Trial by tunnel

In the wider scheme of things, not all the 'tourist attractions' are equally impressive.  But the walk was welcome.

With the promise of an afternoon’s excursion to ‘Ani’, the ancient remains of a Silk Road border city, the group is up and away by 7.45am.  Well, everyone but me...

For once, however, it is nothing to do with my speed of packing.  We have been threatened with a water crossing today.  Everyone wants to be taking the video, not starring in it, especially after Max’s dramatic wipeout last year - preserved for posterity on YouTube, should you wish.  For some reason I’m quite happy to be the stooge who’s through last, so I’m in no hurry to rush off.

In fact, events are a little topsy turvy.  The water crossing has been negated by a patch of new road - sorry about that.  On the other hand, we encountered far more than we’d been expecting.  I’ve stolen video from others’ and will load as soon as the internet speed is up to it.

Turkey Part 2 Movie

The route from our cabins in Ispir to Kars - a functional town that bit closer to the border - follows the river that was outside our door.  As the swollen river squeezes between narrowing gorge walls it gets faster, frothing white water lashing the sides and beating against the rocks.  It’s quite a scene, but we’re keeping our eyes on the road running parallel. 

Turkey looks to be undergoing a major road enhancement effort nation wide at present.  And this road, to Yusufeli, will soon be underwater as they are putting a hydro dam at the end.  In the process of blasting the gorge and creating a high level access road, the existing low-level road has become chewed up and pitted by the construction vehicles.                                                                                

It takes us 2 hours to travel only 40 odd miles.  We get a gentle introduction to off-road riding, standing tall on our bikes for better balance and ‘feel’.  I’m on my own and, bar a couple of interesting wrong turns, find my way to the end of the section where the group has re-formed:  rock driiling has closed the road temporarily so everyone is waiting and having a rest.

To our mirth, the unease at the water crossing had been trumped completely by one particular section of road works.  Boxed in between gravel lorries, we had followed the route into a two-way tunnel - heavy lorries also coming towards us out of the unlit gloom.  The drainage features were not installed yet, so the 100m tunnel was covered wall to wall with a puddle of muddy water, the gloopy consistency of melted milk chocolate.  Add in some ruts, potholes, a mushy gravel bottom, and a few corrugations and you’ve got a testing little off-road section.

No accidents, perhaps because we were all in shock.  A medal went to Tim who, without time to remove his sunglasses, had found himself navigating all of the above in near pitch darkness.  God knows how he pulled that off.

Light traffic today in the tunnel

For the rest of the day’s ride we gradually emerged from the mountain gorge and headed towards more barren, higher land.  On the way we passed plenty of cow-herders, but in the grand scale of the landscape they seemed to make no impression on the tussocky grasslands. 

I stopped to put on rain gear in anticipation of a heavy storm (we eventually rode around and behind it), and chatted a bit to one such herder, who'd walked over eagerly.  Our Turkish ‘hosts’ are always very intrigued to have their photo taken - I’d have liked a polaroid camera, but even showing them the digital image afterwards elicits a big grin.

We all make the detour to Ani, where Mark watches our bikes.  The old ruins are not much to look at really - walls restored such that it’s hard to tell what’s original - but one of the old churches is pretty impressive.  Most captivating, though, is the natural physical divide that acts as a land border with Armenia:  greens a golf course would be proud of face off against the other, with a deep river chasm between them.  It must have made an effective defense way back when.