While walking to the main road, we were trying to continue hitchhiking, which wasn’t the best idea. Someone picked us up who had issues understanding us. We said that we wanted to go to Kutaisi, at least in that direction.
He was picking us up and didn’t understand we wanted to go to the highway to continue from there. Well he dropped us back in Batumi at the railway station which was super annoying, especially due to the fact that the train would have come in like 10 hours, wow amazing. I was super pissed, but luckily after 20 min he returned and dropped us finally at the spot we wanted to be at, just cost us more than an hour which was honestly just annoying, but everything happens for a reason, I guess.
Hitchhiking in the right direction
We were standing finally on the highway, for Marla for sure something new. It didn’t take that long for someone to stop. A young father was stopping and told us that he would drive all the way to Tbilisi, the city we wanted to get to after the mountains, so it was perfect for us. Getting further than Kutaisi and being on the right road to Bakuriani, such a jackpot. Adding to this, the guy was a very nice person. He didn’t speak English and Marla’s Russian isn’t fluent yet, still it’s great to have decent conversations and that helped getting to know him. At least she is saying that, in my opinion, it’s great Russian skills, it’s also not her mother language and she doesn’t have it in her daily life!
He was on the way to his mother who lived alone for quite a while after the death of his father. Everyone has a package to carry, still that shouldn’t stop you from keeping a smile and helping others.
When Marla was falling asleep I tried my best to handle conversations with the driver, sadly I didn’t have the support but somehow it still worked actually.
After quite a while we stopped at a gas station and there our ways were splitting. We got out of the car and went exploring.
Exploring the region
We went to a huge bazaar, surprisingly there was also no gas available to buy, which was such a bummer, because it was getting colder. Looking in the mountains, you were able to see some snow already.
After this we were going to find something to eat, we went to a noticeable restaurant further away from the little town. It looked interesting, we went there and they were giving us their own room, it felt so fancy actually.
In the restaurant it was time to order some local food, for myself like always the Khachapuri, for sure my favorite and some other things.
It was a great restaurant visit, no other people, just us and the food. Adding to this the prices were fair and it was giving us some energy to continue the hitchhiking journey. Slowly it was getting darker and also colder, so it was necessary to find some nice spot before it was getting actual night.
Let’s continue the journey
It didn’t take long, the people in Georgia were always stopping quickly, such an amazing feeling all the time. We were in cars with people who were actually speaking English fluently, that was just amazing!
When having the last ride of the day, we heard that wild camping is actually a thing which is legal in Georgia. Also he was giving us some advice on where we should build our tent. We were driving to Borjomi, such a beautiful looking town to be honest.
Arriving in Borjomi we went to a little park, in which we were followed by several stray dogs again, there were a lot though. There were many light sources so we ended up going to the old central park.
In the other park there would usually be an entrance fee, but at night it isn’t getting checked. We went past the security and just went into the darkness with several stray dogs again, who wanted to be close to us.
Another night camping
Just putting up the tent in a little amusement park for kids under construction. It was raining the whole night, same as the night before, luckily inside the tent it was dry for which we felt blessed for sure. Sadly my air mattress had a hole and the tent was in a bad spot, so the night wasn’t that easy.
Still until today I haven’t found the hole in the air mattress which sucks a lot. The night itself was sometimes quite annoying due to the dogs who weren’t behaving that well, needed to get out of the tent sometimes to tell them somehow, which ended up working.
In the morning we realized that there were actually other dogs around the tent then at night. Also we realized that there were several waterfalls quite near us, and didn’t have any clue. I was flying up with my drone to capture it well, which sadly didn’t work out as I thought. The region we stayed in was beautiful though. The park was located between mountain chains in a valley, how cool.
Security wasn’t happy though that we were on the construction side, we just packed up with no pressure so everything was well, he was very chill.
Let’s finally get into the mountains with snow!
We were exploring Borjomi while walking to the road of Bakuriani. The dogs from the night were coming with us until the end, so loyal and cute, but we didn’t have anything to give them.
Borjomi, like mentioned above, is a very pretty little town. Located surrounded by mountains and a river flowing through it as well, it looks a bit like in a disney movie, very pretty. I enjoyed it a lot there, it was very peaceful and no tourists were there with us.
In the morning we were also getting some mineral water which tasted and smelled like sulfur. For Marla it felt like home, but for me it wasn’t enjoyable as well. The locals were washing themself with it, not my world to be fair, but everyone does themself. At that time the most dogs were with us, around 10!
It was weird because other people didn’t have dogs with them, since being in Batumi there were always dogs with us, sometimes even trying to defend us, very interesting.
Marla got herself a coffee and then it was time for the final stage of the hitchhiking journey to Bakuriani.
What’s up next?
Next week you will be reading about the time in Bakuriani and what we were able to explore there.
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