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Published: August 15th 2009
The second time around in Tbilisi we got to stay in the
ZP Hotel which is owned by Georgian basketball player, Zaza Pachulia, who plays for the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. They agreed to let us have a room for just US$50 a night which was a bargain!
First of all though, we had to say goodbye to Rob. Hopefully our trip will go to plan and we will see him again at his house near Varna, Bulgaria, in a few weeks time. We ate German style sausages and toasted each other over a few beers before we headed off to bed and he headed for the airport. This was the wrong thing to do in Georgia as it is only your enemies who you toast with beer, your friends you must toast with wine or vodka!!
Well rested and well breakfasted we returned to the Green Stairs Hostel to collect our big rucksacks which they kindly looked after whilst we were in Yerevan. Over that side of the city we saw a watermelon seller with some of the biggest fruit we had ever seen delicately perched on his roof. Fortunately he was stationary.
Our main exercise for
the day came through walking up to the fortress on the hill behind our hotel. Thanks to various roadworks and renovations it wasn’t easy to find the right path. We got there in the end and were greeted with fine views over the city. The fortress was interesting enough to justify the climb but nothing special in the grand scheme of things. We were especially careful not to ring the church bells as the warning signs were quite clear in many different languages!!
A footpath leads from the fortress to the “Mother Georgia” statue which can be seen from most of the city. Close up she’s not as shiny as she seems and could do with a bit of a clean! From there we found the paths down into the old city. They took us past many smaller churches and to our surprise delivered us right back to our hotel.
Afterwards we went to the nearby sulphur baths. They are similar to a Turkish
hammam but we had a private cubicle rather than baring all to all and sundry! Inside our cubicle was a large bath full of hot sulphurous water. The smell was quite something but you
soon got used to it, and the same goes for the tingling sensation as the sulphur attacks your skin, presumably doing it some good. For good measure Russ also had a massage but he was disappointed when a strapping Georgian lad strolled in. What did he expect, a blond Swede?!!!!
That evening we met up with Koka, another
Couch Surfer who is an air traffic controller at Tbilisi’s airport. It was great to meet him, and also Olga who is currently surfing with him, but it was a very brief encounter as he had to go to work. Although we’re not getting much free accommodation from CS, we are certainly meeting some interesting people.
The next day we headed out to Mtskheta which we can’t even pronounce and had to rely on a scrap of paper with the town’s name transcribed into Georgian! There will be another blog about that though as Russ went mad with his camera as usual.
On our final evening in Tbilisi we met one of Russ’ former students from Baku. Iza has now returned to her native Georgia and seems very happy to be back home in Tbilisi. Her husband came along and
we went up to Turtle Lake for another fine view of the city. After walking around the lake we were driven out into the hills where the air became very fresh indeed. There we went to a wonderful restaurant where, despite the roaring open fire, we took mercy from the chill under blankets. We feasted, Georgian style, on stuffed vegetables, pork kebabs, sausages, khachapuri, khinghali (Georgian dumplings) and various dips and spreads until we could eat no more. We toasted our friends with delicious Georgian red wine and it was a very sad time when it came to say goodbye at the end of the evening.
Tbilisi has been great but it’s time to move on. We’ve got many miles still to cover!
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