Gum Shoes And Snow Shoes

Trip Start Feb 27, 2007
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Trip End May 19, 2007


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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Yo Yo. Well Ęm still not at the Black Sea though Im closing in fast - only 100km from Trabazon, which I hope to reach tommorow. I had to abandon my crafty plans to take a short cut to Rize and reach it just as the day ended as the rd Id hoped would do the job suddenly detiorated into a mud track.
My loathing of mud tracks is well documented on this travelogue so there is no need to say any more on that. But the upshot was that it was 40km - no make that 80km (round trip to double back to the main rd) or roughly 70męn drive time wasted. Plus the weather started to turn v. nasty so TIPO and I called it a day at the town of Gumshane about 100km from Trabazon.
Theres not much to this town of 38000 people which for a Sat night is as dead as TIPOs electrics were yesterday. Compare that to any Irish town of similair size on a Sat night and youd be talking a whole different ball game Im sure. In fact thats a common theme of Turkish towns. After 9pm they become something of a ghost town - or maybe Im just not looking in the right places. Even Erezum - a city of 400,000 was as quiet as a churchmouse on Thu & Fri nights.
Speaking of Erezum - Ę did go for that Hammam last night. Fantastic. The best hammam Ive been in - admittedly thats only the 3rd but still, this one was pretty good. It had a sauna as well but the hammam was even hotter than the sauna. 5min max at any one time. If, over the last few days Id had the balls frozen off me węth the at times Arctic weather, well this surely thawed them out!! And afterwards they didnt skimp on the towels - instead ur swathed in about 6 different towels and u do a fine impression of a mummy while sitting in ur cabin drying out. Oh and it had a really nice 3 tiered water fountain węth pewter ewers to decant the H2O into Ottoman style tankards from which to quench your thirst after the sweat dripping inferno of the hammam.
Then Ę had supper of lentil soup before retiring.
This morning I went to the same place for bfast then visited the kale - no great shakes - before beginning the long 325km drive to Trabazon at about noon.
And Im pleased to report that TĘPOs electrics are all working fine now. Long may that continue!
Ok - hopefully tommorows travel update will be from Trabazon on the Black Sea Coast.
Cheers Wadirunner & TĘPO.
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