Leaving Georgia was easier than getting in… Georgia border-control – only about an hour, Azerbaijan – about 2 hours. Group photo on the Georgian side of the border, where some wit ordered a large road sign erected, proclaiming “Azerbaijan Border. Good luck.” And then into Azerbaijan – where my “Giant Flag count” rose to two within the first two towns (said it before, I’ll say it again – I love giant flags… they’re just so ridiculous); the initial impression was that the roads were much better quality, and then after about 10 miles – realised that no… roads were even worse… constant pot-hole dodging (in addition to the cow-dodging, and dog-dodging, etc). And, when we got to our hotel in Sheki… I find my room is literally double the size of my apartment in London.
No riding – just wandering around Tbilisi. Cool city… a mixture of very old stuff (medieval castle walls, etc), modern “weird-for-weird’s-sake” architecture, old churches, giant statues (the “Mother of Georgia” up on the hill, for example), a river, flea market, good beers, good wines, botanical gardens, a zoo, etc.
So, I wandered around most of that, and took a single photo.. of a middling-to-fair waterfall. Then drank some beer, drank some wine, started to pack for tomorrow’s border-day.
A relatively short day, riding across Georgia to reach Tbilisi – where we have a “day off” tomorrow. There was one little side-trip, to the town of Gori – which has an inordinate amount of pride in being the birthplace of Stalin. A very large “Stalin Museum”, and his childhood house has had what is pretty much a shrine built around it. I didn’t notice, but others commented on there being fresh flowers laid at the feet of one of his statues also… so it’s an ongoing point of pride. Odd. Also rode through the oldest town in Georgia – Mtskheta – another UNESCO listed site – but I was looking for a single touristy point to stop, which I couldn’t find – and found myself back on the motorway… whereas I know realise the entire existing town is the “attraction”. Oh well – I guess it means I got to the hotel a little earlier, and can go drink some beers in the sun.
Not really any photos taken today, other than a couple of average ones from Stalin Museum. But with the day off tomorrow, I should get a chance to wander around Tbilisi, do some final shopping before entering the “‘Stans”, and probably a facebook post with a selection of full-quality photos from Turkey.
Exiting Turkey – relatively quick, easy. Entering Georgia – NOT quick, at all, nor particularly easy. Turkey – stand in a single-file line for the one passport control officer, licence plate numbers checked by somebody else to another office, while locals skip the line… then a quick “customs” check-in of the bike docs.. 30 minutes total, maybe, for the entire goup… then on to the Georgia border. Georgia – I think we stood around for about an hour – with nobody else in the area at all – before anything even looked like happening. For an hour, there were 6 customs/border-control people milling around at the far-end, doing absolutely nothing. Eventually, things started moving… at an average of 1 bike/rider per 15 minutes for passport control, then the customs guys insisting on looking at every piece of medication/drug you might have. They eventually picked up the pace once they realised how long this was likely to take (after ~15 bikes).. and started rushing things. I helped things along by understating the drugs I had packed away.. only admitting to the ones I had handily available in the backpack. One chap – not so smart – showed them his painkillers with Codeine in it… he didn’t emerge from the customs shed for several hours. In total – I think the last guy entered Georgia after 5 hours.
Anyway – eventually we all got through, into some lovely roads alongside a river, through a valley, dodging potholes, getting a little airborne when the blind summit turned out to have a considerable drop on the other side, and got to our hotel in the very picturesque setting of Vardzia.
Last view of Turkey, from ~ 2,550 metresThe start of a 5 hour wait
A rather short day – just getting close to the Turkey-Georgia border, to make tomorrow’s border-crossing day a bit easier. 130 miles to get to Kars, where we’re staying (directly underneath a castle… my room looks directly up at it) – and then a 60-mile round-trip to visit the ruins of Ani. The riding – nothing spectacular… just the main “highway” to get us here… dodging a few potholes, cows, cars-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road, etc. Ani – worth a walk around. It’s mostly just some of the city walls still standing, a couple of churches, and the remains of other buildings – surrounded by a LOT of rubble, presumably from the remainder of the old city. Not much evidence to justify the moniker “The City of 1001 Churches”.
Ani city wallsAniView from Hotel RoomKars CastleA Kars Street Corner
A rather enjoyable day – I’e overheard a few people commenting it was one of their favourite days thus far. No real long motorway stretches, or super-twisty bits – just a lot of reasonable bends, a couple of rather high passes, and a LOT of potholes. Many, many potholes – one would be cruising along quite happily, thinking the rough patches are all left behind – this stretch of road is looking rather new and fresh – come around a bend – and the two entire lanes of road are pockmarked in potholes, some very very nasty looking. But – everybody made it through – although I was meaning to go down and check all the spokes on my wheels. We’re staying the night at the main ski town of Turkey – Erzurum, 2,156 metres altitude, bits and pieces of snow around, none on the roads thankfully.
Also got stopped by the police, several times – the real police with assault rifles and what-not, not the Trafik Polisi I encountered the other day. Apparently we’re nearing the part of the country with some Kurds around – and the military and armed police presence is very very visible. The first time – a roadblock in the middle of some back-country road – showed them my New Zealand passport, and the guy was very surprised, very pleased. A couple of other times – they initially pulled me over along with the car/bus I was behind – but then waved me through as they checked the other vehicle’s documents. One other time they started asking for passport, but decided against it when the other guy with me started pulling out his luggage from panniers to get to it. Instead, we ended up having a big chat, got a few photos taken, smiles, handshakes, etc. We left them rather confused after insisting they hold a small stuffed mouse for the photo opportunities – as the guy I was riding with, Dicky, has this mascot, from the children’s book he wrote, raising money for charity. https://www.tommouse.co.uk/
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