Playing tourist in Mexico City and Puebla

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Bryan Keith

Virgin de Guadalupe is about as Mexican as you can get.  You see her image all over Mexico, in houses, in shops, on buses, even burned into people´s cloaks.  The most important shrine in Mexico is the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  People come from all over the country, by bus, by bicycle, and on foot to celebrate their patron saint´s special day, December 12.

I joined them for the last five kilometers as I walked from San Juan de Aragón to La Basílica.  It´s not unusual to carry an image of the Virgen of Guadalupe during the pilgrimage.

DSCN2322 by bryandkeith on flickr

Of course if you didn´t bring your own virgin, they were plenty of places to buy one, but images of La Virgin weren´t the only thing for sale.  There was lots of food, including local specialties like chapulines.
Continue reading →

Posted in Mexico, Traveling | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A hop across the Atlantic — to Mexico

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Bryan Keith

Five days from Antalya to Mexico City, the magic of air travel. I took an overnight bus from Antalya to Ankara and had the chance to see Sabiha, Banu, and Deniz during my day in Ankara.

Very early the next morning (@2:30am without having slept) I took the bus to the airport only to learn hours later that my flight to Munich was cancelled. We had passed immigration and were waiting at the gate when this decision was made.

Back through immigration they cancelled the exit stamp, and hours later I was rebooked through Istanbul and Paris. Back to Ankara I went to Sabiha´s only to discover I had left my camera in her car the night before. What a lucky bugger I am. Just a few days earlier I was similarly lucky: I had backed up all my files to the internet and the very next day my computer died for good (bozuldu, descompuso).

My next flight out of Ankara was late.  I raced through the Istanbul airport, they reopened check-in for me, and I made the connection to Paris.  Late that night in Paris I was excited to see the Aeromexico plane and knew I´d easily make that connection.

Ha, ha!  Overbooked and I didn´t have a seat.  26 hours in Paris.  So that´s how I found myself walking through the center of Ankara one day, the center of Paris the next day, and the center of Mexico City the day after that!  I´ll probably never do something quite like that again.

DSCN2162 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in France, Mexico, Turkey | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Four days in Kapadokya

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Bryan Keith

I completed another month of Turkish lessons.  I passed the two-day five-part test and can now continue on to the B level classes!  Woo hoo.  Whether I’ll actually do that remains to be seen.  Instead of sticking around for the next course I took off just after my exam for a long weekend in Kapadokya (Cappadocia) with Ferda.

A few weeks ago I compared Vardzia in Georgia with Kapadokya.  That comparison was giving way too much kudos to Vardzia.  Vardzia is one underground city set in a pretty canyon.  Kapadokya covers a large area which includes over 200 underground cities (perhaps 10 of which are open to tourists), hundreds of churches carved out of the rocks, and countless valleys full of sculpted rock pinnacles the likes of which I’ve only seen elsewhere in Utah.

Being December we kept an eye on the Kapadokya weather the week before leaving Antalya.  In our four days in Kapadokya it went from short sleeve weather to snow.

DSCN1361 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Traveling, Turkey | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Antalya again, Turkish again

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Bryan Keith

Back in Erzurum, back in Hopa, back in Akhaltsikhe, back in Borçka, back in Bayburt, back in Ankara, back in Antalya.  I feel like I’m doing circles.  I do intend to start bicycle touring again.  Soon.  Maybe.  For now I’m stuck again in Antalya, studying Turkish.  Again.

Antalya apparently has a magic magnetic attraction.  “Cennet” (heaven) is how the Turks describe it, but foreigners know it too.  Antalya is the world’s third most visited city counting by international tourist arrivals.  Whoa, was I surprised to learn that!  It’s certainly the smallest city on the top 10 list.

DSCN1262 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle touring, Turkey | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Trekking in Yenice, Karabük — more fall colors

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Bryan Keith

east_turkey by bryandkeith on flickr

There you have it.  Four months of touring on one compact map.  I’ll call this chapter of my tour The Pontic Alps Explorer.  From Erzurum to Bayburt (with detours).  Haha, I really did start this tour in Erzurum after taking a train from Ankara with Sage, and I really did end this tour in Bayburt from where I took a bus back to Ankara.  And at one point during this serpentine adventure I actually pedalled directly from Erzurum to Bayburt in about a day and a half!

So if you want to know how to turn 10 hours of cycling into four months of touring, study this map (above).

A break from the bike seemed like a good idea (even though really I’m quite good at taking breaks).  Sabiha and I spent five days trekking in the Yenice-Eskipazar, Karabük forest.  As with the Tbilisi-Borçka ride it was a fall color extravaganza.

For the first half of the trek we joined a group from İstanbul.  They had hired a local guide to lead us on an unmarked route north from Eğriova Eskipazar Gölet to İncebacaklar.  Certainly it would have been difficult to follow the route on our own but not impossible.  It tended to follow paths and old currently-impassable-by-vehicle roads.  With a 1:25000 scale map (supposedly available, but where?) and a compass I think I could have led this route with only a few more wrong turns than the guide made!

Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle touring, Trekking, Turkey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments