As Orit (my girlfriend) isn't a cyclist, this isn't a bike trip. However, of course I do my best to keep on good shape also along this hike-and-bus tour - which leads sometimes to rediculous situations. When we climbed to beautiful Sumela Monestary, near Trabzon, I TAFARTI - ıe ran up and down in front of Orit (who walked in a regular pace). The other tourists (most of them intern, Turkeysh, tourists, BTW), where very ammused, and asked me wether I'm a sportman. 'Merely as a hobby', I answered. On the day after we hiked to a Tea Garden, on a steep hill in Rize - and I TAFARTI again. Well, now, as it was within a town, all the locals where watching at me amazed from the balconies. Orit claimed that I run just like ... read more

Dear reader: R U CORRUPTED? (Hebrew) Home, sweet, home The slow noisy buses, the driver´s accessory gut hung out of the bus through the always-open bus door, most of his body in the air, outside the bus; The amazing dramatic mountainous scenery of green steep slopes; The sweet Mayan children, always amazed to see me passing with the bike; The beloved spanish; The liveful simple Central-American music. As if everything was waiting for me during the 3 years which passed since my last visit here. PSULEY TZILUM Here is my Hebrew list of PSULEY CHITUN. And here´s a list of PSULEY TZILUM - people which you should refuse to watch theirs photo albooms. PSULEY TZILUM 1. People who use flash while taking pictures of... read more

SEXA PLANT While travelling in Venezuella, when I first encountered the extreme unreliability of the locals in developing countries, I invented the SEXA PLANT (MINA TZEMACH) method of orienting: before each turn-about I take, I ask 10 locals, and do complex calculations, which weights their age, gender, look and size of breast (in case the gender is "female"). The map (if I have any) is not weighted much more than 2 old men in these calculation- I think that instead of using expensive means such as sattelites photos, these countries simply pay expressionist artists for drawing their topographical maps. But when I rode from Sophia to Aleko, all the locals had the same answer, when I asked them on the way: "up". And they were right. This place was simply "up" - the highest you can ... read more

Here evereything began Well, not exactly: I've been a cyclist since I was 6 years old, and have used bike both as a vehicle and for sport & travel ever since then. But Venezuela was the very moment when I understood that from then and on I was gonna travel abroad only by bike. It happened after I noticed that though the places I saw during my 2 weeks of cycling in Venezuela weren't the most beautiful I had seen in South America, the strongest experience came from the cycling days. Danny Rup signing in the bureauThe sign at the entry of the little village Piniango, at the Venezuelan Ands (see picture below), tells some fact about the village: 3000 habitants (a wild exaggeration, in my opinion; or maybe they counted also the cows); 2320 meters ... read more

Trumpeldor ^ 2 Yesterday I saw a very nice person on the road, who offered me a coffee with him. Well, usually I don't refuse such requests (which I get here twice a day), but this time I refused indeed. Why? because this man's hands were cut. Well, I have got nothing against cripples, but - my main way of communicating with the locals is by hands, so talking to a person without hands would be just a "Shrubbery of deafs" (SIACH CHRESIM). A HIGH-RANK QUEZE (introduction: the roads here are so narrow, that hardly can two cars pass one in front of the other, not to talk about leaving room for a man standing beside the road). A car passes on the road once in half hour. Ofanan pisses (is that the way to say ... read more