July 26: From Kavala to Turkiye
What an action-packed day! After thoroughly exploring Kavala Greece with the help of a local biker, I managed to pass through the border checkpoint at Ipsala, Turkey today, a rather involved process that involved just about everything other than a body search.
One of the wonderful aspects of traveling around the world by motorcycle is the extent to which fellow bikers so frequently give timely advice or lend a helping hand.
When planning out my route through the Balkans to Greece, Panagiotis (or “Panos” for short) Kalaitzis kindly shared his wealth of knowledge about the roads in the region. I offered to take him out to dinner to thank him, but he insisted instead on treating me to a fabulous meal and showing me around Kavala, a major city in northern Greece and the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia.
As Panos and I zipped up and down narrow cobblestone streets in his more than capable four-wheel drive vehicle, he pointed out one amazing piece of local history after another. One of the most stunning artifacts from the Roman era was a beautiful stone and brick aqueduct with curved openings framing a view of the city buildings stacked on the steep hills surrounding the shoreline.
I was also particularly taken with the vista of the Bay of Kavala, its silvery sapphire waters teeming with sailboats and ships, their silhouettes reflected on the water by the bright sun above, and seagulls swooping amongst them. Off in the distance the island of Thasos rises out of the sea, appearing a shade of dark blue against the shining waters. When the sun sets, it casts an orange glow above the tops of the hills overlooking the city.
Our dinner at Araliki of traditional food from the area, was off the charts amazing. The giaourtiou kebab was a flavorful blend of lamb and meat covered with yogurt sauce that simply melted in my mouth and the slightly charred kondosouvli meat dish had just the right amount of fat to hit the perfect flavor notes.
I headed straight to the Turkish border this morning, enjoying many views of the dark blue Aegean Sea highlighted against the burnt yellow grass and scrubby green trees in the foreground.
When I first arrived at the crossing there were hundreds of cars backed up for over a mile. Having been advised by other bikers ahead of time to make my way straight to the front of the line because of the heat, I just barely managed to squeeze through two semis at a chokepoint, literally having just an inch or two to spare on each side of my handlebars.
I continued past the sea of vehicles, noting that I was surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire and men in camouflage gear carrying rifles and accompanied by dogs.
Just before arriving at the first manned booth, an official stopped me, questioned me about the contents of my bags, and asked me to unpack several of them in front of him.
At the booth, when the customs officer heard I was from Oregon, he called another official on the phone and then pulled two other colleagues over to talk about my situation. Finally, he instructed me to proceed to an x-ray checkpoint, a security step that almost none of the hundreds of other travelers were required to go through.
After confirming that I had no drugs or weapons, the x-ray technician sent me to another building to buy motorcycle insurance. On my way there I passed a room labeled “body search area” and sent up a little prayer of thanks that I got to skip that step.
After returning to the customs booth with my new paperwork, getting the approval to proceed to the next checkpoint, and getting cleared there, I headed just a few miles down the road to the first city to buy a permit for the tolls and ferries in the area, a process that took more than an hour.
I am now happily settled in my hotel for the evening, a rather rudimentary place perfectly set up for my needs with WIFI, air conditioning, and a mini restaurant. My room right off the main road is sandwiched between the food shack and a farmer’s field so I can smell the food being cooked on one side of my thin walls and hear the roosters crowing on the other side. What a great day!
