How to loose a Spider in one day

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We woke early to a great little day. The sun was out, we werent too spanked from yesterday and had had a good sleep.

The morning ride greeted us with a smashing 5km or so downhill run. We belted down it with the mountain on our left coming out to play in the sun, and stretching ahead and below us vast fertile plains. The bike and trailer worked really well on the downhill run, wıth both rolling together as one unit. I was pretty happy with this as it was the first time id got any kind of pace up on the bike with the trailer attached.

we scooted onto the plains and started to make some good headway. But here i'm sad to say it all gets a little bit murky. Spider rode off ahead and I settled into a good rythym. After an hour or so I thought if funny that I hadnt seen him. I had passed through a few towns and no sign of the Spider. I stopped at a turnoff to Develli and Yahalli, cursing that I didnt have any of the maps, and getting worried as to where Spider was. I waited a fair while, and thinking he was off ahead pushed on into the fading light.

Getting close to dark I had still not spotted Spider and was getting pretty concerned. He had the maps, but I had the tent and stove. Shit! I rolled into a servo on dark and managed to draw a crowd pretty quickly. With the help of an english speaking guy I managed to convey my plight. Everyone had concerned expressions on their faces! I asked if it was ok for me to pitch the tent behind the servo. And here I ran into some totally genuine Turkish hospitality.

The boys wouldnt let me stay in the tent and insisted i stay in a room out the back, heated, and complete with a matress on the floor. Total score! I hoped Spider had fared as well as myself.

After numerous cups of tea my new friends took me on a picnic. This was a rather random affaiır. It consiste of loading the 1989 Fita Daga 1800cc with food and men and fanging it up some dodgy dirt roads to a tin shack in the mountains. After a long and tiring day I was having Wolf Creek visions, but this was very far from the truth.

We pulled up at a shack, and had a massive cook up of chicken and veges and eckmek (Turkish loaf bread). There were about a dozen of us crammed into the 3*3m shack, but it never felt cramped or uncomfortable. They all took turns in sitting next to me and trying to have a chat, often with their arm around me or hand on my arm or leg. Normally in a western sense this would be odd, and I have to admit I wasnt altogether comfortable with the closness at the start but started to warm to it when I realised they all did it and it was quite a good way to show friendship.

The food was finished and the boys carried out a small prayer session with my mate Ozman singing some verses from the Koran, it was pretty moving and impressive to see how devovted these guys were to their religion.

Soon enough we finished up and headed back to the servo. By this time I was exhausted. I curled up on the floor and layed awake, despite my fatigue, marvelling at the randomness of the day and the god fortune that was thrown at me. Thanks to the boys at the Yahalli Petrol Olfisi station, good blokes!!

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