Crossing the Caspian

I rode away from the abandoned building that had been my home for the night. As I passed through a town, a guy waved me over and after greeting me tried to convince me to buy a kebab. I don’t imagine he normally has much success with that at 7 AM, but I’d just been craving a kebab so I took him up on the offer for some unconventional breakfast food.

Armenia and Azerbaijan

After a couple hours trundling along an awful road I reached the Armenian border. I was stamped out of Georgia remarkably quickly, but it took a little longer to get my Armenian entry stamp. The immigration official considered himself a comedian, going through every page of the passport and pointing out any faces in the artwork, saying they didn’t look like me. Finally he was done and I was allowed in to another new country!

Georgia: the Caucasus Mountains

I took my bike to Batumi’s most modern bike shop and asked if they had the bottom bracket I needed. They only had a knock-off Chinese version but, with little choice, I took it. They gave me the old bottom bracket, which was in a rather poor state. The damaged bearings had enabled dirt to get in and it was now encased in a layer of mud. About time for a replacement, then!

Dashing to the border

It was several months ago that I applied for my Turkish e-Visa, before taking a break over the winter. That meant it was running out of time and I had only seven days in which to cycle the remaining 900km to the border.

Cappadocia

I was excited to set off on the morning of the 29th as this was the day I would reach a place I’d looked forward to for a long time: Cappadocia.

Turkish mountains

As the sun set, I departed Maxim’s Hostel heading toward the port of Girne. From there I would catch a boat back to Turkey.

Cyprus

My plane arrived into Paphos pretty close to on time at 10.00 PM. Immigration was easy – fully digitised and the machine managed to recognise me from my passport. I wandered over to to the oversized luggage area and didn’t have to wait long for my bike to arrive. It had survived the flight unharmed – always good news – and I soon had it packed up and ready to go.

The Story So Far

When I was planning this tour, I had in mind that I’d ride across the US. Before long, I’d extended my plan to cycle through the Americas as far as Argentina. Eventually I decided that I wanted to continue on to cycle all the way around the world.