October 1, 2023
Arpaçay
We had a big thunderstorm last night and more were predicted for today. What is strange about the thunderstorms here is that the weather is cold with temperatures starting off at about six degrees in the morning and not getting out of the teens later in the day. The wind accompanying the storms is also very cold. We are accustomed to thunderstorms being associated with warm weather.
Most of today's ride was along the edge of Çıldır Gölü, a large fresh water lake covering over a hundred and twenty five square kilometers. We were hoping for nice views but it seemed less impressive than we had hoped for. Leigh was also pretty tired this morning and it was slow going from the start. A fresh headwind for the whole ride didn't help matters. To even things out we had a great ten kilometer descent into Arpaçay at the end of the ride.
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We met three other cycle tourists today. First Jerome and Celline from France with whom we had a long chat. Jerome is also following the Rugby World Cup but had not yet been able to see any of the matches on TV so he was happy to learn of the Rugby streaming site that I use (rubu.tv for anyone else who is interested) which streams all the matches live. A few kilometers later we met Lucas from Brazil with whom we also had a long natter.
As mentioned yesterday, we have an apartment in Arpaçay for two nights. It is all very new but not particularly well organized yet. Nonetheless it is a great place to have a day off so we can watch the Springboks vs Tonga match tonight.
Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,871 km (1,162 miles)
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