And so, we crossed over to the other side of the Dardanelles strait – to the town of Gelibolu, which is about twice the size of Lapseki. The ferry ride wasn't that short – Sergey says about 50 minutes.
In Gelibolu, we hit a store and stocked up on groceries. Among other things, I finally found rose petal jam and natural yogurt, which other bike travelers had reported about in their stories. Natural – not in the sense of straight from under the cow, but just white, without flavorings or dyes. We have that for sale too, but rarely, while they have it in buckets holding up to 5 kg. Aside from other supplies, we also acquired such a tub, 2.250 kg in size, at my insistence. As I've mentioned before, it's not that easy to talk my companions into anything – they're always fine with the status quo. I, on the other hand, always crave something new and original – otherwise why go anywhere at all?
As for the rose petal jam, it's not hard to buy it in Turkey. In general, I don't really remember the prices in the stores, but they're lower than ours by about a third, and sometimes by half. I only know that I bought a 250-gram jar of jam in Istanbul for 3 liras, which is 1 lat. Its taste is similar to the smell of liquid hand soap. Overall, not bad, but, understandably, an acquired taste. The jam is cloyingly sweet, so it's better to mix it into yogurt and eat it with white bread, which we also bought, and even in different varieties. A very curious detail – bread in Turkey is located at the exit, moreover, past the cash register. It looks like it's done for the customers' convenience – they can quickly pop in from the exit, buy some bread, and bounce. While we were stocking up on provisions, Igor (the navigator), according to him, got almost scammed by an ice cream vendor, who didn't give him change from 20 liras, which is 7 lats. Good thing the ice cream turned out to be tasty, at least.
In 1914, the naval forces of Great Britain and France tried to capture Çanakkale, Gelibolu, and the adjacent territory of the strait, in order to subsequently organize an offensive against Istanbul. The attack was supposed to be sudden – they had to abruptly weaken Turkey as an ally of Germany – this would theoretically have helped Russia concentrate its forces solely on Germany, if I understand correctly.
The blitzkrieg failed - despite enormous casualties on both sides, the Turks held the strait. On a tiny piece of land 10x30 km, 300 thousand people laid down their lives over a few years.
The defense was commanded by none other than the then little-known Mustafa Kemal. It was there that he uttered that very phrase: “I do not order you to fight, I order you to die.” Interestingly, Lieutenant Colonel Hüseyin Avni carried out the order – the entire regiment was completely wiped out during the defense of the strait. Despite the fact that Mustafa vastly exceeded his authority and disobeyed orders, or perhaps thanks to it, after the campaign he was granted the title of pasha. From that moment on, he becomes a national hero, and as a result creates that very Turkish state that we observe today.
After stocking up, we continued our journey. According to both the map and navigator Igor's GPS, we were supposed to ride along the sea on a regional road. We found it without much trouble. Along the way, though, sentries in booths waved their assault rifles at us so we'd keep moving and not linger. There are a lot of military personnel in Turkey, and half of the places where they are stationed are named after Atatürk.
Be that as it may, we made it out of the city, but right from the start the road didn't inspire confidence – a busted rural dirt track with remnants of asphalt. While the two Igors puzzled over the map and the GPS, making sure it was indeed the right road, I chatted with some local guys who were standing near an excavator digging a pond (see photo).
The locals, as usual, were friendly, and didn't know a word of English. So I had to strain my brain as usual and guess that “onbeş – yirmi kilometr, yavaş yavaş” meant “15-20 km, very slowly”. What they meant was the spot where our current dirt road connected with an excellent highway, which we could even see from where we stood. As for it being slow – that was obvious, but we had no idea yet what we'd gotten ourselves into.
Namely – the road soon turned into viscous clay mud. I don't have much experience, so I had never encountered anything like it before. So let me tell you – this isn't a road, and it's not mud – it's just a nightmare. It's impossible not just to ride on it – but even to walk and push the bike. The mud sticks thickly to the wheel and prevents it from spinning at all, and along the way breaks mudguards, bike sensors, and whatever else it touches. The thing is, in terms of consistency and hardness, it's like hardening cement, and not at all like soil. It was exactly here that my bike computer sensor died. We ended up walking not through the mud, but next to it on the grass – or somehow dragging the bikes over the puddles. Otherwise, you have to clean the wheel every 5 meters, which means your speed drops not just to a pedestrian's, but to a turtle's.
Actually, this probably resembles cross-country, dirt jumping, and other similar cycling disciplines. I don't know much about it, but people supposedly go ride in this muck on purpose. But we are just nerdy cycle tourists with panniers, covering a sizable figure in a week, and therefore, lovers of the highway.
Actually, even though the experience with the mud was brutal, it was interesting. A theory of mine even started brewing about this. First, on day two, we had the trial by rain. And now – by earth. Considering that the wind has also constantly been quite strong, albeit not terrible, a clear picture emerges. There are 4 alchemical elements, and we have to pass through them all – the only scary part is, what will happen with fire? I really don't feel like riding through flames at all, even if it's metaphorically expressed by a scorching sun.
But for now, we're still battling the mud, but on our flanks we have – two seas. On the right – the Sea of Marmara, and on the left – the Aegean. Have you ever in your life seen two seas from a single point? Well, now we have.
Anyway, the clouds were gathering, while the mud, on the contrary, was liquifying, and we were starting to feel uneasy. Voices began to sound, campaigning to take shelter in another battered shed without windows or doors, but the majority decided that we should press on.
The reasoning was simple – there was still a mountain of time before the evening, and if it started to rain, the mud would get so soggy that we'd be stuck here until morning. Especially since it shouldn't be much further to the asphalt.
And then a miracle happened – first the road got drier, and the wind blew at our backs, as a result of which our speed soared to a previously unseen for a dirt road 30 km/h. A bit of such flying – and behold, on the horizon, the blessed gray surface, a mixture of bitumens and minerals, widely known as άσφαλτος.
