Waking up in this small border village on the Turkish side of the Turkey and Iran border and the first task of the day was to get some local currency called the Turkish Lira and also a Turkish sim card as the expected stay in Turkey would be 5-6 days.

 

So off through the little village and after 2 unsuccessful tries with various banks it was third time lucky for the boys as they found an ATM which gave them enough Lira for the next 2 days.

 

Less luck with the sim cards so the boys decided to try for this necessity in one of the bigger towns to come. and indeed they were lucky in a city called Taslicay.

 
 
The roads in Turkey are beautiful

 

The roads in Turkey are beautiful and mostly double highway with agricultural scenes on both sides of the road – one wonders why it is so desert like some 50km back in Iran.

 

Extremely friendly people were met at the cell shop and fortunately the owner worked in Den Haag and soon Andre was chatting to him in Afrikaans and this made the communication that much easier…
 
high mountains with winding roads…

as the boys approached the black sea they had to climb through high mountains with winding roads…
 
mountain peaks

when the team reached the mountain peeks they were almost in the clouds and the descent again was through winding roads down towards Trabzon which would be the first town Lipstick goes through on the black sea.

 

Lipstick did not enjoy the steep incline into thin air and had to work hard to

Overcome this mountain range. Many buildings can be seen hanging on the mountains and the boys often wondered how people could choose these spots as other then defensive reasons could surely not not exist to built a house in these seemingly inaccessible areas.
 
black sea scenic sunset

As the sun was about to settle down the boys were on the shore of the black sea enjoying a most scenic sunset
 
Cheers to the Black Sea in Turkey..

Cheers to the Black Sea in Turkey..

 

Day 49 – 26th July 2016 Dogubayazitto Kesap (Black Sea)