We wake up at what we thought was a field with a treeline, but turns out is an industrial-sized dump with a few bushes on the side of it. Oh well, we had 5 hours of sleep at least.
We continue east along the Black Sea coast, which is really Italian Rivieria-like and very lovely. After just 500 km we are getting close to the Georgian border, but decide to pull over in the Turkish town of Hopa to get some lunch and see if we can find some wi-fi.
Flooding in Hopa, Turkey
It’s been raining along the Black Sea coast most of the day, but apparently it’s been raining a LOT up in the mountains, because the river in Hopa is almost flooding its banks and flowing into the town center. We manage to get a bit of food and find an Internet café out of the monsoon-like rain that has begun to pelt us.
We check our messages. Nothing from Li or Geoff, some other rallyers that are supposed to be nearby. Our initial plan was to get off the highway and up into the mountains to cross the border at a smaller, not so busy crossing, but since it’s been raining so much up there we decide to try the main border crossing.
How bad can it possibly be?
Famous last words! We travel the last 10 km to the border and it’s worse than we could possibly imagine! Some officials are directing us back down the highway to the end of the 4 km long (!) completely stationary queue.
Screw this!
We’ll take our chances up in the mountains.
Only a few km up the mountain road we get stopped by some highway works due to a mudslide caused by the rain. But fear not. The Turkish Road Clearance Specialists are on it. Meanwhile, some other poeple who have stopped, start to take in interest in our car. We are used to getting a bit of attention whenever we stop, and this time is no different.
Turkish bagpipes
People are really friendly and it turns out that in the car in front of us is a Turkish wedding photographer, who pulls out his Turkish bagpipe that looks like it probably is made out of an old carpet. While we wait for the road to clear up, we are treated to a traditional tune.
It is… interesting.
The road is very twisty but still good, as we ascend up into the mountains. The view gets more and more spectacular before it slowly disappears in the fading light. As we get to the top of an especially twisty part, we get to a flat bit and decide to put up our tents.
We have managed a total of 790 km today, and a fair bit of that on winding mountain roads. This is great 🙂
Think life holds no meaning? Don’t despair, our photo gallery is updated
This is where we are at this moment in time (approximately) ->