Alhaktsikhe - Kars, 2/X; 10th September
10th September
The wind last night got very strong — and unfortunately I’d put the tent horizontal to to the wind direction. This meant that I woke to the sidewall of the tent caving in from the wind, and I pushed it back with my hands in an attempt to keep the integrity of the tent in shape.
When we woke for breakfast, the wind had died down offering some respite and we enjoyed the soaked overnight oats over the town.
When we packed up a large sheepdog which had its ears clipped came to say hello. I assumed it had been just let out of the farm to start a day’s work, so I said hello and gave it some pets.
To our surprise he followed us up the hill. Sometimes he would walk amongst the trees above the road, looking back every so often to check we were still there. He was an incredibly sweet dog, when he took biscuits from our hand it was in such a gentle manner, a two step motion to softly take it from our palm then a quick swing back of the head as the biscuit landed in his mouth.
The wind picked up during the climb and it felt like a gail. At times we were crawling at 3.5-4KMH, a speed we hadn’t had since Tosor Pass of Kyrgystan. It was a bit demotivating as the wind saps your energy. If it’s just a big climb, there’s the downhill to look forward to, but this was a long climb up to 2000m+, and a strong in your face wind. Having the dog company did make it more bearable.
At the top, we took a picture by the sign and said goodbye to the dog with several rubs and the last of the biscuits. He seemed sad, and MayLyn suggested he knew we were saying goodbye.
As we started to descend he started running after us. We were far too fast for him, and I turned round after about 100m and could t see him, which I was glad about in a bittersweet way.
We got to the small town of Damal for lunch. An owner of a hardware store asked us in for tea, and we obliged. He said there was a hotel we could in the town, for 500 Lira, a very cheap price, considering our lunch was 320.
His friend walked us to the hotel and the manager signed us in. I think it’s owned state owned or at least state subsidised, as it’s affordable and clean, and the manager even let us use the washing machine and the office’s WiFi.
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When we returned later in the evening a fireman was outside, also one of the hotel guests. I’d heard of council owned teachers accommodation which is subsidized In Turkey, but also open to anyone to stay — and I think maybe this place is something similar.
The town of Damal is very pleasant. For a small place it has several restaurants, at least two cafes for playing cards and drinking coffee, and at least four hardware stores, one of which i bought thread lock from, for the bolts on the bike to avoid another episode like the rear rack incident.
They also look after their dogs well here! There are doggy feed stations with food and water supplied, as well as little wooden huts for the dogs to sleep in, but the dogs seemed to sleep on the street, probably because it’s still warm— a young guy working at his family’s shop told us it gets very cold with heavy snow in the winter — he was back for summer holiday from his studies in Izmir, where he much prefers the warmer weather.
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