A Rest In Tbilisi, Georgia

Yesterday we arrived in Tbilisi! We’ve worked hard on the bike the last few days so today we’ve enjoyed some rest.

The day before arriving in Tbilisi we had one of our favourite moments of the trip…I wish I could’ve updated you earlier but until we got to Tbilisi we had no access to WiFi. Read on to hear why…

Two days ago we started off with another challenging bike ride, we’d climbed again to 7000 feet (2100m). For reference, Ben Nevis is 4400ft (1340m).

The mountain descent was beautiful and tarmac! The views were so perfect, Stew questioned whether or not we’d see anything else more beautiful again.

However, the descent was tougher than we expected. We started the day full of beans expecting a long downhill towards Tbilisi, but instead we were challenged with (beautiful) rolling hills. We’d cycle down several hundred feet just to climb again.

We persevered and within the day managed 80 mile (128km). 80 very tough miles. By the end I was really struggling, pushing my bike wondering if I’d be able to finish the ride we set out to do with my jelly legs! I’d turned down a lift and with some determination we finished our ride just shy of 80 miles and roughly 30 miles (50kms) outside of Tbilisi. This meant the next day we had an easy ride into the city.

We followed Google maps to the 1 hotel we could find in the area. We took a turn into a small village. A gentleman (pictured) from the village looked confused by our presence. We explained we were looking for a hotel. He couldn’t speak English and of course we can’t speak Georgian or Russian.

We walked up towards the hotel with him (or so we thought). We caught the attention of many locals, 10 people came out to help us – all drawing a blank on the hotel. It obviously wasn’t in this village.

I resigned myself to the fact that we’d end up camping tonight.

Finally a woman called Nino (blonde lady, also pictured) called on a neighbour, Tatia, who was an English teacher. She told us that the hotel was a few villages away but that it wasn’t very nice. That was okay by us! We’re pretty used to cheap places now and when you’re cycling at 8-9pm you really just need somewhere to put your head.

She started giving us direction when Nino said we could stay with her. It was late and getting dark plus we were exhausted. Both of our legs were very tired from the day of climbing. We said yes, we’d love to stay with Nino!! How wonderful of a total stranger – not involved with the “traveller community” – eg. Warmshowers or Couchsurfing. Nino also couldn’t speak a word of English which made her offer of hospitality even more special.

Tatia said she could offer us watermelon and coffee if we wanted to join her and her family. She was having a gathering with her mother, cousins and brother. She started preparing food, including watermelon – we assumed the entire family was going to eat, but all the food was for us – eggs, bread, aubergine, salads, pickled cucumbers. I accepted 1 beer and I was double parked (2 beers) within minutes!

We sat with their family and enjoyed a traditional Georgian get together that Tatia described as an evening of stories and jokes – families sit together and share tales from their elders. In a small Georgian village there is no WiFi, so phones were no where to be seen.

We felt very much at home with Tatia’s family. Her mother made several attempts to apologise for things not being upto her normal standard, the house was under renovation and of course they weren’t expecting guests so she hadn’t prepared “Georgian food”.

Before we left Tatia’s home to go to Nino’s to sleep, Nino offered us a lift to the hotel which we refused. She also cleared up some rules while we had Tatia to translate. There was one warning – do not go into the garden without the ok from Nino, the dog bites. Do not go into the garden throughout the night. This would seem like an odd warning, but it was at this moment I realised that Nino had an outdoor toilet…and I had just drank the best part of two beers.

Nino’s home, like Tatia’s was a little bit like stepping back in time! As I had guessed, the toilet was at the bottom of the garden, next to the rather aggressive sounding dog with one eye! It was a wooden toilet inside a shed. 4 wooden planks with a diamond shaped hole – we were able to use this once before we went to bed.

We also had access to a shower, but they only had cold water and as there wasn’t any WiFi we couldn’t use Google translate. Although we had data we didn’t think there was enough for a conversation, Nino didn’t have a smartphone and we don’t have a Georgian keyboard. This left us with body language! We got on just fine and from experience I can tell you “super” is a pretty useful word! It translates very well in many languages and I use it often! Nino laughed as I overused it. She set up 2 beds for us and we finally crawled into them at 11pm.

The next morning we had breakfast with Nino and before we set off she gave us about 15 apples, all grown in her garden.

So, what are the chances of that!? All of that opportunity from a wrong turn into a small village. An experience you simply cannot get close to in a white walled hotel.

This trip is very special, I couldn’t possibly decide on the “weighting” of the experiences. The things you see and the people you meet are just so special.

One thing I do know: the landscapes and the views are beautiful, but you do forget them. We look back at our own photographs sometimes and we can’t believe we’ve seen this or that and we question whether or not the sea was really that blue in Croatia. The places do fade in your mind.

The impact people leave is something you don’t forget. You remember those moments well and I think it’s moments like this that we will dig out of our memories easier than anything else. They make the best stories.

When we took this picture there were 10-20 people around us but only the 3 below would be pictured! The lady on the left had hosted s cyclist before, like Nino did for us. They occasionally see travellers in their village and it amazes them as there’s nothing to see. They love it. I explained that the village is on route to Tbilisi from Goderzi pass which is why they get travellers in the area.