Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:45am

My goodness, I need to not be so lazy and update this thing more often. Well at least this past week hasn’t been as full as the first couple of weeks were. I guess I left it off in the hostel the night before-- the DIRT BIKES. Oh boy was that day ever a trip! I’ll tell you about it……

That morning went pretty slow. Ricky got up early (6:45) and woke me up so we could go get some breakfast before he headed out on his mountain-biking enterprise. After some good eggs, he took off for the bike shop and I headed back to the hostel. I had the whole morning to blow, but unfortunately we had to be out of our room by 10:00 so I couldn’t sleep like I had planned. I packed up all of my stuff (Ricky had packed before he left) and moved it all downstairs to await our departure. Once I had finished with that, I had all morning to do nothing-- so what better to do than sit down with a computer and wireless internet and be a complete and total bum? I was going to have to get used to that, as I was soon to realize. I spent the majority of the morning talking to people and researching various things pertaining to colleges, jobs, cars, and the like. When Ricky got back around 2 we headed to the rental shop where we had reserved the dirt bikes the night before. They were 200cc Ramzeys. After renting them for about $15 each, we took off. We got down the road about 500 feet, and Ricky’s bike died. *eyes rolling* I turned around and went back to the rental shop, where they gave us another bike to replace that one-- which I don’t believe Ricky minded, seeing as how this one was virtually brand-new and in terrific shape, unlike mine with bald tires and a gutless motor. So we took off…

After spinning around some of the local dirt roads (which all went nowhere) we decided to spin around the main roads for a bit. It was a beautiful and warm sunny day, and it felt awesome. One on straight stretch as Ricky led the way, we both opened it up and gave our bikes the full throttle-- which meant Ricky pushed 125 km/h and I screamed out at 100 km/h. Either way it felt awesome! Suddenly Ricky saw a side trail that appealed to him and he slowed down and pulled over. We scooted up a nice little trail onto the top of a hill with a bit of a view of the surrounding country. That gave us a taste of powering up the hillsides so we went in search of more, still with Ricky in the lead. We finally found a nice trail that we tootled right up without further ado.

It was pretty fun, and the adrenaline was pumping as we crossed a small creek and sped up the hillside, bouncing from rock to rock, nearly getting ungracefully dismounted time and again. Every time we would stop for a breather, Ricky would look at me with this half-wild look in his eyes and say, “Wow! Isn’t this fun?!” I would agree heartily and we would attack the next hillside. Finally we came to the final hill to the top of the ridge. From a distance it looked like a lot of fun, and I quickly hopped off my bike to get a video of Ricky assault upon it. Well, it became speedily apparent that it was bound and determined to return the favour! As he neared the top, he was slowing more and more and beginning to weave back and forth more and more until he finally tipped over. I’d told him that he was going to crash on this one since I was videoing, and I wasted no time in reminding him of that fact. I think he appreciated my caring remarks.

He recommended that I not try the path he had taken, but rather seek a trail around the side of the hill-- “It’s a lot harder than it looked!”. I followed his advice, but soon found myself in desperate straits akin to the ones he was currently battling. He made it down before I, and started to sniff out a possible trail along the gully going along the hill. I managed to get my bike turned around, and after not a few hair-raising moments I made it back to safer, flatter ground. But now he had disappeared from sight around a corner, so I set out on foot to find him and get a progress analysis from him. Now keep in mind that it was about 95 degrees outside, and there wasn’t a big of shade anywhere unless you were the size of an ant. Even the lizards looked kinda cantankerous. As I hoofed it until he came into sight (videoing at the same time), I was swatting flies and cursing the day they had hatched from their little eggs. He finally appeared with the announcement that he had gotten gasoline upon himself. I asked why on earth he would do such a thing, and he responded that there had been a time when “the bike was horizontally parallel to the ground, but not touching it”, and that he had “been the bumper that protected the bike’s general well-being”. He didn’t really look the worse for wear, but the bike now wouldn’t start. *long sigh*

Well, to make a long story even longer, the bike wouldn’t start and we had to heave and shove and maneuver it down the hill, both of us beginning to feel the effects of dehydration and too much time with the backs of our heads as solar panels. By the time we got the bike to the relatively flat spot, we had to stop for a couple of minutes just to clean the sweat out of our eyes and to regain our breath. Then I tried roll-starting it a few times, but to no avail. So I got down in the dirt and started surveying all of the possible options. The engine wasn’t responding at all, so my first thought was “spark plug”. Nope, it was fine. My next thought was “gas line”. Seemed intact. So my next thought was (I was doing a LOT of thinking) “electrical”. Something must have gotten knocked loose-- that was the wishful thinking side of me. So I started looking at everything that it could possibly be. After some poking and tinkering (between periodic wipes of my now dripping brow), I found a couple of wires that looked like they maybe should be connected. They were, however, in a VERY awkward location, and I could only get at them with the tips of a couple of fingers. After fighting with them for nearly ½ an hour, getting more and more frustrated by the minute, I finally managed to attach them-- nothing. It still wouldn’t start. By then I was beginning to deduce that there was likely a much deeper problem, but I couldn’t even begin to address it because I couldn’t get at the innards of the bike. I needed a screwdriver.

So I left Ricky to push the bike as far down as he could, and set out to go back to town in search of a screwdriver. As I began to pick my way down the hill, I heard the sound of Ricky coming behind me on the motorbike. Then engine wasn’t going, but as I turned around I heard him pop the clutch in an attempt to start it-- and it started!!! My hopes shot up but then immediately plummeted as it died again. He tried it again with the same result. It was then that we discovered that it would start, but when he attempted to use the throttle it would die. I was convinced that it was something with the throttle cable, which was something that I wouldn’t be able to fix. But hey, it was worth a try. We were at the bottom of the hill at this point, so I took off down the road until I came to the main road. It was a divided highway, so I had to go about 5 km in the wrong direction before I could turn around. I did so, and laid the throttle wide open. Remember how I’d only been able to get it to 100 km/h before? Well, on a little bit of a downhill I maxed out at 120 this time. I got back to the little gas station a little ways down the road, and proceeded to engage in a rather frustrating game of charades with the attendants, trying to explain that I needed a screwdriver. When I finally got my point across, with exclamations of understanding they directed me to a little shed a few hundred feet from the station, where I found a young boy and his father. The boy understood immediately what I wanted and explained to his dad. His dad didn’t want me to take the screwdriver, so he told him to climb on the bike and go with me. The boy was about 11 or 12 probably. I found it rather amusing that he was more concerned about the safety of the screwdriver than he was for his boy. When we arrived back to where Ricky was, we found him at the side of the highway with a guy in nice dress clothes. He didn’t speak anymore English than anyone else, but he could tell what our problem was. After some more poking and tinkering, this time with the screwdriver, he found a blown fuse, which he replaced with the extra. But the bike still wouldn’t start.

So he left us after telling us to call “service” to come fix the bike. So we called the rental company (actually the little kid called), and told them the problem. They said that someone would be there shortly, so we sat and waited. After about half an hour of waiting, they hadn’t showed up and it was nearing the time to return the bikes. Not wanting two late fees, I left Ricky and the boy on the side of the road with the understanding that “service” was coming soon. I sped to another gas station, filled up the bike, and took off for Goreme. I arrived and returned the bike with no more interesting encounters. I did take a video while riding on the bike. That was fun!

So I had a little bit to bum at the hotel as I waited. When Ricky hadn’t gotten back about an hour later, I walked over to the rental company and found out that they had JUST gotten to him and that he would be back in a bit. So I ambled around waiting for him to show up, which he did after about 10 minutes. As it turns out, those two wires I had spent SO long trying to get together were the wires that, when connected, prevent the starter from working. So between the broken fuse and the two wires, it should have been a pretty easy fix. Oh well, such is life.

So since Ricky and I were both famished, we headed over to a cool little cave restaurant that was decorated very traditionally (with the exception of the small TV and computer in the room we ate in). We sat on pillows on the floor next to small tables and ate our supper. It was okay food, and we had to rush out at the end because our bus was leaving at 9:15, in about 45 minutes. We hustled back to the hotel and grabbed our stuff and checked out. That was pretty interesting, because she didn’t take credit cards, and I couldn’t afford the WHOLE bill, and none of the ATM’s would take Ricky’s card. After some finagling, she decided that she could take our credit card, charging only a 6% fee. As we were getting all the loose ends tied up, she got a call informing us that the bus was waiting for us. Yay for small towns.

The bus trip was very unexciting, only a LOOOOONG 10 hours, and we arrived in Antalya at about 7am.