 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
16. - 26.07.2012 Tuz Gölü & Kapadokya 299 km
Olli:
When we reached the salt museum in the evening while circling the huge salt lake Tuz Gölü, we were once again surrounded by tourists ;). So we quickly decided to look for a quieter and lonelier place nearby to spend the night. We finally stayed on an abandoned sheep farm. Early the next morning we cycled a little on the dry lake without any other tourists and took pictures. It was a completely new experience to cycle on pure and solid salt.
Then we went over 100 kilometers along the salt lake to Aksaray on a fairly flat road, where we were lucky enough to mostly cycle alone on a freshly tarred, still closed road. Once in Aksaray we asked a postman for directions. Instead of explaining the way, he accompanied us with his post bike to show us the way through the center of town - what a service ;) - until we finally found our Couchsurfing host Kemal, where we wanted to rest a few days. In the evening at dinner - we made our traditional couchsurfing pizza once again - there were bad news: Kemal's grandmother had died, which is why all the relatives would come to his place during the next few days. Consequently, no room for us anymore, and we also didn't want to be a burden for the mourners. So we left the next morning, still exhausted and tired from cycling 100 km the previous day, and headed for Nevsehir, in order to meet there our next host from Warmshowers. But then the accident happened...
The road consisted once again of sticky tar covered with stones, and we had to go uphill and downhill all the time in the greatest heat. As we just went downhill once again, loose gravel... Before I could think, I was already on the gravel at 40 km/h. Now just avoid wiggling or breaking, I thought, and was already over it.
Sonja:
I didn't get off so lightly. I was tired and unfocused and thought: "Hooray, finally downhill again with cooling air stream" and went at full throttle right into the loose stones. As I noticed my mistake and wanted to slow down carefully, it was already too late. Because of breaking, of course, my tires immediately slipped. I had no chance to counteract and only thought: SHIT! I landed on my left elbow full blow, slided along the road a few meters and then spun around to finally stop. I immediately jumped up and was relieved that I still could move all my limbs. Then I realized with horror that some of my belongings lay scattered on the road and a truck was coming closer. Shit! So I ran onto the road to collect my stuff. After having secured all my belongings I noticed that my elbow was bleeding like hell. Shit, quite a nasty flesh wound, and I can not see any blood. I pressed my scarf onto the wound and lay down next to the road just in time before I could faint.
Olli:
After a quick glance into the mirror, I saw Sonja just getting up and collecting her belongings from the road. Getting off my bike and running to Sonja was my first reaction. "Did you hit your head?" Answer: "No". Well, anything else can't be too bad, I thought. Sonja had a deep laceration on her left forearm and several abrasions on her costal arches, on her left shin and on her right arm, but nothing seemed to be broken. All of this can be fixed. I then stopped the next trucker and shouted "mobile" and "ambulans", whereupon he immediately knew, what was going on.
Sonja - a blessing in disguise
As I lay semi-conscious next to the road, I slowly realized that my whole body hurt. By and by several sympathetic-looking truck drivers examined my arm, looked very shocked and shook their heads. That really encouraged and comforted me, as you can surely imagine. Eventually Jandarma and ambulance arrived. Suddenly Olli's Turkish was really good, caused by this very stressful situation, and he convinced the military police to take our luggage plus bikes so that he could come with me to the hospital. Meanwhile, I was examined by a paramedic with a white headscarf, who smiled at me and said after checking my arm: "It's not so bad. That'll be all right." I was put on a stretcher and transported on a fast and bumpy ride like on a roller coaster and with blue lights to the hospital to Nevsehir.
Of course, no one spoke English there. After x-rays and ultrasound, it was clear, that I was lucky to be only externally bruised. During the whole procedure in the emergency room, finally the only English-speaking doctor, plastic surgeon Burak, who was just about to finish with another patient, noticed my language difficulties and took care of me. While he patched me up with nine stitches, he told us about his girlfriend, who is from Landshut, that he is very excited about Bavaria and that he also stitched his girlfriend's father in his garden. This distracted me so much, that I noticed almost nothing of the sewing. As like-minded backpacker, in the end he charged nothing for the stitching, took care about the formalities with the Jandarma and picked up all our luggage from them together with Olli in his car.
In the meantime I had to stay in a hospital bed but had company from Alkim, our Warmshowers-host, and her boyfriend, cyclist Laurens from Belgium, who had rushed to the hospital by bicycle. We exchanged our various cycling stories. Immediately I felt better. In the end Burak moved us with our luggage to Alkim's home, gave me a bag of bandages and medicine and even invited us to go hiking with him, when I felt better. He also prescribed me to not cycle for one week and to remove the stitches after two weeks. If something had been broken at the elbow, this would have needed several months to heal. So all this was really a blessing in disguise.
! under construction !
<- previous report --- next report ->