Wild camping

81 km, 5h 30 min

There is lots more to see in Matera, but we are starting to feel time slipping by and worrying about weather in Turkey. Hearing about the first winter storm back home in Ottawa a few days ago reminded us that Turkey gets snow too.

Scott went out shortly after sunrise to get some more photographs of the Sassi, but heavy cloud meant none of the photos were great.

Our ride was not overly adventurous. We were a little late starting, as we tend to do when we have Internet access in the morning. Our goal was to head to someplace between Matera and Brindisi, since Brindisi was too far for a single day given our late start.

All the major roads join at Taranto, but we have no reason to go there, and took many minor roads trying to go around. We ended up riding through Massafra during rush hour, which wasn’t too much fun.

As sunset got close, we hadn’t found anyplace to stay, so decided to use our backup plan – wild camping. This meant eating dinner before we stopped for the night, and continuing on our ride after the sun set. Fortunately our lights and reflectors work well to warn cars of our presence. The Italian drivers continue to give us a wide berth, and mostly slow before passing, which is very nice.

For the night, we set ourselves up in an abandoned building. It seems to be a new building, that looks like they started building it and then ran out of money – not atypical here. They build as much of a house as they can afford, and then wait until they have more money to finish the building. Sometimes they will move into buildings that are not yet finished – which is feasible because the climate is so mild. This particular building was at the end of a road that did not have any signs we could see or a gate, so whoever owns it doesn’t appear to be too concerned about security. We’ll see how well we sleep, and whether anyone comes to check on us!

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