Georgia: From Batumi to Tbilisi

Our route through Georgia (viewable on website only):

Entering Georgia and visiting Batumi

Our entry into Georgia was much more stressful than we imagined. We got our timings completely wrong when we went to the Turkish-Georgian border and arrived around midday. We quickly joined the cars and made it through the Turkish side. However, we would have to join the pedestrians on the Georgian side. This turned out to involve standing in a “queue” in a hot building full of people, pushing to get to the front… with our fully loaded touring bikes. It was by far the most stressful hour and a half of our trip so far! We learnt our lesson, we should have skipped our Turkish breakfast and arrived before all the tour busses and pedestrians!

After this, it was just a short ride to Batumi. We stayed in our first guesthouse here, and we couldn’t believe how nice our room and bathroom were. It was one of the nicest places, and also one of the cheapest we had stayed in.

We really enjoyed our time in Batumi, the city offered culture and with that, some diversity in food options for the first time since Istanbul.

Batumi also has a beach, and we spent some of the day lounging on the rocky beach, swimming, and we were surprised to see a group of dolphins in the water! 

Cycling through the mountains:

Leaving Batumi, we set off up a hill, planning to take a mountain road between here and Tbilisi. It was going to take us two days of riding to make it to the top of the hill, and we weren’t sure what the road conditions would be like close to the top, as this once gravel road, was slowly getting turned into tarmac. This construction also meant that there was a lot of large vehicles (steamrollers etc) also on the road, which wasn’t ideal. Luckily, we barely had any gravel segments, and we could ride on lots of brand new and smooth road. They are developing this area for ski tourism in the winter! 

I started to feel quite unhappy on these climbing days, for a few reasons. Firstly, the saddle sore I’ve had for 4 months now was particularly bad, so much so that I could barely stay in my seat on the first day (my biggest regret of the trip is not getting a bike fit on my touring bike, as I’ve got one leg shorter than the other so there aren’t any ‘quick’ fixes to make this better). The other reason was that my hormones were off their normal schedule - which can make me feel irrationally very sad! Regardless, we kept cycling and had a few shorter days, and luckily, less hours each day on the bike seemed to help! 

We stayed in another guesthouse on our second night up the hill - it’s worth mentioning because this one surprisingly had a billiards table in the basement! They also brought over a khachapuri for breakfast, which is a bread topped with hefty amounts of potent cheese… being lactose intolerant meant that this was all for Zach to enjoy (a running theme in Georgia - there was a lot of cheese!)

Speaking of food… the bread in Georgia is really worth a mention. It’s called Shotis puri, and it’s baked in a circular oven, with the bread being stuck to the outer of the oven. A pole is used to take it out, and it leaves an iconic hole in the middle of the canoe-shaped bread. When we bought our first Shotis puri, we had a nibble, and couldn’t stop eating it - it was amazing! 

Historical sites on the route:

Once we were up the hill, we made some touristy historical stops, which we found fascinating. First up was Akhaltsikhe castle, also known as Rabati castle.

The castle was fully renovated and rebuilt back in 2012, and it’s really a sight to behold. Entry into the walls is free, and we enjoyed walking up to the top of turrets, through the gardens, and exploring courtyards. 

The next site we visited was Vardzia caves, which although it was a slight detour, it was completely worth it. When Zach described the cave monastery, the picture I created in my mind was no match for what the site actually is. The Vardzia cave system is made up of 600 caves, with different rooms having their own purposes. In its prime, approximately 3,000 monks lived here! We saw rooms used as wine cellars, a church in the cave, a natural water source and tunnels to get between them! The site peaked under the rule of Queen Tamar in the 12th century, but sadly the site was exposed to the outside world after an earthquake in 1283.

We stayed in Vardzia for our rest day, which was an interesting experience as the village has very little infrastructure - there was no ATM, and no shop! This did mean that we had to eat out at the two different restaurants, and we were able to buy some veggie versions of Khinkali, the traditional Georgian dumplings! 

Back on the (gravel) road:

Vardzia is located in a canyon, and we’d ridden into it on the only tarmac road… so the only other way out was a steep 9km gravel climb up the wall of the canyon. This took most of our morning, but the higher we rode the bigger the views became. Once we had crested the brim, there was an abundance of wild flowers with all the colours, insects and birds that come along with them - it was absolutely stunning! 

We rode on this plateau for a few days, riding above 2000m. The wildflowers kept coming and we were in awe!

Big long descent to Tbilisi:

The positive of having done so much climbing this week meant that we were to enjoy a huge descent into the city of capital city of Tbilisi.

This turned out to be one descent to too many for Zach’s brakes, with bits of metal and ability to work falling out of his front brake. We were impressed that he’s ridden 6500km/4000miles on a heavy touring bike on that first set of brake pads! These were quickly changed and we were back going again in no time.

We stayed in an apartment in Tbilisi with a washing machine, and enjoyed washing everything we possibly could! We bought some cardboard bike boxes and packed up our bikes, wrapped our panniers in plastic bags and lots of tape, and took a taxi (Yandex Cargo) to the airport.

We would fly from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Aktau, Kazakhstan. We were sad that we would be flying, as we had always hoped to be able to get much further by land and sea, however with the Azerbaijan land border still closed, and us being unwilling to venture into either Russia or Iran… meant this was our only option which didn’t invalidate our travel insurance.

Due to our midday check out, and our 1am flight, we were preparing ourselves for a long day at the airport. We weren’t expecting there to be seven cycle tourists on the same flight, and we all ended up at the airport early in the day - which left us lots of time to get to know each other and chat about our adventures so far - it was a lot to of fun!