' fairy chimneys ' formed 30 million years ago , from the ash of three volcanoes : a kind of Narnia meets Disneyland meets Spearmint Rhino . As it ' s close to Christmas , I treat myself to a snug guest-house run by an attentive , swarthy fellow called O , who grills a mean kebab feast each evening and emits a reassuringly gentle hint of lechery .
First on my itinerary is a quad biking tour , which I get for a huge discount as tourism is down 80 % due to recent terrorist bombings and unrest . The brooding M takes me out : a lapsed Muslim who smokes , drinks and dates . He is a great fan of Erdogan . ' I used to wake up and my money was worth half what it was the day before ,' he says . ' Now I can afford things .'
What is Heaven like in Islam , I ask , thinking of
86
- EAncient cave dwellings of Cappadocia