After spending nearly 3 weeks in Turkey and cycling over 1000kms of the most mountainious countryside ever known to man!!! we are now in warmer weather on the Island of Cyprus.  Turkey is still by far the highlight of the trip, i have never felt so safe in a foreign country before, and would even say its safer to travel alone through Turkey than it is in New Zealand! Spent christmas there and well It didnt really happen, I know they are muslim but I really thought there would be something going on, the most exciting thing that happend was being pulled over by the police, ahh what have I done this time! but no worries they just wanted to drink chai with us.  Started to take up most of our offers of tea along the way, good excuse to get Adrian to have a break and mmm it is really nice sitting on the side of the road sipping hot sweet tea.

I know Ive said it before but holy shit I didnt think a land exisited outside of Switzerland that was so mountainous, and just like the swiss they put their roads right over them, the pass out of Switzerland was hard but every day in Turkey was like doing it again 3 times a day! Was the most amazing 1000kms of road Ive ever cycled by far.  

Camping in turkey wasnt any problem, you can park yourself anywhere and your sorted. If we asked someone if it was ok to put our little tent on a piece of land, and sure enough 10 mins later of thumbing through our Turkish dictionary and having a very broken one worded conversation we would find ourself in their house drinking tea, eating dinner with the family and entertaining neraly the whole village for the night, given beds to sleep in, huge breakfast in the morning and piled up with food when we left to last another couple of days. whoa! was really great when we were cold and had lots of energy but it is super draining and we always left more tired than when we arrived, it is hard work being the entertainment for the night, having conversations out of a dictionary, and not being in bed by our usual 7pm!, constantly pretending to be Adrians girlfriend or wife, try explain that we both like riding bikes, that we are just friends and no we are not planing on getting married! all out of a dictionary. It is nearly the first question everyone asks so we just nod and smile like the happy couple were sapposed to be.  but the hospitality is amazing, these people are so poor, the generosity they showed us was amazing offering everything they have to two dirty cyclists who just happen to pass by, wouldnt happen in any other country in Europe. I think its the only country where you get hugged and kissed by the old lady you just bought all your vegies from, like you were some long lost granddaughter.  And to think that everyone warned us about the dodgy people in Turkey!

So after the temps dropped to a record low in the last 30 years, hurricane winds forced us to have 2 days in a hotel where we both drove each other mad, towns we passed further down the coast were still without power three days later, had some of the coldest nights in the tent so far and this was sapposed to be the warm part! So we ended up totally changing our plan again for about the 50th time. Adrian decided that he was going to head up to Georgia and go boarding and that Id head back to Switzerland for a while before heading home, found out that it was about -35 up North so hell no, I wasnt going to be anywhere near that in a tent with my summerweight sleeping bag!  so basically we arrived at a port town and bought ourselves a ticket to Cyprus and to warmer weather, as you can see our plans are never concrete.

Arrived in Turkish Cyprus and to really confuse us they drive on the Left! is like being a learner driver again, have to keep reminding myself keep to the left, keep to the left, sure enough though Im always on the right! oops!  headed out of there and cycled 120ks over to Greek Cyprus so after passing through 3 border controlls and customs in 1 day we were now in Limmasol where our origonal plan has come alive again! wouldnt believe it but we have got ourselves on a cargo ship leaving tomorrow to Israel! wohooo, thought it was impossible, just shows travel agents dont know shit! booking agencies dont know shit and the internet lies!!!!  Two days on the boat and we finally get out of this continent and further south.  finally!

Back to the beach tonight where weve made our home while on the island, and off to Israel tomorrow

Peace

Asti