I decided to do the Batumi-Kutaisi stage from the other way round as this way I could save some time and since I lost 2 days in Tbilisi time was really an issue.

The road between Kutaisi and Abastumani (an ex-soviet mountain resort or rather sanatorium area in the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park) is winding through wonderful mountain areas.

Off roaders will love this route and the terrain, especialy the middle section, unlike my little Vitara which was definitely not designed for this. However, she got away with some knocks on the bottom (some minor, some major), nothing serious after all.

It’s not really visible on these photos that sometimes I virtually had to climbe rock “stairs” with the poor car…

Nice road...

... testing the Vitara

The landscape is truly amazing, snow capped mountains around (in late June!) and everything is so greeeen! Huge fields of wild flowers, peace and amazingly fresh air.

Greeen!

There was snow at the edge of the road... in the middle of the Summer.

Somewhere in the mountains I met some locals who were out on a picnik (or sort of) and as I was the only human being around they instantly invited me to dring with them (just “sto gram”). I managed to escape telling them I’m in a rush (stupid excuse while driving obviously the longer and more difficult road through the mountains). Not as I wouldn’t drinnk and have fun with them, but it was 10AM and I had to climb 2 passes above 2000 meters and drive to Batumi which meant another 8-10 hours.

After all I reached the Zekari-pass (2200 meters) and descended slowly. After driving half an hour on more or less good roads I headed to Adjaria and climb up to another pass. Crossing a stream here is as normal as paying toll on a highway in Europe.

At the Zekari-pass, 2200 meters.

In the mountains of Adjaria

Finally I reached Batumi, which was especially hot and humid now, thanks also to the constant rainfalls of the past days. There was nothing else I needed than a room with AC and a cold beer. Luckily both are available pretty easily…

A.

I got interesting news from Szabolcs while in Georgia: Stalin`s monumental statue has been removed. I though it was a joke as I`ve been there 2 days before and it was there. But later on I`ve read the news elsewhere too…

Funny how they completed the operation, it was all secret, overnight,  as they didn`t want any locals to be present, nor the media.

Well folks, one less for Gori, but let me tell you, there are other Stalin statues on our route, and another one even in Gori…

Read the news here.

Some teams of CC 2008 at the statue in Gori.

A.

This is my sixth time in Georgia but the first time I arrived here without a car.

My flight arived to Tbilisi at a convenient 3:20 AM so I was pretty tired by the time I left the terminal. Surprisingly, the man with the car was not waiting for me as agreed before, but after I called the guy at the hostel I was staying he arranged me another car in 2 minutes.

I got there at around 4:30 where Gio, one of the owners greeted me… and how things work in Georgia, 5 minutes later we were drinking beer and chacha not stopping this till 6 AM. Well, a welcome drink or two is always a must.

Next day Gio tried to help me with the car rental (I wanted to get a Niva for the mapping in Georgia and Armenia) but no luck, it seemed nobody wanted to rent out a Niva and the next price level was beyond my budget.

So I did the work I had in Tbilisi and decided to travel to Yerevan the next day as I had much better chances there. 2 days loss, and a useless travel again: it did not make me very happy…

Tbilisi, this lively city is improving all the time and whenever we come here we find something new. Buildings get renovated, roads get fixed… slow but steady growth.

Their new pride is this fancy glass bridge connecting one renovated area of the old town and… dont exactly know what because the other side is not ready yet,so it doesn”t lead anywhere yet. But whenever they finish it will be a lovely walking area.

New "Glass Bridge" of Tbilisi

Impressive...

The first thing one should do in Tbilisi (after the welcome drinks of course) is to have some local food. So did I! This pelmeni in the clay pot looks great and even though it looks like a small portion s it”s a really filling stuff.

Pelmeni and a Natakhtari beer... lovely!!

At night (they say this is the case all night) there was a party at the hostel, the place which feels more like a hippy home of the sixties especially with the 2 relaxed owners, but this is the cool part and everyone seems to enjoy it. Again,beers, chacha ad libitum (I also bought 2 liters for the community) and difficult wake-up the next day.

My home for 2 nights.

I decided to take a taxi rather than a marshrutka as I was simply not willing to sit in a crowded minibus for 7 hours… I did it enough before. The diver was a real rip-off guy and we stopped 46 times en route to buy tomatoes or watermelon but he was keen on bargaining on 5 cents difference and spend his (and my) time with that.

Anyhow, got to Yerevan, got to my favourite hostel where they said they had not one bed free. Lovely. 11PM, I met Levon, our local friend who arranged me a superb apartment in 2 minutes, took me for a dinner and beer and also arranged a car for me for next morning. After waching the soap opera between Brazil and Ivory Coast I saved myself for tomorrow.

Levon picked me up at 10:30 and drove me to the car rental agency where I took my new workhorse, an almost brand new Suzuki Grand Vitara. Wow! Electric everything and A/C too! Life is too kind…

I planned to do the trip till Gori but since I had no time consuming paperwork at the border this time I was driving as far as Kutaisi and will continue from here tomorrow. Honduras lost. Goodnight.

This is how Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic phrased their situation implying on Kosovo’s status for Serbian people.

“Kosovo has a deep historical and spiritual meaning for the Serbian people, it is, in a way, our Jerusalem. We cannot accept unilateral conclusions by those governing in Pristina,” he said.

Well, this is a good example of the completely different thinking on the two sides of the Ibar river. The bridge over that river is not connecting but separating the inhabitants of Kosovska Mitrovica and – symbolically – Serbia from Kosovo.

KFOR post by the bridge of Kosovska Mitrovica - the divided city

There was a serious threat for conflict on May 30 and only the KFOR and EULEX forces prevented the fight between Albanians and Serbians.

For the details, click HERE.

For a Hungarian article, click here.

This situation alone is interesting for the participants of the Caucasian Challenge, but what makes it even more interesting that the folks on the 2 sides of the river are pretty pissed off each other nowadays. And we’re going to cross this town on Day 2 of our challenge.

We are not even surprised reading the news, it seems that ethnical and political conflicts or natural disasters follow the route of the Caucasian Challenge each year.

In 2008 right before the start the Russian-Georgian war bursted out, luckily it more or less calmed down before we got there. Same year there were fights between Karabakh and Azeri forces on the frontline, again, a couple of months before we arrived there.

Last year an earthquake of magnitude of 6.2 on the Richter scale struck Northern Georgia, not far from the place we stayed that time. Then just before we were leaving for Europe again, we heard about the devastating flood in Turkey, stopping some of the teams around Istanbul.

We have no idea what we face this year but we are positive that both people and nature will work on entertaining us…

Attila

I had to wait another day for the part as our Pajero had a stronger spring and a longer shock absorber than the standard so they didn’t have it on stock, but they get it by next morning. And the part was half price than back in Hungary, I wonder why…

Anyhow, since I had to wait I drove back to Kavala and spent an unplanned night there on the beach (what a disaster) and relaxed a bit.

Kavala town by the sea

And Kavala food. Yum.

Saturday morning they quickly changed the shock absorber, I got a coffee and played with the mechanic’s kids. And finally paid a very low labour fee, again, half price.

After we said goodbye I was off towards Turkey. The border crossing took only half an hour and the visa was only 15 Euros for a multiple one (2 years ago it was five hours and the visa was 40 Euros for a single entry, so things go the positive way here). As usual, I had to chat with the border guards but after 2 Puskas, 1 Albert and 8 “ah, Macaristan” and lots of smiling, was on the way towards Istanbul.

I previously decided to drive only till Tekirdag as it’s an important site for us Hungarians and we had no chance so far to have a look at it. We stopped there once but arrived at 1AM and left at 7AM, so no sightseeing.

Fishermen's boats in Tekirdag

Turkey is surprisingly big and you realize it once you drive around the country. For fans of numbers:  780500 square kilometers and 73 million people. Quite interesting that even today and despite the growing tourism 80% of tourism is local.

And now it’s low/pre-season, and weekend, so zero foreigners, lots of locals and me. Everyone is incredibly kind and try to grab the oppotunity to use their school-English. I can’t understand Lonely Planet, they say it’s a dangerous country in general. Well, I don’t know where the authors have traveled but I never felt danger anywhere.
OK, the turks say the Kurdish eat Turks. (Actually the Serbs think the Albanians eat Serbs.) We have spent enough time among kurdish people and we are all alive.

Locals here very much take care of the Hungarian-Turkish relationship and history, another good example was 3 years ago the Kossuth house in Küthaya, and here the “Rákóczi kaddesi”, the place where Ferenc Rakoczi II lived and died in exile. And everyone knows what this is all about. OK, they were invaders and ruled in Hungary for 150 years, but you know, it’s like the Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where the leaders of the Judean People’s Front ask the question: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” One of my favourite scenes. So we like it or not we learned a lot from them.

The Rakoczi house in Tekirdag

So,  scouting part I is completed and finished a bit East of Istanbul. Part II is planned for mid-June.

Stay tuned.

Sz.