Destination Sunrise

Finally, this is my new blog!

If you guessed from the title of the entry that it has some relationship with France, you are totally right and I have to congratulate you for having an extremely sharp eye for languages. Spain neighbors two countries and since Portugal is in the opposite direction to Asia, I had to drive to France. I heard it is a very exotic place full of nuclear plants, cheese smell and people wearing crocodile logos... but what did I find? Volcanoes! Lots of countryside! And cheese smell, of course.

There is a certain amount of cheating in this post because I did not drive straight from France into Italy... I went to Switzerland first and even Germany. But since I consider Switzerland a second home after having lived there for two and a half years, was just visiting friends and did not take a single picture, I decided to skip blogging about the country. Germany is a different story since I just crossed the border and stayed for a couple of hours to buy cheap organic tofu. I swear!

Crossing the Adriatic sea and arriving in Greece was a change for good. I love Italy but this time I was not lucky: rainy days and empty hostels spoiled my week there. At the same time, I could not meet the kind of people that you would like to keep in touch with later and that makes up a big part of my adventures.

Athena, the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law, justice, warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts and skill. Quite a complete girl, I would say, and all inhabitants of one of the main cities in the ancient world were crazy about her. Nowadays people tend to worship more banal features like big breasts and long legs... are development and evolution a lie?

... some people commonly referred to as Turks, originating from Central Asia, came to this part of the world and decided to stay for good. Through the centuries, different nations and empires rose and fell, leading to the present Republic of Turkey. But this region is far from being a homogeneous boring place due to its rich history and the variety of peoples who lived and still live here. Greek and Roman civilizations belong to the ancient times but Armenian and Kurdish links are still present. Such a big mess... but isn't Spain a mess as well?

Warning: this will be a short post, just to let you know that I am alive and my trip goes on. And actually to try and catch up with my journey since I am blogging a couple of weeks behind current events... travelling is such a hard work!

Still in Western Turkey, famous holiday destination for many Europeans and Asians alike, one of the most visited sights in the area is Pamukkale. Literally translated as 'cotton castle', due to white carbonate minerals left on the hills by the flowing water, this is a place that few people miss on their tours around Turkey. Crowded but still worth the visit, not only for the healing waters but the ancient ruins of an old Roman spa town.The travertine pools in Pamukkale are world-famous and almost everybody has seen a picture of those turquoise waters enclosed by white stone walls.

As promised in my previous entry, my adventures continued around Cappadocia. The main touristic town in the area, Göreme, was invaded by hordes of hot-air balloon riding Asian tourists and there was little left of Turkey in the atmosphere... but once you start walking in any direction outside the urban areas, there is hardly anybody and the landscapes are just amazing.I teamed up with Tom, the German guy I met before in Olympos village, who decided to continue travelling in Cappadocia. We did not stay in the same hostel but hanged out together most of the time.

Let me introduce Mr. Hasan from Sanliurfa to you. How did I meet this guy?

East from Urfa is where the real East starts.

Mount Ararat is a powerful symbol and a beautiful mountain, which currently lies in Turkish territory but is firmly claimed by Armenians as their homeland. The biggest town in the vicinity is called Dogubayazit and that is where most travelers sleep when visiting the region. I was not an exception and stayed in that dusty border town for a couple of days enjoying the uniqueness of its setting.The first thing I visited was the Ishak Pasha complex of palaces and mosques, situated at the top of a hill near town.

Turkey is over and Georgia is ahead of us. A rather significant border crossing with changes in religion (Islam to Christianity), culture (Asian to European), language (Turkish to Georgian), landscapes (highlands to 5000m peaks), food (kebab to khachapuri), drinks (raki to chacha), etc, etc. As a matter of fact, the Caucasus was the former Soviet Union's southern border and Moscow's fingerprints are still visible everywhere in the country.We crossed at Posof - Akhaltsikhe and had no problem at all, despite the police having carefully checked all medicines that Natalia was carrying.

Svaneti, one of the most inaccessible valleys in the Caucasus.

After my five hours journey from Ushguli to Lentekhi over the Zagaro pass, I realized I was quite exhausted and would not be able to ride my bike for a couple of days. Strong enough reason to continue driving further to Kutaisi and then Tbilisi... at least there would be many things to do in the capital while resting and stretching my sore muscles. I met Natalia again there and, when I had sort of recovered, we decided to spend a couple of days in Kazbegi region.Kazbegi is another valley in the High Caucasus but nothing to do with Svaneti in terms of accessibility.

Tbilisi is a nice place to rest if you crash at the right spot and we definitely did.

Sorry for the radio silence!
Blame filtered internet access in Iran that did not let me access my pictures in Google+, a government-sponsored virus that deleted all my pictures from Iran in my memory card (I managed to recover most of them later), a crazy three-day transit in Turkmenistan without any access at all and lately very poor internet connection in Uzbekistan. And yes, I'm already in Uzbekistan but let me ask you to travel back in time and space to one of my favorite countries: Armenia.

Have you ever heard of Nagorno-Karabakh?

The Armenian trilogy is about to finish, five weeks of travelling and having fun are not easily condensed in a few paragraphs and pictures... but I did my best. Still reality was much better than the tale, as it usually happens. And to be honest, I am a bit pushed to catch up with the current events in my trip since I do not want to finish writing in 2018.Vardavar is one of the most important celebrations in the country, dating back to pagan times. It is related to the cleansing power of water, fertility and so on...

When I said in my previous post that I would write about Shiraz, it was not totally accurate. The city of Shiraz lacks great sights, in my opinion, and the most remarkable attractions are the shrines of Shah Cheragh, mostly off-limits to non-Muslims, and the mausoleum of Hafez, a great Persian poet that has a national hero status but who did not mean much to me. I focused mainly on eating faloodeh (frozen corn starch noodles with syrup and lime juice, sounds horrible but it is delicious) and would have tried the famous local wine if it had not been totally illegal.

Is Iran an evil country? Certainly not, despite the efforts of western propaganda.

Yazd is a city in the middle of the desert. To be precise, in the middle of two deserts... the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut. Those are the two biggest deserts in Iran, northeast and southeast in the country, respectively. Nowadays, Yazd is famous for being a very conservative city, where religion plays an important role in people's lives.

My friend Ghazal lives in Semnan, a mid-sized Iranian city two hours east of Tehran. After I got my Uzbek tourist visa and applied for the Turkmen transit one at the relevant consulates in Tehran, I continued my trip eastwards. I was looking forward to visiting Ghazal and her family in Semnan because part of the idea of this trip in Asia originated when I met her a couple of years before in Yerevan and we talked about seeing each other again in Iran, so that she can show me her country.Those were lazy times, after so much driving under the sun in Central Iran.

Turkmenistan is shrouded in mystery, as it is one of the least visited countries in the world. North Korea gets a lot more visitors a year, most of them Chinese, and certainly much more media attention. But what do you know about Turkmenistan?

The name of Samarkand still evokes smells of exotic spices and images of camel caravans across the desert but, unfortunately, that is quite far from current reality. Many travelers choose this city as the destination of their long-distance journeys across Asia and I just hope they know that camels and spices are long gone...What is there in Samarkand today?

Leaving Turkmenistan was a sort of relief... the levels of hospitality there were just amazing but corrupt police and army officers make life very difficult for travelers. Apart from that, I had a four day transit visa and did not really like the idea of overstaying in the country. Across the border from Dashoguz lies Uzbekistan and I was leaving a police state to enter... another police state!

Warning: this post is different from all previous ones.

Sorry to keep you waiting for so long but I hope this post meets your expectations...

Whole day lost at the tire repair shop...

Entering the Marco Polo home stay and feeling warm air from a wood stove on my face was a blessing. I met there a Swiss family who was cycling around the Pamirs and, shortly after my arrival, a guy in a motorcycle outfit joined us. His name was Jirka and was very excited to meet me because he had been following my tracks all the way from the Wakhan valley and... he was riding a BMW 1150 GS Adventure. Same bike as mine but ten years older, with the same front and back wheel specs. And believe it or not, he had been carrying spare tires all the way from his home town in the Czech Republic.

After the fellowship on two wheels had crossed the thousand towers, we all got reunited in Osh. We spent a couple of lazy days resting, eating properly and remembering all those stories that would bond us forever. A couple of days later, each of us would go his own way but the adventure would always remain in our memories. Stuart and Jirka left their bikes stored in Osh and flew back home, to Norway and the Czech Republic, respectively.