BATUMI REVISITED

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The driver of the minivan came to the train station wait area to tell us he is now boarding for Batumi, we waited half hour and off the van went, rain is still going and the roads are slippery but did not stop the driver from driving like a race car driver even in turns he does not slow down, prompting the women in the van to tell him to slow down, we stopped in one town for 15 minutes so the men can smoke and scratch their ba@#s maybe, no new passenger got on so we dont understand why we waited long.

It was early eve when we arrived in Batumi, a bit disoriented we pulled out the LP and found the street we are on and eventually got to the hotel of our choice, Iliko, small but nice and tidy for 20 laris each we got an ensuite room and cable tv, we right away looked for some food and found a place near the promenade with good fish and treated ourselves after a long 12 hour trip starting from the mountains of Svaneti. Got back to hotel and crashed, slept really well.

Early in the am a woman knocked on the door and Till opened it, turns out she was looking for the owners as she cant get out of the hotel, we all have been locked in. Eventually they came but I was annoyed as we got woken up. I got up at 9am and went for a shower on the way out I slipped on the floor near my bed and Till woke up to the noise and found me sprawled on the floor, he started laughing hard. I asked him what's the deal with woman knocking on the door earlier and he can recall it, he has no memory of it! Day was spent walking around town, the sun is out so we headed to the park and to the pebbly beach, it got cold and the sun left us so we went back to town and visited the church and the underwhelming mosque. Our hotel, Iliko is nice and friendly but our room is small and musty the only consolation, cable tv!

The next day we wonder around some more, gloomy day again, but eventually the sun came out so we went back to the beach for a picnic, we saw a few tourists other than that hardly anything going on in town. Most of the streets were torn and being reconstructed like Sighnaghi 3 years ago. This is our last night together, Till goes back to Tbilisi tomorrow while I head out into Turkey, we have our last big dinner and bought our favorite fruit, persimmons, so cheap here. We noticed a lot of Roma beggars and they can be annoying, we gave them our last coins as I changed all my left money to Turkish lira.

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