Turkey – or: the land of hospitable people.

Our journey to Turkey begins with a 20-minute ferry crossing from the beautiful little Greek island of Kastellorizo to Kaş on the southwestern tip of the mainland. The plan is to travel north along the west coast to Istanbul, with a detour to Pamukkale, the snow-white limestone terraces that adorn every Turkish travel guide. From there, we will continue towards Cappadocia and then back up north to the Black Sea coast, from where we will cycle to Georgia and leave the country. That is the plan, at least in broad terms.

The arrival in Kaş is very warm. We have to hand over our passports to be stamped and get them back with a smile after a few minutes' wait. The captain and crew say goodbye to us and wish us a pleasant journey through Turkey. We stock up on water, explore the town a little and do our first fruit and vegetable shopping at our first Turkish market (in Turkey). All kinds of fruit and vegetables as well as olives of varying quality are offered for sale in large barrels. We quickly learn that in Turkey, food is preferably sold in large quantities, so buying just two apples is rarely a good deal. No problem, we have large panniers and sturdy luggage racks on the front and back of our bikes. From now on, we'll just buy a little more. During the subsequent tour of the amphitheatre, we notice that there are some young people in the surrounding undergrowth who appear to be camping there. As it is getting dark, this suits us perfectly, so we pitch our tent right next to the amphitheatre, which is still bustling with visitors.

Our route to Fethiye is a newly built road with lots of bends right by the sea, on which the bikes fly along despite the many hills. The next day, it takes us past Turkey's widest and longest beach (16 km long), which is located near Patara. We camp for a night high up on the dunes, from where it takes more than half an hour to walk down to the sea. The next day, we visit the well-preserved ruins of Patara and move on to the turtle beach a few kilometres further on. This is one of the few places in the Mediterranean where the endangered Caretta sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. These hatch about 50 days later at full moon and crawl for their lives towards the sea. For this reason, the beaches are only accessible to visitors during the day. Rain is forecast, but we are lucky: there are abandoned fishermen's huts with covered verandas at the edge of the beach. This allows us to weather the next two days of heavy storms with lightning and continuous rain.

We continue on to Saklikent Gorge, an extremely deep canyon, and to a nearby waterfall. Barefoot, we wade along the riverbed through grey mud that squelches velvety between our toes. Great fun for us mud lovers.

In Fethiye, we decide to make a detour to Butterfly Valley. As we set off for the abandoned Greek village of Kayaköy, we already regret this decision a little. The mountain is incredibly steep. With our luggage, it's almost insurmountable. But a Turkish man cycling past on his electric bike shows us respect. And even as we roll down the mountain towards Ölüdeniz (the ultimate tourist hell), we are overcome by the unpleasant feeling of having to ride this route again in the opposite direction on the way back. But first, we continue towards Butterfly Valley to the village of Faralya. The onset of night lowers the temperatures a little and we are eager to get the climb behind us. So we pedal ourselves and our bikes with all their luggage up several steep switchbacks and 300 metres of elevation gain in the dark. In the distance, the lights of the tourist hell glisten. Sweaty but happy, we arrive at the top of a cliff and spend the night next to a water source near the road. The next morning, we park our loaded bikes at a guesthouse and hike down the path into the valley (and later back up again) with only a rucksack. Ropes lead us along the steep rock faces into a green paradise with a waterfall that you can climb up a little way. There are signs everywhere warning that this path is dangerous and that appropriate footwear is necessary. Accordingly, we follow the path, which is deserted, and enjoy the idyllic surroundings. But there are no butterflies to be seen anywhere. With luck, we spot a total of three. As we approach the small beach around noon, we suddenly encounter huge crowds of people. The bay is a popular day trip destination. Countless large sailing boats in the style of Pirates of the Caribbean, blaring loud, bad animated music, spew hundreds of tourists onto the beach. No wonder the butterflies have taken flight. It's a shame that this beautiful place is being ruined by tourism.

On the way back to Fethiye, we try to flag down a lorry or pick-up truck in Ölüdeniz to avoid the deadly climb. We wait for almost an hour, but apparently it's not meant to be, so we are forced to prove that we are capable of mastering even such inhuman climbs of up to 33%. A total of five breaks and 200 metres of elevation gain later, we finally made it. It was and would remain the steepest climb of our entire cycling trip so far.

Back in the big city, we meet up with a tandem couple who are friends of ours. We already got to know the two Argentinians in Greece at a Warm Showers host in Athens. (Warm Showers is an online community for cycle travellers looking for a place to stay, and it's always a pleasant way to find a warm shower and a place to sleep, as well as to immerse yourself more deeply in the local culture.) Now we are very happy to see them again. They have become part of our little cycling family during the trip and a great friendship has grown out of it. It's nice to meet other cycle tourists. They often have good recommendations for routes and it's fun to talk shop about the challenges of everyday cycling and exchange a few good tips. Unfortunately, our route is taking us in the opposite direction for now, so we'll stay in touch via mobile phone and arrange to meet up again in another country, Iran.

To reach our next destination, the limestone terraces of Pamukkale, we have to conquer more very steep mountains. Despite being well paved, Turkey's roads are often very direct. After being spoiled with gentle climbs in Greece, the stages of this route are so strenuous that Anja almost loses the desire to continue. But giving up is not an option! A small ray of hope is a Turkish family who give us a few treats from their picnic in the late afternoon to fortify us. And so we continue to pedal leisurely up the mountains, climbing a total of 3,560 metres. When travelling by bicycle, it is usually not the distances that cause problems, but rather the longer climbs of more than 10%. These are always a welcome challenge for body and mind. Once you've overcome your initial inner demons, you pedal up the mountains in a trance-like rhythm, feeling every muscle in your legs, the weight of the bike and all your luggage, and your thoughts drift away to beautiful places and moments. We chant songs in our heads like mantras. It's similar to the feeling of meditation. When you reach the top, you are overjoyed and often rewarded with a magnificent view. As it is cool in the mountains in the evening, we fill a canister with hot water at a mosque and look forward to a warm bottle shower.

It's a wonderful feeling to finally roll downhill towards Denizli and know that we've made it! The evening in Pamukkale is very rainy, so this time we simply cook under the canopy of a closed shop in the middle of town, next to restaurants and hotels – to the great astonishment of all the tourists and locals around us. We spend the night before our visit to the ruins and limestone terraces almost directly in front of the west entrance. This is convenient, as it means we only have to cycle for a minute in the morning before we can explore the site before the tourist rush. We have to park our loaded bikes outside, but the entrance seems to be almost unused and is also monitored by CCTV, so we just pack our most valuable items into one of our rucksacks and set off on our tour of discovery.

In the late afternoon, we visit the hot springs in Karahayit, known locally as Pamukkale. The small town is so charming; we stock up on fresh produce from the market, try a treat here and there, and eat tasty gözleme with spinach, a kind of savoury Turkish pancake. In the hot springs, we soak our feet in the sunset and chat with interested people. Everywhere in Turkey, we receive applause from passers-by for travelling through their country by bike, and cars often honk their horns joyfully at us, sometimes several times. Every now and then, we meet German-speaking people who can't believe that we've already cycled all the way from Germany to Turkey. Our next big destination is Izmir. We cycle along a main road for days. It's pretty awful and boring. But luckily, the road is flat and rolls quite well. On top of that, we have to take a day off to recover from an acute gastrointestinal infection. One bright spot is the ruins of Ephesus, which are truly impressive, as a team of Austrian archaeologists has done a lot to reconstruct the ancient buildings. On the way to our intended sleeping spot on the beach, we pass several wedding photo shoots. Once we reach the sea, there are five more such photo sessions. We really wonder how often Turks marry, divorce and remarry, given this high number of weddings.

In Izmir, we organised accommodation for two or three days through Warm Showers and are looking forward to putting our dirty laundry in a washing machine again and wandering through the streets of the big city without any luggage.

We enjoy the many freshly squeezed juices and snack on the occasional sweet treat here and there along the street, such as halva or baklava. In the Basmane district, we even find an Arab restaurant where we enjoy hummus and falafel. This is a welcome change from bread with spicy breakfast paste or aubergine spread, as the widely available meat-based kebab is not really on our menu. Unfortunately, with the exception of Cig Köfte, the delicious vegan Turkish food we know from home in Berlin is not available on the streets here.

On the way to Istanbul, we pay a visit to Bergama. We park our bikes at the cable car station and hike up the mountain. We take the cable car down, yay! Anja has been looking forward to finally riding the cable car the whole trip. Now we've finally done it.

Since we are only driving along a major highway these days, we ask at petrol stations for a place to pitch our tent in a field. In the end, we are even allowed to set up camp in unused rooms, saving us the trouble of pitching a tent and keeping us warm. Turkish hospitality is truly extraordinary. Many cultures could learn a thing or two from it. We are offered çay everywhere we go, but unfortunately have to decline most of the time, as we simply cannot sleep in the evening after drinking caffeinated tea. Neither of us are coffee drinkers, unfortunately.

Since the roads don't look promising and we're looking forward to an upcoming concert in Istanbul, we take the train from Soma to Bandirma and then the ferry for the last leg of our journey. The huge city swallows us up for a few days. We marvel at the country's most beautiful mosques with their intricate patterns adorning the walls and ceilings. Throughout Turkey, there are many mosques, some of which are quite new, and sometimes even have supermarkets or similar facilities integrated into their buildings, so we quickly get used to the muezzin calling people to prayer several times a day. Funnily enough, however, the population in Turkey doesn't seem to be particularly interested in this, and we don't see a single person facing Mecca, let alone carrying a carpet. We assume that the Turks have a similar attitude to Islam as the Germans have to Christianity. After all, there are also Turkish spirits and beers. We are allowed to enjoy raki, the Turkish equivalent of Greek ouzo, at a traditional çilingir sofras? with our hosts in Istanbul. They explain to us that ‘Çilingir’ means something like ‘door opener’, similar to a locksmith (referring to the raki), which figuratively opens mouths and hearts. It is a kind of ceremony with lots of delicious food and, of course, lots of raki.

After paying a hefty bribe for our excess baggage, we find ourselves on the bus to the salt lake (Tuz Gölü). With winter fast approaching and Turkey being quite a large country, but wanting to see as much as possible, we zigzag across the country, skipping the odd passage by train, ferry or bus. We have the crystal-strewn salt lake all to ourselves and even camp on the lake for one night. As we continue on our way, Gnubbi, his eyes fixed on the gears, rides over an old truck tyre lying on a straight highway and crashes. Immediately, two ambulances and two police cars appear uncalled for and escort us and our bikes to the nearest hospital. According to the X-ray, nothing is broken, so luckily we can continue our journey the next day, albeit cautiously.

When we arrive in Cappadocia, the nights are already freezing and we finally get to use the thick clothes we've been carrying in our panniers since Germany. Unfortunately, it still takes Anja's feet half the night to warm up. We'll need a hot water bottle soon. The temperatures are now below freezing at night. But the morning makes up for all the cold of the past few hours: hundreds of hot air balloons rise from the valley in front of us and some even fly right past our tent. What a magical moment.

After exploring the surrounding area on foot for a few days, we take the night train from Kayseri to Erzurum, but get off one stop earlier in Aşkale. From there, we want to travel over the mountains to the Black Sea coast. At the beginning of November, the temperatures drop lower and lower at night at an altitude of 2,000 metres. Wrapped up in all our warm clothes, we crawl into our sleeping bags. But it's not the cold that keeps us awake half the night, it's little mice that want to benefit from our warmth and food supplies. Again and again, they scurry across our inner tent and rustle around, refusing to be scared away. The next morning, our tent glitters in the rising sun; it is covered with hoarfrost. A quick check of our supplies reveals that the mice have enjoyed the rubber seal on our pot lids. But the best thing is, we didn't freeze.

Our next destination is a final mountain pass before it's all downhill to the Black Sea. The climb is steep again and the road soon turns into a muddy track. We pedal higher and higher for hours and soon look down 1,200 metres onto the plateau we came from. At an altitude of 2,500 metres, wrapped up warm and panting, we finally pass the pass and are rewarded with snow-capped mountains, abandoned villages and untouched nature. The houses and mosques stand ghostly in a landscape of white mountain peaks. We are surrounded by snow and can hardly believe our luck. We are even above the clouds. So magical! We quickly forget that there were once again several short sections where we had to push the bikes up the mountain with a lot of effort. Unfortunately, there is little time for breaks to avoid getting too cold, and night is slowly falling. As we roll down the long, steep descent into the valley with our headlights on – or rather, ‘brake down’ would be more accurate – Gnubbi gets a flat tyre just before we reach our destination. The brakes probably caused the rims to overheat, causing the inner tube to tear right at the valve. Shit happens! But luckily, it is quickly replaced and we can continue on to our destination, Uzungöl. At the end of the day, our bike computer shows a total riding time of 7.5 hours. A new record for us. The days are now only about 10 hours long from sunrise to sunset. We fall into bed, totally exhausted but overjoyed, in the apartment we have treated ourselves to.

The village of Uzungöl is known as the Switzerland of Turkey. It lies in a valley by a small mountain lake, Uzungöl (Long Lake), and is surrounded by very steep slopes over 1,000 metres high, covered with dense coniferous and deciduous forests. We stay a few nights in accommodation by the lake and experience the onset of winter. It snows continuously for two days, covering the entire village in a thick white blanket and making us a little worried about whether we will be able to leave on our bikes the next day.

But the road to the Black Sea leads downhill, so we soon take off our jumpers and let the warming sun shine on our skin. The snow-capped mountains are replaced by green tea-covered hills and tropical dripping lianas at the roadside. Waterfalls cascade from the mountains everywhere.

Arriving in Rize on the Black Sea, Erdogan's hometown, we have a wonderful experience of Turkish hospitality: we stay with Mustafa, a teahouse owner who likes to invite cyclists to stay with him. He welcomes and looks after us as warmly as we had always imagined Turkish hospitality to be from hearsay. But until now, we had never really encountered people in this way. Although he doesn't speak a word of English, we try to communicate and exchange ideas as best we can using a translator on our mobile phone. We also really enjoy watching the hustle and bustle in the tea house: early in the morning, the first old men arrive and solve crossword puzzles or play cards over a cup of çay. Many ask us about where we come from, what we have already seen in Turkey and where we are going. As Gnubbi is still having problems with his arm due to his accident, Mustafa and his friends take us to a doctor friend of theirs, who sends us back to hospital. After another X-ray, it is now clear that the arm is broken after all. Neither we nor the doctor can quite understand how we were able to cycle for two weeks with the arm in that condition. But never mind, now it's in a cast and nothing stands in the way of healing. When we leave the teahouse after two days, we all take a huge selfie session and finally cross the border at Sarp.

We leave Turkey with a warm feeling and our bags full of confidence to discover a new country unknown to us. Georgia, here we come.

In total, we zigzagged across Turkey from 28 September to 18 November 2018, covering around 1,800 kilometres by bike over 52 days.

At this point, we would like to once again express our sincere thanks to Carina and the entire Tubus team for the luggage carriers and accessories. It's hard to believe what a battle of materials such a bike trip can be. Almost every part of the bike and equipment wears out sooner or later or is damaged by the high level of continuous use. However, we can say with confidence that the luggage racks are one of the few parts that have not caused us any problems so far and still work like new, provided they are protected from abrasion by the bike bags. To do this, we cut open aquarium hoses and pulled them over the luggage rack bars. Another highlight from Tubus that we would like to emphasize here, and which we were previously unaware of, are the 3-fiber tension straps. Carina gave us four of these straps and we are simply thrilled with how extremely robust and durable they are.