Taşeli, Land/Home Of The Stones in Turkish. It is a limestone plateau at around 2,000 (6,000 feet plus) meters altitude. After 700 meters altitude, the road is not asphalt anymore but a dusty gravel one.
After everything is organized together with two trucks, thanks to Anamur Municipality and Department Of National Parks, we start our journey at around 4 pm from Anamur to Taşeli. I was riding w/o the luggage but this time, Elena Terekha, a Ukrainian caver to be who lives and works in Antalya joined me as my passenger. A total extra 45 kg. She wasn’t that heavy. Somewhere between high in the mountains, guys realized that we have forgotten caving technical equipment at the depot of the inter-city bus garage. It was already dark but we had no choice to one truck to go back and take it. So we have waited at the side of the road in the dark, watching stars and listening to music. About two three hours later, they arrived and we start climbing again.
At the back of my mind, I wasn’t easy and kind on the edge. Because of A. I have never ridden off-road and in Taşeli, there is smooth but 2 inches of dust gravel to full of baby head gravel to torrential water-washed with deep cuts roads. B. I was going to ride on street tires like 80/20 maybe even 90/10. No traction! C. I was supposed to ride off-road at night! D. I was supposed to ride off-road which Zig-Zagged with sharp turns and climb almost gaining 800-900 meters elevation. That is a lot to intake but what can I do but ride it through.
Before coming to the famous zig-zagged road climb, there were a couple of sharp turns on the soft gravel road and of course, twice I dropped the bike at the turns. I was surprised that when you steer the front wheel, the headlamp doesn’t turn with the wheel! So I could not see where I was going or what was on the road. Somehow, my passenger Elena was ok twice. When we reach the famous zig-zagged road, the municipality dumped soft sand, the reasons were beyond me, and of course, I dropped the bike a third time. Shit! This time, we transferred Elena to one of the trucks. I was kind of relieved not to have the responsibility for the passenger. Somehow after a small relief and being by myself, I was able to climb the rest of the zig-zagged road and reached the highest point of the plateau. I couldn’t switch to third gear at all.
After reaching the plateau, we still had 14-16 kilometers to reach the campsite. For a long time, ca 12 km, the gravel road now had sharp rocks popping up and pebble-like stones. Somehow, I have managed to ride about 12 km with no problems but I was hardly managing to control the tires, no grip no traction! The last 2-3 km were left to the campsite and this part was the gnarliest of all the routes. Baby heads, washouts, big rocks protruding on the road which I couldn’t dare to ride, and I was exhausted because it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and I was done. I parked the bike near the road and hopped on one of the trucks and finished the route by 4*4.
I have stayed almost a month to explore Morca cave system but that is another story to tell. During my stay, I went down to Anamur twice. At the first one, we climbed to the plateau from the eastern part of it. It is paved asphalt to the last small village up on the mountain and gravel road of every kind. This time up to the village, Büşra Karatay was my passenger. I was gaining a lot of experience and confidence to carry passengers but not on the gravel road yet. I was alone and this time, I have never dropped the bike until where I parked it. I gained my courage to carry on the washouts and baby head gravel and continued for about 3 km and dropped the bike again while mildly climbing due to losing control of the front wheel to a lot of baby heads and sunset was right in my eyes, I couldn’t see the road clearly. God damn! the bike was so heavy, I didn’t bother to lift it and wait for help from the cavers coming 20 minutes behind me. I did however clean up the road from baby heads as much as possible while I waited. With the help, I rode about another 400 meters or so but I had to stop at the top of the cliff because I did lose my courage and energy to focus to take the bike down the deep washout part of the road, it seemed the hardest part. I left the bike at the top and walked to the campsite which was very close by. Third time when I rode down to Anamur and up back to Taşeli, this time I was with the passenger all the way, Alper Utku. He was a 90 kg passenger. Seldomly I switched to third gear but other than that it was all first or second gear. Especially going down on the famous zig-zagged gravel road was a hair pinning experience. While he was videoing, I was fully concentrated not to drop the bike, and did I not! The ride was smooth, with no problem whatsoever.
After the expedition finished, I decided to leave the plateau from the northeastern side. I had almost 40 km of gravel road and it has been almost more than 20 years that I didn’t use this road. With luggage, full concentration, and alas I stopped for directions and just started to roll again due to baby head popped out from the road and higher center gravity of the heavy load, I dropped the bike. And lastly, damn dogs! I fell again and dropped the bike. Finally, I was out of the neck of the woods so to say. I stopped at a fountain near the confluence of asphalt main road to Ermenek city and the gravel road that I came, I was covered with dust.
This was my first off-road experience and it was full of hair rising incidences, full of anxiety but also confidence gain.
Büşra Karatay and Alper Utku