Day 16 - We made it to Istanbul!!!
We woke up expecting to spend another night before reaching Istanbul, but half way through breakfast we realised it due to rain hard the day after and it was actually "only" 205km to the city. The threat of cycling through the road spray in a city which hasn't seen rain all summer was enough to add urgency to our morning and motivation to our legs to once again fight the wind.
Road quality varied quite drastically, but soon enough we'd got 30 miles under our belt and stopped at a pita place for a feed. The numbers were looking good!
"Just having a snack while waiting for my food order"
Cars here honk to say hi, and often wave too. One honk today came from a motorcyclist who handed me a bottle of water before speeding off, so I was suddenly left holding a water (which was needed) without even having to stop! Thanks mate!
Basically the rest of the day was fighting crosswinds (mercifully only half the strength of yesterday) and stopping very little so we made great progress. Until the outskirts of Istanbul. Which is not to say nothing happened on the road:
Story of the day in pictures and videos
Some familiar names
My kind of bathroom - fully touchless entry/exit and sinks and this toilet solution! Better even than Japan!
A blue twister! BLUE!? I was pretty chuffed.
While filming Emma fighting off some "wolves" some (luckily unusual) stupid driver came round wayyyyyyy wayyyy too quickly
We saw lorry after lorry going up and down a hill. We were trying to work out what was in them until we got to the biggest landfill I've ever seen - this is at 10x zoom! (for some reason on top of a massive hill)
We upset a few dogs when we went the wrong way 🔊
A few hills later and then suddenly there before us was Istanbul. HUGE.
As the dark came in we started our 30 miles of city. 30 MILES. That's a lot of kms. We expected busy and chaotic streets, which we definitely got, but not before we were on 6 lane roads, technically with 50km/h limits but where the drivers were easily doing double that. This by the way, next to a motorway jammed with cars. Having to take the middle of three options up a hill with 6 lanes and cars going 10x faster was...well just terrifying actually.
I won't forget hugging the dotted line, cars streaming by on either side trying to navigate and my Garmin going "Climb starting- go go go! and then switching away from the map to the (usually helpful) climbing screen". Read the room Garmin. Read the room.
We got through without incident (although resolved to light ourselves up like Christmas trees in India) and used the pavements wherever they were available before a different, but much more familiar, kind of chaos of small city streets and the sights and sounds of Istanbul.
We made it to our fancy 4 star hotel, which we got on the cheap for booking late - nice! The chap outside encouraging people into the restaurant and showing them into the hotel didn't trouble us until we looked for the entrance, then he grimaced just slightly before showing two grubby tourers into the lobby. They were very accomodating of our bikes being left in the middle and apologised profusely while they sorted a room because we booked late. We were so happy to just be sitting down we really didn't mind and just zoned out for 10 minutes after 10 and a half hours of moving time! Soon enough we were being shown to our room and the porter wanted to carry the luggage. "We've carried it for thousands of miles, we don't mind a few more steps honestly, but we appreciate the gesture!"
Soon enough it was into a wonderful shower and extremely comfortable bed before the rain started. Big breakfast and two nights here on the horizon. Heaven!
Food spend today: 28.04 euros