And after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strif

I’m sitting in my hostel room with my phone beside me playing the Giant Slalom from the Paralympic Games in PyeongChang, waiting for the second runs of the men’s sit ski competition! I confess that I haven’t paid too much attention to the Paralympics in the past, but having a friend from high school competing is a good reason to tune in! The visually impaired men just wrapped up their runs - all I could do was watch and think about how I couldn’t go that fast down the hill with perfect vision, and they are able to do it was legally blind. That said, you’re not here to read my waxing poetic about the Paralympics.. Since leaving my home away from home in Paralimni I finished my circumnavigation of Cyprus by cycling up the Karpaz Peninsula in the north east. The Karpaz was a nice re-introduction to cycling a fully loaded bicycle again. For the most part the roads were really quiet, I saw very few cars during the day (with the exception of the occasional tour bus heading to a monastery near the tip of the peninsula). The Karpaz was devoid of vehicles and, unfortunately, also devoid of smooth pavement. Road surface makes a huge difference in rolling resistance with the bike. Fortunately I didn’t set my expectations too high, I only planned to ride ~270km in three days, covering the distance from Paralimni, up the Karpaz, and back to Girne. Two highlights from the trip were the landscape - I spent a lot of time dodging in and out of valleys and cycling alongside fields. The second highlight was seeing the wild donkeys! I’m not entirely sure of their origin story, but the very tip of the Karpaz peninsula is home to an undomesticated herd of donkeys! I say undomesticated, but the amount of people that come through the area to feed them makes them not all that wild at the same time. I took the ferry back to Tasucu in Turkey on Friday night. I’m glad to say that this time the ferry was not delayed by four hours, but the journey seemed to take just about the same amount of time. We didn’t land in Turkey until after 9 in the morning after setting off around 12:30. I suppose the best way to look at it is to say that the cost of the ferry ticket doubles as a hotel for the night (even if that hotel is shared with children talking loudly well into the night). In Tasucu I reconnected (briefly) with Bayram. Mathieu and I visited Bayram on our way to Cyprus last month - we stopped in for a shower and a bite to eat before taking the ferry in the evening. This time I made plans to stay for one night in Tasucu, so as to be fully rested before cycling to Goreme. Bayram actually ended up going into Mersin to visit family shortly after I got through immigration in Turkey, but was kind enough to let me stay at his apartment anyways! The rest was greatly appreciated, and I set off on Sunday morning to get to Goreme! The distance between the two ended up being roughly 375 kilometers and I was able to do it all in three cycling days! On flat ground that is a pretty solid accomplishment, this trip, though, saw me cross a mountain range (or two) to get north. I figure the second day of riding had roughly 2300m of climbing! No small feat! I did manage to push all the way through to Goreme, aided considerably by a tailwind for part of the day! As difficult as the last three days were, I really enjoyed the scenery! Cycling through some of the valleys gave me flashbacks to the vistas a little closer to home. One section of mountains reminded me of the views of the Tantalus range when driving north from Squamish to Whistler. I noticed my back wheel starting to make some strange noises, like my front wheel did back when I was in Italy. I did my best to oil the spoke contact points when I made camp after day two. It didn’t seem to do too much to remedy the situation. I’m going to have to take a more serious look at it this week (it is comforting to know that the noise is only a result of a little dirt, rather than the harbinger of my wheel exploding). Add that to the list of things to do. I also really need to find a replacement back tire. I was apprehensive of the back tire’s traction back in Rome, and we are now somewhere around 5000km past that point (I crossed the 9000km mark this week!). I’ll poke around here, but I have the feeling that I won’t find a suitable replacement until I get back to a bigger city like Ankara, Bursa, or Istanbul. I’m planning to spend four nights here in Goreme. I’ll probably spend most of that time hiking around the surrounding valleys! We’re supposed to get rain all the way through Friday, but that shouldn’t stop me from exploring! My friend Alex just put down his second run in the Giant Slalom and the sun is fighting to break through the clouds outside the hostel windows. I’m going to get out there and explore before the sun disappears and the rain starts falling!