Mark is now well into mountainous terrain in north eastern Turkey. For most of today he has been cycling at altitudes which are higher than Ben Nevis and surrounded by peaks which are as high again!
This morning his route crossed an area with high res images and at one point a dam was clearly visible ...
A bit of 'Googling' unearthed some details about Golova Dam which you can read if you click on the image. The main purpose of the dam is linked to the land use which is visible towards the bottom of the image. However, while looking at the view, I began to see spots.....
... not to mention something else going on at the water's edge. I think there might be some sort of mineral salts being evaporated at the edge of the lake but I cannot figure out what the pale spots are and I would be delighted to have suggestions! 
By this afternoon the terrain was getting seriously hilly. Here is a view I found on Flickr taken along today's route near the city of Erzincan. And here is Erzincan from above...
What struck me was how regularly the streets were laid out until I discovered that the city was flattened in 1939 by an earthquake and has been totally rebuilt since. Here are some views of Erzincan from the ground (the first showing the proximity of the high mountains in the background) ..
The shopping mall surprised me but it just goes to show that the images we conjure up about places we don't know can be very wrong!
There is a whole set of wonderful photographs of Erzincan here which give a really good impression of life in a city in eastern Turkey.
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