BORJOMI

There’s an ancient monastery in southern Georgia called Vardzia. It was built into the side of a cliff hundreds of years ago and consists of over 200 cave dwellings. There’s also an isolated and nondescript village in northern Georgia with the same name. We meant to go to the monastery, but went to the village instead. We also thought it would be a short day trip from Batumi, but it wasn’t.

Our new friends and fellow ralliers, Brad and Henry, followed along, and by the time we realized that we’d wound up at the wrong place, we were far from Batumi and daylight was fading. We’d gone pretty far east, and would’ve continued on down the road except that we still had to head back to Batumi to pick up Azerbaijan visas for Derick and Johannes.

Instead of backtracking through the night on sketchy roads with even sketchier drivers, we decided we’d find a place to crash. And that’s when we rolled into Borjomi. If we’d had any sort of guidebook, we would have seen it coming, but to blindly stumble into an old Soviet resort town was quite a delight! The road into Borjomi paralleled a river through a wooded gorge. The town almost came out of nowhere, and its apparent charm seemed promising, so we parked the cars and set out on foot to find a place to stay. It wasn’t long before we came across the only hostel in town, and just our luck they had a room full of bunks with an awesome second floor balcony overlooking the street. We ran back and got the cars, dropped our bags, and pulled some chairs and a table out onto the balcony. Henry provided the vodka, and Johannes a deck of cards, and we all sat around and enjoyed the night.

Johannes and Derick were up early the next morning and back on the road to Batumi to retrieve their Azerbaijan visas. I had no reason to go back, and neither did Brad and Henry, so we decided we’d hang out in Borjomi for the day and rendezvous in Tbilisi later that night. We’d been on the road for over two weeks, and this was the first time I’d split ways with Derick and Johannes. They had a long stretch of driving ahead of them, and we didn’t, so the day was ours to hang out and explore. 

After basking in the sun on the balcony all morning, we went for a walk. Borjomi is wedged in a valley surrounded by steep mountains, and we strolled out of town up to a park cradled in a ravine. We got to a gondola, and for about seventy-five cents each caught a lift up to a ridge overlooking the town. There was a ferris wheel at the top, and not much else, except for a few cows in the road. We took a ride on the ferris wheel and then posted up on a balcony above the gondola terminus. Cold beers and a view! That was our afternoon. And it felt good to sit still and take in a static landscape after spending days on end in a car.

We were back on the road by late afternoon and made it to Tbilisi around sundown. Derick and Johannes found us at our hostel a few hours later, and the next day we hit the road to Azerbaijan...

BATUMI

After driving out of the mountains, we arrived at the Black Sea and cruised east towards Georgia. We stopped for a quick dip before entering our twelfth country, and after an hour or so at the border drove into the beach town of Batumi. 

Once we crossed that invisible line in the earth, the first and most blatant difference was the traffic. The driving! And the complete disregard for any sort of traffic law. Second, was the writing. No more Roman alphabet! This made navigation a little challenging. We were without a map and looking for a cheap place to stay. Johannes was behind the wheel and we cruised around cautiously until we were directed to a hostel on the outskirts of the old-town. Derick and Johannes needed visas for Azerbaijan. It was Saturday and the consulate didn’t open until Monday. It was looking like we’d have the chance to get to know the place a little.

With a blossoming tourism industry and a recent boom in commercial construction, Batumi has been undergoing a facelift over the last few years. The old-town has been getting a candy-coating and the shoreline and boardwalk sprinkled with modern high-rises. At night the facades are lit with an array of colored lights that paint the city in rainbow. One of the high-rises along the water has a little ferris wheel built into it! It’s a weird mix of old and new architecture, and the juxtaposition seems rather forced. Tourism is Batumi’s biggest draw, in large part due to the subtropical weather, but a few things just seemed a little peculiar. 

One day we came across an Avatar statue along the boardwalk. As in, the blue alien girl from the 2009 blockbuster. It was on the edge of a playground, and except for the head, which accurately represented the character from the movie, the rest of the sculpture was simply a life-sized naked women’s body painted blue. She held a bow that had snapped in half and had been poorly repaired with packing tape. Her tail also required a tape job and was secured at the bottom with a wrap just below the knee. We thought it was pretty tacky, but the hard-packed dirt around the base was evidence of her popularity with posing tourists. Soon after that we passed a lady cop wearing heels. It was the little things...

On-and-off rain resulted in a relaxing stay in Batumi. I was feeling a little under the weather as well, so it was nice to stay put and take it easy. We met two Brits at our hostel who were also doing the Mongol Rally, Brad and Henry. They were great, and we ended up hanging out and convoying with them for a few days...