Goodbye Turkey, hello Bulgaria the second.....

This morning I left very early, got up at 05:00 local time and was ready to leave at 07:00. It was going to be another very hot day, that's why I left so early. I decided to move towards home from here, but that doesn't mean the journey is over, I still have many exciting kilometers to go through the Balkans.

Now the goal was to find a drivable road again through the nasty clay track. There were deep and muddy ruts on both sides, some of which were filled with water. Only a narrow middle part of the road was drivable. But even that was partially wet and softened clay. Wet clay has the unpleasant property of immediately clogging the tire tread, so the tire loses all traction. It's like driving on an ice layer. Even worse. At a particularly slippery spot, my front wheel decided to slip off the middle part and look for luck in the almost knee-deep and water-filled rut. Since the tread of the rear wheel was a bit coarser and not yet clogged, meaning it still had traction, it refused to change direction. Now, with motorcycles, if one wheel wants to go in a different direction than the rider and the second wheel, the motorcycle falls over and the rider with it😬.

There it was, lying there and taking a mud bath, to the driver's displeasure, who saw a lot of work coming his way.

At first, I tried to get my companion back on track with full luggage. Completely hopeless. So I unloaded all the luggage, including the suitcases. Then I pulled the rear wheel into the rut as well. Due to the depth of the rut, the motorcycle was almost back to normal. Now all that was left was to start the engine, put it in gear, and slowly maneuver Susie onto the dry part of the road, which worked relatively easily.

Mind you, all this took place in an almost knee-deep, water-filled, muddy rut and a middle part of the road that was covered in ankle-deep mud.

I think the road wasn't that bad yesterday.

The road became wider and more drivable again, eventually becoming a gravel road that led to a paved road.

For the rest of the day, I mostly rode on main roads and even a short stretch of highway.

I would have liked to ride on side roads, but they often ended up as dead ends or very bad tracks. I wanted to avoid that today after the morning's experiences. The highway was necessary to cross the Bosporus north of Istanbul.

So I leisurely rode along well-built roads through a diverse landscape. Everything was there. Richly wooded areas, heavily farmed areas, or barren rocky sections. Sometimes it was monotonously straight, then it became very curvy again.

After almost 400 km, I reached the Bulgarian/Turkish border. A long line of cars, in the blazing sun at over 30 degrees, that could be fun. I squeezed forward as far as I could. It's not a problem at all here, the local drivers tolerate it. And if someone honks at you, it was probably a German 😅.

So I was in line, I hung my helmet on the motorcycle, tied my jacket on the luggage, and waited.

While waiting, someone walked past me, waved to a border officer, and had a short discussion with him. Then he walked back. A short time later, a second barrier opened and a column of high-quality sports cars passed through the border. Everything from Ferrari to Porsche to Audi was represented, and it was an international group, including two Germans.

I was a little jealous, not because of the cars, but because I had to continue roasting in the sun while they received preferential treatment in their air-conditioned cars.

Eventually, I was also allowed to pass through the Turkish part of the border.

Entering Bulgaria. Before the actual border control, cars drive through an open hall on both sides, where the vehicle is sprayed with a disinfectant solution. Of course, you have to pay for this beforehand and get a receipt, no border crossing without it. They also signaled to me, motorcycles are exempt, they are not disinfected, but maybe you should also communicate to the system that a motorcycle is coming now that will not be disinfected.

Alright, fresh and disinfected, I could then proceed to the inspection, anyone who has been paying attention while reading can surely remember where my helmet and jacket were 😬😅

The inspection was also problem-free here.

Finally, I drove another 5 km to the hotel and quickly took a shower, who knows what they sprayed on me there.