Day 28 - How the other half tours

Breakfast had soup! I appreciate that does not sound like much of an exciting statement in itself, but when you've been eating the same food over and over, it's pretty exciting. We ate so much bread, helped by the other tourers here, that I think the staff were a little taken aback at having to refill the enormous container they'd put out for the five guests...

Once we'd finished gorging and reset phaff, we were back on our favourite big road, yapping away enjoying the lack of threat of impending rain. We talked so much about tea stops and "enjoyable" cycle tours and lodged the idea so firmly in our minds in fact, that as soon as we saw a table and chairs in a beautiful spot in the valley by the river, we stopped and made three cups of tea back to back to back. Yes we should have been making progress, yes we may regret this in the rain on Monday, but man was it nice! So this is how everyone else does it - 80km a day gives heaps of time for stops! It was just a shame no Turkish person passed to allow us to repay some of the tea favour we've had.

Eventually we set off again, and quickly realised we had potentially made a lapse in judgement as the 900m pass up to 2000m was not, in fact, in 5miles but 25, meaning we'd be climbing for an hour in the dark, not to mention the descending and camp finding...

We cut off a bit of climbing by (accidentally) staying on the main road and layered up, we made it over the pass. There were no camping options before the next town unfortunately so we headed into the industrial valley and grabbed some quick dinner before cycling out the other side and up a hill for a late 10pm arrival. Managed more than we'd expected even before the tea stop though which is great! Camped downwind of the smog is less great.

Food spend today: 20.85 euros