While it wasn't the best nights sleep we have ever had, it was certainly warm. For the first time staying in a hotel on the trip, we had the air-con set to cool.
Breakfast was the standard Turkish buffet affair, but there was plenty of it and we both returned to the room to pack with full stomachs.
After three long days, we decided to have a short run to the coastal city of Iskenderun, find a guest-house and rest up before the climb over the mountains tomorrow.
It may have been only a short ride, but the road surface was awful and the traffic deafening. We hope that we wont be accompanied by the same huge amount of lorries when we head for the hills. The stupid thing is that there is a pretty much unused motorway running parallel to the road we are on, which was surely built to take the trucks away from the built up areas. Obviously the fact that it is a toll road has meant that everyone would rather avoid it.
The ride into the city itself was relatively quiet, the roads were quite wide and the surface was much improved. All we had to do was find the centre and then look for a cheap hotel. The first thing we spotted was a tourist information office, so leaving Debs with the bikes I went to have a look. The office wasn't the most obvious I have been to, as it involved climbing two flights of stairs and then heading through a door hung with a paper sign saying 'open'. It took two of the staff to tell me that there was no such thing as a cheap hotel in the city. Our accommodation hunt was off to an ominous start. Undaunted I returned to Debs with a map marked with a few possibilities. The tourist information staff seemed to be correct. The hotels I tried weren't as expensive as we feared, but they were definitely more than we really wanted to pay. It looked like we had no choice but to pick one of the cheaper ones, which is exactly what we did.
The room is nice and the bikes are stashed away safely, plus we get breakfast and the WiFi is free. Having staff waiting for a tip after carrying your bags, was a new one on us though. I don't imagine they will be there to help when we have to carry them up a mountainside attached to the bikes! Moving them from the elevator to our room doesn't seem that much effort.
After settling in we headed out for some lunch on the seafront. The city is very modern and being a Friday there were lots of people walking about along the promenade. Today was all about resting though, so after a very brief look round we returned to the room.
Tomorrow will probably be another long one.
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