We journey through Turkey, stay awhile in Istanbul and continue along the Black Sea coast towards Georgia.
It is quite nerve-wrecking as we pack the car and head over to the Iranian consulate. Will we be able to leave Istanbul today?
After only half an hour in line, we are being told that no visa confirmation has arrived from the Iranian Embassy in Oslo.
Shit.
Time is running out and that means we can’t do the southern route. We have to cross into Russia via Georgia and drive only through Russia the whole way to Mongolia. The look on our faces must have startled the official behind the counter, because he said «wait here» and buggered off.
After about 45 minutes he comes back and says he took contact with the Embassy in Oslo, and was told that the code for our visas was correct. Hurrah!
But wait a minute. They need the confirmation in writing.
Luckily he was willing to do a little «magic»: if we applied for a new visa in Istanbul we could get it the same afternoon for a small fee of 90 Euros each. Oh well, what choice do we have.
At 4:30pm we get to the gate of the consulate and receive our passports with the Iranian visas. Huzzah!
We take off immediately and time it rather perfectly, so that we can witness one of the worst traffic jams on this planet! After 2 hours we are finally out of Istanbul and Yaris Hilton starts to leg it eastward.
After a couple of hours we pull over at a petrol station that has a restaurant, to fill up both us and the car.
After yet another splendid kebab we come out to find that someone has washed our car. A hit-and-wash! All part of the service it seems like. 🙂
A hit-and-wash of our car, recorded by our GoPro while we were in the restaurant
We do a marathon run on the smooth Turkish highway and manage to clock up 738 km before pitching the tent near Samsun by the Black Sea at 2 am.
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This is where we are at this moment in time (approximately) ->