Day 19 - Ben's Search for Food Inspiration
Another big breakfast (chips AND onion rings), route planning phaff (trying to avoid cycling in cities/cycling in cities late but there's not many roads here basically) and we were pedalling again! Forgot what this trip was about for a few days there!
The morning was hilly, and initially a repeated experience of getting dusted by an endless stream of lorries going to and from the industry outside of Bursa, but rapidly improved into the nicest roads we've had in Turkey yet! Even the rubbish by the side of the road diminished as we climbed between small villages on almost alpine roads and very few cars passed.
People are so nice here. They honk and wave as they go past on the road, everyone from lorry drivers to boy racers, they come over to introduce themselves in the villages and they frequently produce a tomato or loaf of bread with a gesticulation that it's for strength to get up the hill. For example, a young guy living in a village outside of Bursa who studied at the local university but returned to the village he loved to take over the family business and was just excited to see travellers coming through. Or the strawberry seller who was very excited to take a picture and have a chat, even if it was through the medium of hand gestures, but who seemed genuinely happy to see us (good strawberries too). Or the kids who pointed us towards the food and produced bottles of water to give us.
At some point the route took us onto the big dual carriageway we'd been avoiding all day in a pinch point between two mountains and we immediately teleported up a hill. It was like we'd got on a train not a big road. Fast, uphill, low effort - pick 3 apparently! And ironically also the best bike lane in the country provided by the full width hard shoulder. I guess that's what a tailwind and a smooth straight road will give you.
We decided to stay on it longer than planned, and with the noise cancelling headphones on we had a real highpoint catching up on some distance and properly flexing the legs, as up until then we'd had a slow day for no apparent reason.
We flew a bit close to the sun so were once again looking for a campsite in the dark after stopping for food and water in town, but plenty of cut fields gave us options without too much effort.
We've both been struggling with food motivation having eaten everything packable and available and vegetarian available to us many times over, so after getting ANOTHER packet of wraps and rubbish cheese at the supermarket we stopped by a small takeout place and very conveniently for both him and us completely cleared out his remaining stock which all happened to be veggie! Scoffing that in the tent was welcome after being very hungry but very, very fed up of eating all day. It's like when you need the loo but you can't be bothered to get up from your desk/sofa/bed to go!
Food spend today: 32.20 euros