The Day After: 4000 km, 39 ride days, 50 total days, and eight countries.
What a great way to end this trek. Last night we had a harrowing taxi ride to and from a beautiful outdoor restaurant for the final meal, a fantastic slide show, and farewell to the team. It is with mixed feelings we ended this adventure, but all agreed it was time. Eight are continuing on for an additional four months to Beijing…thankfully not me.
This morning, our Turkish guide arranged a city tour for 15 of us that showed what an amazing place this is. Istanbul is a modern city of officially 14 million and unofficially 20 million. Building a Mosque is one of the ways to get to heaven, so the city has 4000. We found it to be modern, very clean, busy, and friendly.
We got a tour of the ancient city cistern, the Blue Mosque, Sophia, and the Grand Bazaar (comprised of 4000 shops making it the largest tourist trap in the world). Interestingly, we all seemed to just take it in, but were already maxed out with 50 days of images and experiences. Istanbul is fantastic, but I am in overload. I’ll have to return with Sandra and do the city justice.
On this quest I found that America is still a great country, but Europe and the European Union are rapidly catching up. Americans are still well liked, but not so with the American government. Change is in the air everywhere. The simple things in bring happiness and contentment.
So I end this saga…4000 km along the Orient Express and I rode EFI (Every Fantastic Inch) and the second continent I’ve crossed.