It was a lovely day, empty roads,with interesting places en route and we called into a petrol station for fuel. The man there was lovely and our arrival clearly made a difference to him and his chickens,
so he made us tea, which we accepted.
No sooner had we done so, than several old men appeared from nowhere and sat down with us, chatting away in Turkish and passing the time of day. So we spent an hour there with them, having a great conversation that nobody understood but everybody enjoyed.
We got back on the road after about an hour, rode another 60 kms or so, then my bike gave up the ghost again. Right on top of a mountain, with oil spewing forth just as before.
What now? This was fixed yesterday. Not happy, even after some roadside coffee.
So good old Mehmet phoned a friend in Sinop and an hour later, two blokes arrived, put our bikes in their pickup and drove us 40kms to Sinop, the most northerly point in Turkey, on the Black Sea.
And what a nice place it is. A long skinny peninsula with sea on three sides and tremendous views of the north Turkish coastline.
One of the blokes turned out to be Kadir, the younger brother of the motorbike shop owner Atilla. (Its called Hun motorcycles - how cool is that?) We spent all afternoon with them pulling the bike to bits and then stayed over at their family apartment. What a nice family they are and they made us so welcome, fed us, and generally looked after us.
Two small nieces were there too, trying to teach us a bit of Turkish which we couldn't grasp and which they found hilarious.
Its just this sort of thing that makes trips - the problems and set backs that turn into opportunities to meet people and go places that would otherwise have been missed.What could possibly be in store for tomorrow?
