Day 129 to Bush Camp, Turkey, 111km, 10,388 to date, 1072m up,  1204m end. 

A good riding day, fairly cool (3C) first thing but became nice but not hot later.  Nice rolling countryside, even seeing forests for the first time in a long time.

A friend who did this ride two years ago (Ross Thompson) provided me with a bit more background on the broken bridge (see post “Day 119”), as provided by Ross:  Some locals told Ross the the bridge is called the Daughters Bridge.  In 204 Ross and co. we taken to the runs of the Daughters Castle up in the hills behind where we were camped.  The name of the bridge and castle relate back many hundreds of years when a very rich/important man had a very rebellious daughter.  He built the castle to keep her away;y from the city and getting into trouble.  Some young shepherd heard about the daughter and wanted to meet her, so he swam across the river.  She liked him and so the castle really didn’t keep her from getting into trouble.  Anyway the castle, in much disrepair now, was the reason for naming the bridge the Daughters Bridge.  Damage to the bridge also came about in WWII, the Germans bombed it as it could be used as a route for the Allies to attach from the side.  

I missed adding this to one of the posts in Iran:

A caravanserai is essentially a camel hotel.  A camel travels between 40 and 60 km a day.  Like today, there were many robbers and thieves around, so if you are a trader with a lot of expensive goods on your camels, you want a secure place to stop for the night - hence the creation of caravanserai - secure guarded “camel hotels”.

This is a new "Caravanserai" 

On leaving Kars, the Kars Castle, built in 1153.

In camp we got a list from the area Police, very friendly but did want to see passports: