11/1/25
It was raining when we woke up at about 8am. For some odd reason checkout was meant to be at 8am. We’d already confirmed we could leave later fortunately. We lazed in bed for a while, drank Turkish coffee made in a cafetière, it doesn’t work that well, before eventually resigning ourselves to packing up our belongings which we had managed to strewn everywhere.
It was still warm outside though, and there was a glimmer of sunshine as we were leaving. It was a bit of a logistical exercise to get all the bags and the bikes down to the bottom of the stairs. On the way we spoke to the friendly groundskeeper again, A young man, who was still working despite having broken his leg in two places. He was so cheerful. It seemed insane to us.
We bought some more water from the market to fill up our bottles and set forth to not only cross the D330 but then actually ride it. While we’d considered heading north to the ancient city of Pedasa and avoiding some of the main road, the weather had changed our minds. The road was hectic. There seemed to be even less hard shoulder going out than there had been coming into Bodrum.
It wasn’t actually raining at first, and we had to manage the unbearable sweat under our waterproof jackets as we ascended the steep hill to leave. The road hugged the edge of the sea, and was probably quite beautiful in the sunshine. As we reached the other side of the peninsula it started hammering it down with rain and we had to stop to don our waterproofs again.
We were passing many a luxury hotel and it felt similar to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico which is lined with 5 star resorts for a hundred miles. It felt like forever before we found the first town. Once we got to Güvercinlik the hard shoulder vanished and gave way to what could loosely be described as a pavement and some shops and cafes behind it. We were happy to have the opportunity to stop for some cąy. Tea in other words. It reminded us of Persian tea. In glass and with mountains of sugar. In many of the establishments were men playing an odd game of scrabble but with numbers.
We hid from the rain for at least an hour, and with the forecast seeming to say we were free for a time we headed on. We ruled out heading to Gökçeler and its impressive canyon, another possible detour, the weather looked worse deeper into the hills. Not only that but it was on a secondary road. Busy but with nowhere to hide. Primary roads although resembling the ‘A’ road dual carriageways, that we wouldn’t dream of riding on at home, were the best way through the maelstrom.
It wasn’t very interesting terrain though when the rain stopped it was pleasant enough. We were making more progress than ever, it was pleasing given how slow the previous days of cycling had been before Bodrum.
Only one obstacle now stood in our way. A 150m of 7% incline. Yet, still on the main road and with a rapidly evaporating hard shoulder. We were going to Milas. Most people tend to skip it and take a cut through, but just south of Milas is Beçin with its fancy castle. Now we knew why they did that anyway. It was a tortuous climb and while the trucks gave more room when they could, often they couldn’t and passed stupidly close while we were trying to ride the white line.
There weren’t great views or anything to see and we were quite glad to reach the top. Heading down was obviously easier but going fast wasn’t always a benefit. We had good views of the castle though, on its 210m perch above the town. We had two options in mind. Spend the night at a hotel, or try and camp near the castle. It was still early enough to try the castle first so we first bought some food from our favourite supermarket, Sok.
After navigating the enormous roundabout, twice, we headed a mile out to Beçin. The turning to the castle immediately became steep of course, and we walked most of it. Halfway up was a developed ticket office and a barrier. We weren’t sure if it was going to be manned but it was. So we couldn’t go any further.
On the way down was a little farm and we could hear some banging so we tried our luck. The old man in the shed called a young man from the house, maybe his son, who said we could go back up and camp next to an old house underneath the castle. Ideal. We pushed our bikes back up and found the best little flat place we could.
Dinner was the standard ekmek (bread) and some red pepper paste with sunflower seeds. We waited till almost sunset to setup the tent, some people were hanging around with their cars as they do in any scenic place. The forecast was for a few showers and fractions of millimetres of rain. At around 9pm they arrived predictably and pattered on the tent.
As the evening went on more people arrived to play extraordinarily loud music and drink beer. We could hear them pissing and cracking open another. It was concerning to think they’d all be driving afterwards. We managed to catch up on Traitors, the slaves we are to reality TV, before laying down. It was patchy sleep, as some left more would arrive. We laughed.
Surly They Won't Make It 