From the Upper Munzur Valley around Ovacık it was a ride on the main road following the river downhill to Dersim (the city). As a main road, I expected a fair bit of traffic, especially since it was the weekend. What was surprising was how narrow the road was. Thankfully there wasn’t much traffic. The nice scenery and pleasant camping continued.
The posts about this bicycle tour from Antalya to (spoiler) Bitlis were written shortly after the section described. Until now. It’s been almost two months since Hacer, Ferda, and I entered Dersim Province, dropping into a pretty canyon, crossing the Rabat Çayı (a creek), and switchbacking up the other side above one of the many arms of the huge Keban Barajı (a reservoir).
I had planned a good route from Divriği to Dersim before I knew that Ferda and Hacer were joining me for this section. This “good route” meant lots of dirt roads and lots of climbing. I worried it might be too hard for Hacer who went on her first bicycle tour last year on the Frig Yolu with us. This would be her second bicycle tour. However, I insisted we stick with the plan till the district capital of Kemaliye. From there we chose main roads which, though still hilly, were paved.
From Divriği it started out like this:
Divriği’s pretty out of the way, but tourists do make it out here to visit the Ulu Camii and Darüşşifası. Never heard of them, have you? Well, no one else has either. The only reason anyone knows about this building is that it’s one of Turkey’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites: The Grand Mosque and Hospital of Divriği. Solely because of the UNESCO designation, it’s been on my list to visit for quite some time.
I checked into a hotel, and after an early dinner, after the weather cooled off a bit, I headed straight up the hill to the famous site. Bah! Closed for restoration and covered in scaffolding! Here it is, in a gray metal cage with a white plastic hat:
Wow, this section was really fun. The scenery wasn’t great, it was fairly windy and too hot, but the people were wonderful, the apricots were plentiful and tasty, there were things to see, and the mosques, well, the mosques were perhaps the most interesting I’ve seen in Turkey.
The route started in northern Adana (Tufanbeyli İlçesi), passed through Kayseri (Sarız İlçesi), (Kahraman) Maraş (Afşin and Elbistan İlçeleri), Malatya (Darende and Kuluncak İlçeleri), before ending up in Sivas (Kangal and Divriği İlçeleri). So that’s five provinces (İl) and eight districts (ilçe). I’m guessing it’s more distance than I covered in any other week of this tour (so far!).
Here’s a sample of the scenery:
