A new hope

The Agean sea, right outside our hotel window

From here on in, all's well that ends well!!! Thank God.

A quick nap at the second hospital while he recovers

view to Mediterranean outside E's second hospital

I haven't posted anything in a while because of all of the health issues.  As you all may know, Esteban's illness turned out to be much more than a stomach virus.  He was diagnosed here with type 1 diabetes and his sugar was really high, so we spent 3 days in 2 different Turkish hospital ICU's.  They treated us really well and got his sugar down to a manageable range.  Unfortunately, we've missed most of the riding and one of the most interesting cities, Ephesus.  They say the ruins are just fantastic and I've seen some of the pictures, so I believe it.  Here our some of our own pictures.  Jerry Coleman was the rider of whom I posted a picture going up the hill.  He fell and broke his left collar bone and had to have surgery on his left hand with some pins put in for broken fingers.  Jan is his wife.  We stayed at the first hospital together.  This is E when he got to the hospital.

Pamukkale Thermal Resort

The ride today was to the town of Pamukkale, where we are staying at a resort with a turkish bath and spring.  Esteban got sick yesterday and has been nauseaus all day, so he did not ride.  I have a TERRIBLE head cold and can barely breath, so did not ride either.  Man, what a bummer! Hopefully, E will get better.  If not, I will take him to a doctor tomorrow.  We will be here for 2 nights then ride to Ephesus.  Keep your fingers crossed and pray for better health.  All that having been said, the trip has been really good so far.  We have learned so much history of Asia Minor and seen some wonderful sites and we still have some days of riding left.  The pictures are of the group that is riding, the leader of the pack going up a 450M (1476 ft) hill, a 2,000 yr old Roman bridge still used today next to a modern bridge, and the calcite cliffs for which this areas is famous.  Between Sardis and here we stopped at where the church in Laodicea would have been located, which is actually closer to where the Lydian ruins were at.

The church at Sardis (Salhalil in Turkish)

We had a rough day today.   The roads are very bad, almost like riding on gravel, there was a lot of construction, a lot of head wind.  Esteban fell yesterday and hurt his calf.  We thought he could ride today, but about 20 minutes into the ride he had to pack it in and ride with the support car due to the pain.  That set me back quite a bit waiting for him and I lost the main pack, so had to go with group B, which was doing less miles.  That turned out to be a good thing in the end, though.  I was not counting on two things: such bad road conditions and the hills.  Florida's version of hills are speed humps!  I rejoined the main group, but due to the hills I really could not keep up with them: they are all very experienced and have done 10-12 of these bike tours.  The straight aways were no problem, but the lost me on the hills so I just rejoined Group B and did 85km and did some sight seeing.  Here I am after climbing my first hill, about 260M (about 940 ft of elevation), Esteban in the support car, and he and I at a ruin next to the palace of the last Lydian king, before the Persians conquered Lydia and killed him.  By the way, Lydia was the first kingdom to actually use coins as money and King Midas from Greek mythology bathed in the rivers of Lydia.

The church at Pergamos

Today we rode through Izmir (Smyrna), including a ferry ride, and saw the city of Bergama, Turkish translation of Pergamos.  It was a short ride, just about 45km.  We toured some ruins of the Acropolis and ancient pagan temples.  Tomorrow we head for Salhili, which is the site of ancient Sardis. That's 150km, or 87 miles.  That will be one heck of a day! We will probably be on the bikes from 8:30 am until 4-5 pm.  Fun times ahead!!!!

Starting at Izmir

Izmir is the Arab name for Smyrna, one of the church sites we are visiting. Our first ride is tomorrow, and its off to the races.

One part of the journey is almost over

Here we are, our last night in Istanbul, in front of Hagia Sophia (it means Divine Wisdom, by the way) and at a GREAT little restaurant. Tried to put up a video, but no go. Anyway, this city is fantastic!.  The people are incredibly friendly, almost everyone we ran into spoke either English or Spanish.  Yes, I know they want our money, but still, I've been to other places where they want your money and aren't as friendly about it.  The history here is all over the place, just walk outside a hotel in the old city and you run into some ruin.  Esteban and I cant wait to come back with Nelly and Milkelis.  Gotta bring lots of money: a bit expensive, but oh well, you're on vacation.  What can you expect, we're tourists.

Dinner anyone?

Thought you might enjoy a night out with us and some good Turkish music, but the freakin' video took more than 5 hours and never loaded thanks to this wonderful high speed internet!  May be I'll post some pictures of the restaurant tonight.

Hagia Sophia , Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque & the Grand Bazaar

So what's the difference between old an ancient? Ohhhh, how about more than 1,200 years!  We are standing in front of the door to the Grand Bazaar, the oldest mall in history.  It dates from about 100 years before Columbus sailed to the New World.  The obelisk is Byzantine, so give that about another 1800 years.

Starting out having some fun!

Before we get to the nitty gritty of sweating on the road and peddling our butts off, we thought we'd get a little sight seeing in first we probably won't ever be back in this part of the world.  Istanbul is a city full of history so here we are!  More to follow....