Georgia - cycling between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains

Georgia starts with three surprises for us: Directly at the border we meet other touring cyclists and decide to continue together towards Batumi. The city exceeds our expectations - ultramodern and casinos without end. In addition, we see the first Christmas decorations - and realize we could have missed this during our time in Turkey...


The quality of the georgian streets is... changing a lot throughout the country. Perfect asphalt completely for us alone, then again insane traffic, or more potholes than road - we can hardly predict the conditions even with three different maps. Occasionally we even have really good bike paths, mostly we have to share them with cows.There are plenty of cows in this country, as well as pigs, sheep, goats and dogs. All the more we are surprised that we could buy sausage and meat everywhere, but no cheese. We learn that large daiy farms don't exist yet and cheese is mainly made for home use, but sometimes sold on farmers' markets. Visiting them we feel like having travelled back in time. This sensation actually affects the entire country with the exception of the modern big cities.


We have been told many times, hospitality increases more and more the further travel from our home country. Hard to imagine after our experiences in Turkey... yet true. A typical invitation usually begins here with the question "tea or coffee" - which roughly translates into "vodka and food" - plenty of each. "We already had dinner" is translated as "just a trifle" and that means "a lot". Same for alcohol. The attempt to give something back usually fails, we have been told many times that we are the guests...


In Georgia we are illiterates because there is an own, beautifully entwined alphabet. Thanks to an overnight invitation and my patient teacher ქეთი (Kati) is at least მონი (Moni) now on the level of a child of preschool age...


 

Again we have to deal with some break-downs: Moni's recently repaired shifter disassembles while pedalling and we cannot find all parts on the road, instead we find some others which most likely don't belong inside... On the way to the Iranian embassy in Tbilisi, the bicycle falls and on of the bar-ends breaks. We wonder how this can happen - maybe the metal was brittle because of the cold?

 

We hope that is not a bad omen for the upcoming visa application. Arrived in the embassy, we have to show our passports (Moni even both her passports) as well as a health insurance confirmation and our reference numbers, for which we already applied some weeks ago. Then we are handed out visa application forms and a deposit request for the visa fees at a neighboring bank. Having paid, filled the form and provided an ID picture the visa are issued on the same day.

 

In the evening we send an email to ErgoTec - less than 10 minutes they reply that of course they will provide a spare bar-end for free - wow! However I still don't fully trust them yet...  Both break-downs occur right before flying home for Christma, so we can bring the spare parts ourselfs.

 


Since we had already booked our flights relatively early and with a big time buffer, we have a lot of time on our way through Georgia. We use these for a few detours to various sights and in the foothills of the Caucasus. Unfortunately, winter has already arrived here and prevents us from climbing up to high. As we enjoyed Georgia a lot, we will be back to make up for this.

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