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Tarchankut Peninsula
Unfortunately, it is raining in the morning, so we go back to sleep, setting the alarm clocks to go off in an hour. We leave after 9 am, managing to cycle the first 25 km within an hour. Sometimes, when there are no cars around, it is possible to hear the crops rustling. The harvest has begun, but since it is only the beginning, most fields still rustle in the wind. Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever – the road has turned and we begin to struggle against pretty strong wind. I keep on spinning and sweating myself silly, only to cover a distance of a few hundred meters. Every few kilometres there is a bus stop, so we have some shade to rest in. Finally we reach Chernomorskoe and end up in a restaurant for a well-deserved meal. I have a drink with my lunch but it weakens my motivation for riding further. Again there is a problem with finding accommodation. But what are kind people for? Some elderly man riding around the streets on a scooter orders us to follow him. He takes us to his son, Igor – my husband's namesake. We could not have found a better place to stay. Apart from us, there are a few more guests – you can see that they know each other and come here every year. "My" Igor repairs the bicycle of our host's daughter. As a gesture of gratitude we are given beer and... crab. How we are supposed to eat it!? The host brings a board, a mallet and he shows us that first we should rip off the legs and eat up the flesh from them. Then you hit the abdomen, open the crab's "rump" and pick out white meat. We thank someone up there that we only got these 4 crabs and that no one is sitting next to us. The host certainly made us happy with the "picking out" part. Good for us that we were not hungry :-)
On the next day, without any luggage, we went to see Atlesh. The place is breathtaking. Reaching dozens of metres high, beautiful rocky walls fall into the turquoise waters of the Black Sea, which is exceptionally clear here. A swim in such a place is like touching the paradise. We cycle for a few kilometres along the coast to find the best place to walk downhill and finally, we succeed. The descent is pretty steep – it ends up with a 10 meter long rope ladder. For almost 2 hours we swim among numerous fish which hide from us in algae resembling colonies of corals. It is fabulous. The water is warm and clear, its visibility reaching 15 metres.