Those whom the Gods love they send to Datca for a good life (quote from a sign in Datca)
Bright and early yesterday morning we rode out of Marmaris. The morning was still cool, the sun weak, people were getting ready for work, and the city was slowly coming to life with a few moving around. In Turkey people start late and end late, shops may not open till 10am, but at 6pm and later they are still at work.
We were confident of the 75km ride and anticipated getting up in the hills. Our target for the day was the small coastal town of Datca, on the end of the peninsular. The day was going to be easy, hey its a peninsular, a stick of land poking out in the water, just how hard could it be? Poor misguided fools we were.
We immediately entered our first climb, and congratulated ourselves for getting this out of the way in the cool of the morning. We rode through pine forests and past rocky fields covered messy low scrub. The Aegean was a turquoise blue below us (you know the tourist clichés about the Aegean so I will leave it at that). Small bays appeared that unfortunately we couldn't get to.
The road continued to climb, at a gradual pace. It was a beautiful road (only cyclists can really call a road beautiful) good chip, wide, clean with nice bends and little traffic. Country riding at its best. We passed a few cafes and villages and didn't stop for food or water thinking more were to come, our legs were feeling strong and the day was warming up.
Around 10am, after 3 hours cycling we saw something shocking in the distance, a huge monstrosity of a mountain, and worse a road snaking up the side of it. By then the sun had wound up its energy and was starting to cook, the trees had gone and the rocks were radiating their heat onto us, we hit the bottom of the hill already in the lowest gears and prepared for the climb.
(The road stretching away ahead of us shimmering in the heat of the day)
As we ascended the gradient increased and we found ourselves slowly winching up the hillside, every stroke being felt in our knees. Water was rolling off us. Eventually the gradient reached such an acute angle we were reduced to walking, an ignoble condition for a cyclist, pushing our bikes with our 20 plus kilos of gear each up the serpentine road for about 45 minutes.
We finally made it to the top, (well we had to the only other option was retreating), and considered the worst to be over. It wasn't...
(Looking back from the climb, see the white road snaking away below us towards Marmaris)
The road continued to undulate along the spine of the peninsular dropping back to sea level and rearing up again. At one stage we stopped for a quick swim which Beate found refreshing, I caught a quick sleep.
Back on the road we came to our next challenge, roadwork’s. Maybe about 10kms of it. We got the full treatment, gravel, lose chip, hardpacked soil, loose soil, and just for fun, sand. Again lots of pushing when the bikes had no traction, not to mention the vehicles and buses passing us churning up clouds of dust and the full heat of a 30+ day.
By 2pm we were getting desperate, no food since 6:30am, water very low and we were tired. However in the nick of time we found a small restaurant and gorged on Turkish cheese, bread, tomatoes and pepper with copious amounts of coke.
The day couldn't get any worse could it? Back on the bikes with only 20kms to ride we encountered a headwind strong enough to reduce us to the low gears again. That lasted all the way to Datca. Boy were we drained at the end. That rated for us as one of the hardest rides ever.
We ended up in Datca, a Turkish holiday town. Its wonderful. A blue harbor with fish and yachts, narrow streets on the hillside with small clean shops and dusty streets.
Best of all you can walk down the streets, look in the shops and no one hassles you. So many times in other cities we didn’t dare to look in the shops, or even express any interest in the windows, because of the pressure to buy. The shops also have prices, and to date the shopkeepers adhere to them. We love the place.
So today is a rest day for us. I was going to cycle out to the ruins at the end but the 35km one way trip didn't appeal. instead we are going to spend the day out of the sun and have a small swim later. and eat .....