It was weird being on a ferry to Asia , especially as we are still in the same country, but that's what happens here. Turkey is the same place but straddles two landmasses.
The traffic thinned as we left Istanbul and the driving got better - marginally. Bashed the motorways today to pack in some miles but the weather wasn't great. Low cloud and cool, and we eventually got quite cold and sleepy so stopped for lunch at a truck stop.
The lovely man there was so sweet. Not a word of English and we only had to words of Turkish - please and thank you - which are not that helpful without the bits in between. But somehow we ate well and he insisted on bringing everything to the table for us.
Got pulled over by the police again today but sent on our way almost immediately when they realised we were two foreign women,. Not sure if it was the foreign or the women bit that saved us, but we were off like two scalded cats before they changed their minds.
We also met some really cool people in petrol; stations today. Workmen in trucks and petrol station staff, all of whom wanted to chat to us about bikes, where we'd come from, where we were going, and what we did when not riding bikes. Nice people, all of them, and they all wanted to buys us teas and coffees which we had to decline as we would never have got anywhere. these blokes were all called Mustapha and gave us a souvenir towel each, with the name of their petrol station printed on them.
In reality though, we stopped short of where we were aiming for anyway because we were both very tired and agreed to stop riding as near to 1800hrs as possible. But we stopped a just before that because we were riding towards the mountains and a rain storm.
So we're now in a nice hotel in Dozce and have resolved to get up and out early tomorrow to make up the lost miles. Maybe.
