The wind had calmed down a bit towards the morning but by 6 it was already back full force. The only food we had left was bulgur which we had eaten so much of in the last few weeks that despite being hungry the mere thought of it just made us gag. So we skipped breakfast hoping to reach the next town before we ran out of energy. But it was slow going. The hills long and the wind strong. Only half hour into the ride and we started losing hope of reaching Bingöl today. This was not a good situation because even if we ate the bulgur we had we did not have enough food for another day. We had to make it to Bingöl today. Normally riding 50 km is no big deal, even without breakfast, but the wind slowed us down so much that these 50km could take all day if we are lucky.
Then a semi truck passed us but pulled over right infront of us literally cutting us off. Slightly annoyed we rode around him but he just passed us again and immediately pulled over again right infront of us. Curious and slightly alarmed we wondered what was going on. James then rode up to the cab and inquired. It turned out that the young driver had noticed us struggling in the wind and offered us a ride 150km all the way to Mush. I could not believe it. This man must be an angel. What perfect timing!!!!! THANK YOU LORD!!!
Timur helped us load our bags and bikes on the back of the truck on top of the 40 tons of rebar he was transporting from Hatay to Mush. Then we enjoyed every second of the ride in the clean, cozy, carpeted cab. The rugged, thinly populated landscape was beautiful. We noticed an abundance of military police posts along the way and Timur explained that is due to the presence of Kurdish terrorist group PKK in this area. There have been conflicts between the Kurdish people in eastern Turkey and the Turkish government for a while now. I do not understand enough about the conflict to comment on it in more detail. Along the way Timur showed us photos of his family on his phone and fed us jelly beans.
THANK YOU SO MUCH TIMUR FOR THE RIDE!!!!!
When we got off in Mush there was no wind!!! We stopped at the first best grocery store and celebrated the morning with another big tub of yogurt and some granola and fruit. Mmmm so good.
Midday we found another infinished building to hang out in. In the evening we reached Güroymak. Along the way we saved another tortoise from sure death as it was about to wander right onto the road. I must have really scared it when I picked it up because it releaseed a gush of pee. Luckily I held it far enough away from me so I did not get splashed.
Güroymak was a bit of a creepy town. I cannot point my finger at why it appeared creepy but we did not feel cpmfortable and many people stared at us as though we had just arrived from a different planet. Eventually we found a gas station where we could put our tent. The owner was really nice. After a while he said we could sleep inside in a spare room. We were very grateful for that because we still had a bit of a strange feeling about this town. We were about to go to bed when we were called back outside to share a huge watermelon with the owner and a whole bunch of his friends and family. Delicious!
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