8 June, Acipayam to Çavdir, 55km
Cevizli Hotel 70TL (negotiated down
from 120TL)
We spent our day embraced by beauty,
cycling a quiet Sunday road. Hills all around us, framed by mountains pale and
blue. The hills forested, the valleys cultivated: wheat and onions and poppies.
Not our roadside poppies in cherry-red, but fields of poppies, their white
petals already fallen, their seed pods round, fat and sassy. We assume they are grown
for the poppy seeds... We did see one field where the poppy petals had not yet
fallen from the pods, but I did not photograph this as by then we were racing a
storm boiling in from the east, all black clouds and tumbling thunder. We had
had a gentle cooling wind blowing on our backs for much of the day, which made
outdistancing the storm a real challenge on the last 10km into town. On the
downhills we outraced cool drops of rain; on the uphills the storm caught us,
splatting slow heavy drops... On occasion, we could literally see dry road 50
metres ahead of us while rain fell on our backs. Stunning.
Between Acipayam and Çavdir - poppy fields
Between Acipayam and Çavdir - poppy fields
Between Acipayam and Çavdir
Between Acipayam and Çavdir
Between Acipayam and Çavdir