Aug 1- Things get weirder

Reached Tatvan mid morning. The town is located on the south western shore of beautiful Lake Van. By now the head wind had found us again. No point in getting annoyed because there is nothing you can do. In addition to that the people seemed to get weirder with every kilometer. We stopped by an empty barn just out of town to cook some eggs for lunch. When we were in the middle of cutting vegetables for salad and scrambling the eggs a guy showed up and was curious about what we were up to. Cooking lunch! He then tried to explain to us that we need to put the vegetables in with the eggs to make Menemen. Yes we know this tasty dish but this time we just want salad with eggs. This seemed to confuse him. Then he asked James how many eggs he had in that pan. Eleven. The guy seemed shocked. For Menemen you only use five he exclaimed. Well we are NOT making Menemen and even if that's what we were making it would be a double portion. The guy then just stood there with a bit of a dumbfounded look on his face. When the eggs were done we sat down on our tarp to eat and the guy came came and stood right next to it and to watch us eat while towering over us. We lost all appetite and started to pack up. He was surprised that we only ate a few bites and made a bit of a fuss over the fact that we made so much food and were now going to throw most of it away. No we were just packing it up for future use. He went on about how wasteful we are. We left as quickly as we could and finished our meal down the road.
Not far out of town on the way to Van we came through a small town where a group of little boys saw us and immediately surged with energy. They lined up beside the road waiting for us. Some jumped into the lane and struck a pose as though they wanted to wrestle the bike. Luckily this was a down hill stretch so when I steered directly at them at a fast speed they became a bit uncomfortable and gave us room. O God that was a scary.
Not much farther along several women and their kids were walking along the highway. We got a bad feeling. As soon as the little boys saw us they started screeming "tourist tourist", picked up rocks and started sprinting towards us throwing the rocks at us when they reached us. Meanwhile the women just chuckled into their head scarves and kept walking. Fortunately the rocks were small so there was no damage done but we were speechless. What rudeness! Where in the world did we get ourselves to?!
Midday we stopped in an abandoned building overlooking the lake. Just gorgeous. The water was as blue as could be and the arid hills that the landscape is comprised of here made for a great view. But we felt pretty aweful. We did not want to be in this hostile land. I have never before hated the present as much as I did then (and for the next few days).
There was a construction zone nearby and one of the older workers came over to welcome us, which was very sweet, but once again he was another individual without any sense of personal space. I don't think he could have sat any closer to James without ending up on his lap. He seemed harmless and quite sweet but not overly bright and very dirty. He dug a few bits of paper out of his wallet with some wobbly drawings that made no sense. One was a sort of rectangular geometric pattern which he kept calling "ekmek" (bread) and another drawing was a big circular blob with a small blob inside it. We think he wanted to tell us about the famous island in Van Lake. He then put his wallet on the floor and shuffled away. A few minutes later he returned, showed us the drawings again and after an extended period of admiring the lake view from his spot next to James he eventually made his way back to the construction site. Odd!
There were no more rock throwing incidents that day but the people seemed scared, sceptical, confused and somewhat hostile in the way they stared at us with piercing eyes and did not respond to our waves and smiles. So very odd! This is not the friendly Turkey we knew.

With a bit of mental effort, we were still able to enjoy the beautiful, wild landscape despite the strange vibe. The road snaked along narrow valleys between steep, brown hills. Occasionally a little village, glued to the hillside, would come into view. Then we would pass three veiled women making a vegetable delivery with their donkey while a little further along a man was noislessly mowing a narrow strip of land with his scythe next to the little river where several herds of sheep and goats had arrived for their evening drink. When it was almost dark we found a quiet sleeping spot behind a hay stack. We slept wonderfully well in the cool air which dropped to 5 degrees that night. Dry, hot days and cool nights are common in Turkey's high elevation (1500-200m) interior. The interior's arid climate and cooler temperatures are the reason why we avoided most of Turkey's beautiful humid coasts and stayed inland for the main portion of our trip.