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turkey is a big country and i only made it as far as usak today. funny, after taking three years to drive around africa i now expect to cross europe in three days...
it was a nice, relaxed ride through a peaceful landscape of rolling hills and over the occasional mountain range. people here seem to be well off, judging from the endless field and the clean and tidy villages and small towns. it looks like a rural part of western europe - with minarets.
but there was one exception: in some parts the road was in terrible condition. there where sections where the asphalt were soaked with old oil that must have leaked from the many trucks that use this route. i could never trust this shiny surface for traction and went gingerly around the curves, like walking on raw eggs. in one part i must have hit a fresh oily patch and i felt the how back wheel started skidding and how the bike came out of line. all this is dangerous enough in good weather but it must be hell when it rains.
then an old farmer almost ended my trip. i saw the tractor as it appearing from behind a bush on the side of the road and gave a warning signal. the man looked at me in and stopped. but as i got closer the imbecile drove on and blocked my way. i went full on the break.
everything seemed to pass in slow motion. i had often practised emergency breakings but i since wasn't sure if i would make it aimed at the back wheel of the trailer where i expected to find space to pass as the tractor advanced.
i don't know if the that moron thought i as an alien from outer space and wanted to get a better look at me or if he simply wanted to kill me. in any case he stopped again, conveniently blocking the entire road and it was pure luck that i managed to come to a halt within spitting distance of the idiot...
...and i would have spat at him but the thought of my saliva, smeared over to the inside my of my helmet, made me think better of it.
by now the idiot must have concluded that i was in fact not an alien, that he hadn't managed to kill me, and since he didn't understand the tirade of abuses that reached his ear he decided to get back to work and drove off. for the rest of the ride i invented ever crueller ways to torture him and i just stopped short of whishing for his next 'visitor from outer space' to be an australian road train.