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BennyBeanBears Travels
Episode 15
After crossing back into Romania, another neat little stamp in L's passport, we started to head out into the delta area, however as it was very flat land and marshy a decision was made that there probably wasn’t going to be much to see except marshes so instead we headed south and a little inland. Just a short way from the city of Braila we passed through an area with many oil wells, each one having one of those 'nodding donkey’ type pumps steadily pumping away.
Then further on we passed two solar farms and as we headed for the coastal area near Constanta a vast number of wind turbines. There was hundreds if not thousands of these wind turbines over a large area, not everyone working, though most were and there wasn’t much wind only what L would call a good breeze.
Just north of Constanta is a very narrow strip of land wedged between a lake and the Black Sea. It is a popular beach resort, Romanian style, which reminded L very much of similar resorts in Albania. Here the beach was covered in deck chairs for which there is a charge if you care to use them. There are numerous small cafes and restaurants but most impressive of all was the fact that there were people in swimming. L says the water was quite warm and she did consider a swim but D was reluctant to stop as there was no shade in which to park the car or where he could have a comfortable rest and it was very hot. No shower to wash off the salt water either:
Then before we knew it we were at the border with Bulgaria and soon on our way on the other side. It really is not much different, fuel is just a little cheaper and so are most other things. It still has the run down soviet look like Romania and Moldova, but not as poor as Moldova. Despite the fact that it has been in the European Union for about 7 years (L thinks it’s about that) almost nothing has changed for the better.
Following our usual habit we kept to the smaller roads and villages. On a hot day we enjoyed a walk around a sizable town where L had found a bank and changed some money. It was quite a pleasant place with leafy tree lined streets and cafes with outdoor tables where my humans could sit and enjoy a cold drink and a large slice of pizza, and watch the town go by. Often the tables so clutter the pavement that the pedestrians have to walk in the road, risking life and limb with the traffic to pass. Still that’s how things work here. In this town we even found a proper butcher shop, we had only seen meat in supermarkets since Germany.
We wound around through hills covered with forest and D even saw a red squirrel somewhere along the way. Red squirrels are quite endangered in England where the grey squirrel from North America has taken over.
Following a long valley towards the coast we passed through an area with many orchards. The apple trees are loaded with ripening apples and here’s something to really make your mouth water according to L, we stopped and bought some peaches from a small farm stall. L tried to explain to the man that she wanted just four peaches, however try as she might he was certain she meant four kilos. Quick as a flash he grabs a plastic bag, rushes out to the orchard, fills the bag and returns. Just short of 4kg of the most mouth watering, tasty, juicy peaches imaginable so L says, with juice streaming down her chin. And all for about $3au (€2): After that L didn’t have the heart not to take all of them. Tree ripened freshly picked peaches, the 4 kg’s didn’t last long I can tell you.
We arrived at the coast at Pomorie just a bit north of Burgas. Here we visited a Thracian tomb . It is one of several in this area. It dates from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, Roman times from the beginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire after the capital was moved to Constantinople. It is a beautifully constructed chamber built with clay bricks and a lime mortar. The central chamber is round and has a diameter of 21m with a central pillar, also round, that leads like a chimney to the exterior surface of the mound and a domed roof. The whole thing was covered in soil so it resembles a small hill. Similar to many ancient burial mounds.
Keeping to the coast we followed a road that took us past a few popular Bulgarian beach resorts. Tsarevo is one that seems very popular but there isn’t really a swimming beach there, just a tiny cove where a few people were sun bathing. A bit further on we came to a big wide bay with a sandy beach. Quite a surf running too. There was a great many people on the beach even a couple of life guards on duty but not a soul in the water.
The road ended at the Turkish border. There is no border crossing here, just a creek separating Bulgaria and the European Union from Turkey. The Bulgarian side of the little creek was lined with small pleasure boats, not one of the Turkish side.
We had to take an inland route to the border crossing with Turkey. Once there both L and D had to buy a visa. L’s was €50, gone up from €30 in 2011, and D’s was €25 on his British passport. L says she’s mighty glad I don’t need a visa or I might have found myself having an extended stay in Bulgaria. Then who would do the blogging?
The visas were just the start, Turkey has the most expensive fuel possibly in the world. Diesel is up around €2 per litre and petrol a bit more. L will give an update on fuel prices at another time after she has been able to check the exchange rates. Using ATM’s you can’t find out the exchange rate and the queue in the bank was too long to bother with.
Again we took minor roads until we reached the outskirts of Istanbul. Then we got onto the motorway that is also a toll way using only electronic tolls. Had to stop at a post office and buy a toll pass. That was €35 for the motorway across Istanbul including the northern, (newest) of the Europe-Asia bridges. Probably about 80k’s of motorway and the bridge, and it will cover the return journey too apparently. The traffic was reasonably well behaved except for in one spot where everything was chaos. Seems like a third bridge is needed; the Bosporus is a really narrow waterway at this point. Istanbul just went on and on. New high rise housing estates, 2 big stadiums, massive shopping centres all to cope with an exploding population, 14 million plus in this city alone. Probably grew by a few hundred in the time it took us to drive across.
The really noticeable thing about Turkey is the amount of new roads recently completed or still under construction. Most of the new roads are 4 lane divided highways yet apart from in Istanbul the traffic isn’t heavy.
We are following a northern route, very similar to the one we did in Feb 2011, in the reverse direction, along the Black Sea coast. However with all the new 4 lane highways we are finding that a lot of what was once a very scenic drive has disappeared, especially on the east bound carriageway. We passed through 9 long tunnels while the west bound traffic hugged the coast line. There is also a vast amount of new housing estates and some of it is just incredibly ugly both my humans agree.
Turkey might he doing a great deal of road building but they aren’t doing anything about the rubbish that litters the countryside. It’s equally as bad, if not worse than Russia. Yet, unlike Russia there are plenty of rubbish bins through the built up areas, and there seems to be a fairly regular rubbish collection in towns. It just seems the general attitude is to toss out what you don’t want anywhere. Even the prettiest spots are spoilt by unsightly litter.
East of Amasra we were back on the narrow road the wends its way along this Black Sea coast offering some breath taking views that sadly haven’t come out too well in photos because of the haze, probably smoke. A couple of bigger towns have nice beaches although we have seen only a hand full of people actually in the water. One of those is the town of Cide that has a long esplanade with a few beach huts. Most of the beach is pebbly with just an occasional one that is sandy.
We followed a narrow dirt road along a valley looking for a waterfall that we did eventually find, though ‘waterfall’ is really a bit optimistic for what it is, being only about 4m to 5m high. Not a lot of water either but there was a nice pool for swimming for those so inclined. Lots of rubbish here too:
The spectacular coastal route continued almost to Sinop where four lane duel carriageway started again and commercial and industrial development took the place of scenery, so we turned inland and climbed up into the mountains and some pine forest where it was a little cooler, initially at least.
The idea, such as it was, was to take an alternative route to the coastal one from Sinop to Trabzon. My lot had been along that route in 2011 and know that it doesn’t have much to offer being very developed. It worked well till somewhere after Duragan where we came onto a new four lane road. So little traffic one wonders why such a big road is required: We didn’t expect that it would continue all that far, silly us, apart from some places where there was still work in progress it continued all the way to Erzurum, 500k or more further on. Much of the way we followed a narrow river valley and passed through a couple of fairly narrow pretty gorges. Saw some interesting developments too.
A large concrete water canal has been built on the opposite side of the river to the road somewhere east of Tasova, it continued for many k’s, possibly anything up to 40k’s and ended at a hydro electric station. Just where it started my lot can’t be certain for it took them a while to work out what it was. A phenomenal amount of earthworks and concreting has been done to build this canal. L says that if anyone out there is interested in investing in shares in Turkey choose a company that does concreting and road building, the amount of infrastructure being built is over whelming.
There are numerous small dams and small hydro stations all along this route, a few large established towns and lots of tiny villages high up on mountain sides and sometimes no obvious access. A few new towns have been built to house construction crews too.
During the day the temperature climbs into the high 30’sC and there is very little shade to be found anywhere. When we did spot a cool shady spot then my lot were reluctant to give it up and move on. Yes, you guessed it, the aircon in the car isn’t working, it never does when it’s needed. D had it seen to twice last year and the ‘experts’ say there isn’t a leak but why else does the gas just disappear. This is really annoying as my lot only need the aircon when the weather is extreme as it is now. It was extreme in the opposite direction when they were in the Erzurum region in 2011, it was as low as -27C. We saw the ski jump off in the distance on the south side of the city as we skirted to the north.
I may have mentioned stopping at a ‘fountain’ to fill water bottles and cool off. These fountains aren’t so frequent in this part of the country but in other parts they can be every few hundred metres. They are spring fed with the water permanently running out of a pipe or, especially in this country where water is more precious, controlled by a tap. Often there is a drinking cup beside the tap. The water is always drinkable, though the taste can vary somewhat.
What can become a problem are the stray dogs. There must be millions of them around the country. It’s not a problem peculiar to Turkey; it’s a problem through many of the eastern European countries and was very bad in Romania and Bulgaria. Greece is extremely bad too. In Bulgaria especially we saw such a lot of dead dogs on the road but not so here in Turkey. No doubt the severe winters kill off a substantial number but they breed up again the following summer. L thinks the men in these countries have a distinct aversion to castrating male dogs so they breed indiscriminately.
We didn’t go into the city of Erzurum but turned north to head towards the Georgian border passing through Tortum and Artvin. We saw the Encuzekkapi castle perched on a rocky pinnacle overlooking the narrow defile in the mountains through which the river flows and the road beside it. A very strategic position, so to the one in Artvin:
This route proved to be spectacular too: After coming over a pass at 2090m we entered a gorge with the barren pastel coloured mountains all around. As the trickly became a stream a few green trees clung to its banks offering a deep contrast to the barren mountains. The trees became almost continuous, broadening into pockets where side valleys merged. Sometimes a tiny village might occupy a bit larger pocket and a few small farms struggle to grow fruit and a few veggies . Saw lots of apples and figs, tomatoes and pumpkins. Incredibly tall poplar trees are beginning to turn yellow for autumn. We have seen autumn tinges here and there almost since leaving England in early August.
The naturally formed Tortum lake with its tourquoise coloured water is very low at this time of year. The lake was formed by a landside, however, experts disagree about when that might have happened, some believe it was many thousands of years ago, other believe it was only a few hundred years ago. L won’t venture and opinion. The Turks, being an enterprising bunch of people have put in a hydro station below the natural wall.
Not much further down stream we came to the Tortum waterfall. This is quite a picturesque waterfall that’s about 50m high and 80m wide. Must be quite a sight in the spring with the snow melt water tumbling over: Taking me with them my lot walked to the bottom of these falls then they both nearly passed out making their way back up because it was so hot. Had to stop every few steps and take a breather. L isn’t normally so affected.
Then we came to another dam with our road well above it and a new road being constructed much higher up the mountain. We could see tunnels and earth works way above and narrow tracks zigzagging down the mountains sides where construction vehicles carry materials to and fro. Several bridges with pylons 100m or so high leading into tunnels. Then without realizing it we were on the new road and passing from one tunnel to the next. Before reaching Artvin we passed through a great many tunnels from 150m long to more than 2k’s, very few of them straight. Some weren’t complete and didn’t have any lighting or road markings. Coming out of the bright noonday sun and into a black hole even with headlights on full beam was daunting. D commented that it was scary. One such tunnel had a left hand bend just inside, wonder how many end up into the wall?
It’s said the Norwegians are the worlds expert tunnel builders, well, the Turks could just about make them look like rank amateurs:
We stopped and got a photo of the dam wall and the spill way, the hydro station is not yet complete. Passed through the large city or Artvin and soon came to another dam, this one not so large. The wall of this dam was just before the town of Borcka. The water level in these dams is quite low, normal for this time of year L expects. After Borcka the stream was a mere trickle as it made it’s way onward towards the sea. Over the last 50k’s or more we had seen that slowly the hills had more vegetation from small green shrubs to well grown pine trees the nearer to the coast we got.
As for us we had another low pass 680m to cross before emerging into the tropical heat and rampant vegetation of a very wet sub tropical zone. L is sure that it is tea plantations that cover the hillsides and large banana bushes thrive in small gardens. How quickly the climate changes, not far back up the road, and a 1000m or more in altitude is an extremely harsh dry climate with winters of --20C and even lower and almost no summer rain. Now this tropical paradise where there must be a great deal of rain. L remembers reading that tea needs 300 inches annually that’s 7500mm.
The coastal city of Hopa is another resort town with a long esplanade fronting a pebbly beach. From here to the Georgian border we saw a great many stalls selling clothes, something we’d hadn’t seen elsewhere in Turkey and we wondered if the Georgians come over the border to buy clothes, but why they should is so far a total mystery.
Yet more tunnels as we head for the Georgian border, the last two had one lane full of trucks that are waiting to cross the border. There was a some private cars and lots of tour busses, most of them Turkish I think. And so we bid farewell to Turkey for now, if all goes well we shall be back in a few weeks and will spend more time. We need to according to L, to justify the cost of the visa, at least it’s multiple entry and valid for 90 days stay out of 180 days from our first entry. If you don’t understand that never mind L knows exactly what she is talking about (so she says):
© Lynette Regan September 8th 2014
After crossing back into Romania, another neat little stamp in L's passport, we started to head out into the delta area, however as it was very flat land and marshy a decision was made that there probably wasn’t going to be much to see except marshes so instead we headed south and a little inland. Just a short way from the city of Braila we passed through an area with many oil wells, each one having one of those 'nodding donkey’ type pumps steadily pumping away.
Then further on we passed two solar farms and as we headed for the coastal area near Constanta a vast number of wind turbines. There was hundreds if not thousands of these wind turbines over a large area, not everyone working, though most were and there wasn’t much wind only what L would call a good breeze.
Just north of Constanta is a very narrow strip of land wedged between a lake and the Black Sea. It is a popular beach resort, Romanian style, which reminded L very much of similar resorts in Albania. Here the beach was covered in deck chairs for which there is a charge if you care to use them. There are numerous small cafes and restaurants but most impressive of all was the fact that there were people in swimming. L says the water was quite warm and she did consider a swim but D was reluctant to stop as there was no shade in which to park the car or where he could have a comfortable rest and it was very hot. No shower to wash off the salt water either:
Then before we knew it we were at the border with Bulgaria and soon on our way on the other side. It really is not much different, fuel is just a little cheaper and so are most other things. It still has the run down soviet look like Romania and Moldova, but not as poor as Moldova. Despite the fact that it has been in the European Union for about 7 years (L thinks it’s about that) almost nothing has changed for the better.
Following our usual habit we kept to the smaller roads and villages. On a hot day we enjoyed a walk around a sizable town where L had found a bank and changed some money. It was quite a pleasant place with leafy tree lined streets and cafes with outdoor tables where my humans could sit and enjoy a cold drink and a large slice of pizza, and watch the town go by. Often the tables so clutter the pavement that the pedestrians have to walk in the road, risking life and limb with the traffic to pass. Still that’s how things work here. In this town we even found a proper butcher shop, we had only seen meat in supermarkets since Germany.
We wound around through hills covered with forest and D even saw a red squirrel somewhere along the way. Red squirrels are quite endangered in England where the grey squirrel from North America has taken over.
Following a long valley towards the coast we passed through an area with many orchards. The apple trees are loaded with ripening apples and here’s something to really make your mouth water according to L, we stopped and bought some peaches from a small farm stall. L tried to explain to the man that she wanted just four peaches, however try as she might he was certain she meant four kilos. Quick as a flash he grabs a plastic bag, rushes out to the orchard, fills the bag and returns. Just short of 4kg of the most mouth watering, tasty, juicy peaches imaginable so L says, with juice streaming down her chin. And all for about $3au (€2): After that L didn’t have the heart not to take all of them. Tree ripened freshly picked peaches, the 4 kg’s didn’t last long I can tell you.
We arrived at the coast at Pomorie just a bit north of Burgas. Here we visited a Thracian tomb . It is one of several in this area. It dates from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, Roman times from the beginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire after the capital was moved to Constantinople. It is a beautifully constructed chamber built with clay bricks and a lime mortar. The central chamber is round and has a diameter of 21m with a central pillar, also round, that leads like a chimney to the exterior surface of the mound and a domed roof. The whole thing was covered in soil so it resembles a small hill. Similar to many ancient burial mounds.
Keeping to the coast we followed a road that took us past a few popular Bulgarian beach resorts. Tsarevo is one that seems very popular but there isn’t really a swimming beach there, just a tiny cove where a few people were sun bathing. A bit further on we came to a big wide bay with a sandy beach. Quite a surf running too. There was a great many people on the beach even a couple of life guards on duty but not a soul in the water.
The road ended at the Turkish border. There is no border crossing here, just a creek separating Bulgaria and the European Union from Turkey. The Bulgarian side of the little creek was lined with small pleasure boats, not one of the Turkish side.
We had to take an inland route to the border crossing with Turkey. Once there both L and D had to buy a visa. L’s was €50, gone up from €30 in 2011, and D’s was €25 on his British passport. L says she’s mighty glad I don’t need a visa or I might have found myself having an extended stay in Bulgaria. Then who would do the blogging?
The visas were just the start, Turkey has the most expensive fuel possibly in the world. Diesel is up around €2 per litre and petrol a bit more. L will give an update on fuel prices at another time after she has been able to check the exchange rates. Using ATM’s you can’t find out the exchange rate and the queue in the bank was too long to bother with.
Again we took minor roads until we reached the outskirts of Istanbul. Then we got onto the motorway that is also a toll way using only electronic tolls. Had to stop at a post office and buy a toll pass. That was €35 for the motorway across Istanbul including the northern, (newest) of the Europe-Asia bridges. Probably about 80k’s of motorway and the bridge, and it will cover the return journey too apparently. The traffic was reasonably well behaved except for in one spot where everything was chaos. Seems like a third bridge is needed; the Bosporus is a really narrow waterway at this point. Istanbul just went on and on. New high rise housing estates, 2 big stadiums, massive shopping centres all to cope with an exploding population, 14 million plus in this city alone. Probably grew by a few hundred in the time it took us to drive across.
The really noticeable thing about Turkey is the amount of new roads recently completed or still under construction. Most of the new roads are 4 lane divided highways yet apart from in Istanbul the traffic isn’t heavy.
We are following a northern route, very similar to the one we did in Feb 2011, in the reverse direction, along the Black Sea coast. However with all the new 4 lane highways we are finding that a lot of what was once a very scenic drive has disappeared, especially on the east bound carriageway. We passed through 9 long tunnels while the west bound traffic hugged the coast line. There is also a vast amount of new housing estates and some of it is just incredibly ugly both my humans agree.
Turkey might he doing a great deal of road building but they aren’t doing anything about the rubbish that litters the countryside. It’s equally as bad, if not worse than Russia. Yet, unlike Russia there are plenty of rubbish bins through the built up areas, and there seems to be a fairly regular rubbish collection in towns. It just seems the general attitude is to toss out what you don’t want anywhere. Even the prettiest spots are spoilt by unsightly litter.
East of Amasra we were back on the narrow road the wends its way along this Black Sea coast offering some breath taking views that sadly haven’t come out too well in photos because of the haze, probably smoke. A couple of bigger towns have nice beaches although we have seen only a hand full of people actually in the water. One of those is the town of Cide that has a long esplanade with a few beach huts. Most of the beach is pebbly with just an occasional one that is sandy.
We followed a narrow dirt road along a valley looking for a waterfall that we did eventually find, though ‘waterfall’ is really a bit optimistic for what it is, being only about 4m to 5m high. Not a lot of water either but there was a nice pool for swimming for those so inclined. Lots of rubbish here too:
The spectacular coastal route continued almost to Sinop where four lane duel carriageway started again and commercial and industrial development took the place of scenery, so we turned inland and climbed up into the mountains and some pine forest where it was a little cooler, initially at least.
The idea, such as it was, was to take an alternative route to the coastal one from Sinop to Trabzon. My lot had been along that route in 2011 and know that it doesn’t have much to offer being very developed. It worked well till somewhere after Duragan where we came onto a new four lane road. So little traffic one wonders why such a big road is required: We didn’t expect that it would continue all that far, silly us, apart from some places where there was still work in progress it continued all the way to Erzurum, 500k or more further on. Much of the way we followed a narrow river valley and passed through a couple of fairly narrow pretty gorges. Saw some interesting developments too.
A large concrete water canal has been built on the opposite side of the river to the road somewhere east of Tasova, it continued for many k’s, possibly anything up to 40k’s and ended at a hydro electric station. Just where it started my lot can’t be certain for it took them a while to work out what it was. A phenomenal amount of earthworks and concreting has been done to build this canal. L says that if anyone out there is interested in investing in shares in Turkey choose a company that does concreting and road building, the amount of infrastructure being built is over whelming.
There are numerous small dams and small hydro stations all along this route, a few large established towns and lots of tiny villages high up on mountain sides and sometimes no obvious access. A few new towns have been built to house construction crews too.
During the day the temperature climbs into the high 30’sC and there is very little shade to be found anywhere. When we did spot a cool shady spot then my lot were reluctant to give it up and move on. Yes, you guessed it, the aircon in the car isn’t working, it never does when it’s needed. D had it seen to twice last year and the ‘experts’ say there isn’t a leak but why else does the gas just disappear. This is really annoying as my lot only need the aircon when the weather is extreme as it is now. It was extreme in the opposite direction when they were in the Erzurum region in 2011, it was as low as -27C. We saw the ski jump off in the distance on the south side of the city as we skirted to the north.
I may have mentioned stopping at a ‘fountain’ to fill water bottles and cool off. These fountains aren’t so frequent in this part of the country but in other parts they can be every few hundred metres. They are spring fed with the water permanently running out of a pipe or, especially in this country where water is more precious, controlled by a tap. Often there is a drinking cup beside the tap. The water is always drinkable, though the taste can vary somewhat.
What can become a problem are the stray dogs. There must be millions of them around the country. It’s not a problem peculiar to Turkey; it’s a problem through many of the eastern European countries and was very bad in Romania and Bulgaria. Greece is extremely bad too. In Bulgaria especially we saw such a lot of dead dogs on the road but not so here in Turkey. No doubt the severe winters kill off a substantial number but they breed up again the following summer. L thinks the men in these countries have a distinct aversion to castrating male dogs so they breed indiscriminately.
We didn’t go into the city of Erzurum but turned north to head towards the Georgian border passing through Tortum and Artvin. We saw the Encuzekkapi castle perched on a rocky pinnacle overlooking the narrow defile in the mountains through which the river flows and the road beside it. A very strategic position, so to the one in Artvin:
This route proved to be spectacular too: After coming over a pass at 2090m we entered a gorge with the barren pastel coloured mountains all around. As the trickly became a stream a few green trees clung to its banks offering a deep contrast to the barren mountains. The trees became almost continuous, broadening into pockets where side valleys merged. Sometimes a tiny village might occupy a bit larger pocket and a few small farms struggle to grow fruit and a few veggies . Saw lots of apples and figs, tomatoes and pumpkins. Incredibly tall poplar trees are beginning to turn yellow for autumn. We have seen autumn tinges here and there almost since leaving England in early August.
The naturally formed Tortum lake with its tourquoise coloured water is very low at this time of year. The lake was formed by a landside, however, experts disagree about when that might have happened, some believe it was many thousands of years ago, other believe it was only a few hundred years ago. L won’t venture and opinion. The Turks, being an enterprising bunch of people have put in a hydro station below the natural wall.
Not much further down stream we came to the Tortum waterfall. This is quite a picturesque waterfall that’s about 50m high and 80m wide. Must be quite a sight in the spring with the snow melt water tumbling over: Taking me with them my lot walked to the bottom of these falls then they both nearly passed out making their way back up because it was so hot. Had to stop every few steps and take a breather. L isn’t normally so affected.
Then we came to another dam with our road well above it and a new road being constructed much higher up the mountain. We could see tunnels and earth works way above and narrow tracks zigzagging down the mountains sides where construction vehicles carry materials to and fro. Several bridges with pylons 100m or so high leading into tunnels. Then without realizing it we were on the new road and passing from one tunnel to the next. Before reaching Artvin we passed through a great many tunnels from 150m long to more than 2k’s, very few of them straight. Some weren’t complete and didn’t have any lighting or road markings. Coming out of the bright noonday sun and into a black hole even with headlights on full beam was daunting. D commented that it was scary. One such tunnel had a left hand bend just inside, wonder how many end up into the wall?
It’s said the Norwegians are the worlds expert tunnel builders, well, the Turks could just about make them look like rank amateurs:
We stopped and got a photo of the dam wall and the spill way, the hydro station is not yet complete. Passed through the large city or Artvin and soon came to another dam, this one not so large. The wall of this dam was just before the town of Borcka. The water level in these dams is quite low, normal for this time of year L expects. After Borcka the stream was a mere trickle as it made it’s way onward towards the sea. Over the last 50k’s or more we had seen that slowly the hills had more vegetation from small green shrubs to well grown pine trees the nearer to the coast we got.
As for us we had another low pass 680m to cross before emerging into the tropical heat and rampant vegetation of a very wet sub tropical zone. L is sure that it is tea plantations that cover the hillsides and large banana bushes thrive in small gardens. How quickly the climate changes, not far back up the road, and a 1000m or more in altitude is an extremely harsh dry climate with winters of --20C and even lower and almost no summer rain. Now this tropical paradise where there must be a great deal of rain. L remembers reading that tea needs 300 inches annually that’s 7500mm.
The coastal city of Hopa is another resort town with a long esplanade fronting a pebbly beach. From here to the Georgian border we saw a great many stalls selling clothes, something we’d hadn’t seen elsewhere in Turkey and we wondered if the Georgians come over the border to buy clothes, but why they should is so far a total mystery.
Yet more tunnels as we head for the Georgian border, the last two had one lane full of trucks that are waiting to cross the border. There was a some private cars and lots of tour busses, most of them Turkish I think. And so we bid farewell to Turkey for now, if all goes well we shall be back in a few weeks and will spend more time. We need to according to L, to justify the cost of the visa, at least it’s multiple entry and valid for 90 days stay out of 180 days from our first entry. If you don’t understand that never mind L knows exactly what she is talking about (so she says):
© Lynette Regan September 8th 2014
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