Day 086 Side - Mahmutlu

If you want prettiness stay at the sea.
If you want magic go to the mountains.
As soon as I left the coast magical things started to happen:
The first third of the ascend was perfectly set up for sportsmen - with fruit stalls every few hundred meters. When I stopped at one to eat very small, very tasty bananas I was treated to some huge beans (tasting sweet, a bit chocolaty) by a Turkish girl with beautiful blue eyes. Women in Turkey are usually very withdrawn towards strangers - as long as Turkish men are around. If you are alone with them or only other women are around some become much more outgoing, friendly and communicative (again regardless of the lack of a common language).
Shortly after reaching the top of the first hill I finally met someone as crazy as me! Winston started cycling in Singapore exactly 1 year and 1 day ago. Now he is heading for London. Of course we shared some hints on what will lay ahead of us, made photos and enchanged contact data before moving on. With the motivating thought, that I am not the only crazy person in the world the next mountain went smoothly (ok, several days of relaxation also helped a lot). As I got deeper into the woods the fruit stalls stopped and I was already afraid of running out of water when I came across a small hut selling tea, water and toast. Of course the other guests were interested in my story so I explained it in the few words of Turkish I know. When I was about to leave it turned out that the lady did not have change - after some asking around one of the other guests just decided to pay my bill - no refusal allowed - wow!
The landscape became more dramatic and the sun began to hide behind the mountains, so I decided to stop at a mosque in the mountain village of Mahmutlu. After asking the mosque keeper (in sign language) I started to set up my tent and was immediately joined by Ali, Hussein, Recep and some other boys who were very interested in my bike, my tent, my journey and everything else. At prayer time a German speaking guy appeared, so I could have a deeper conversation before withdrawing to my tent. For the next two days I will go further up the mountains, so there will be more magic to come...