I was a bit disappointed when I found out there is only a high-speed train going from Batumi straight to Tbilisi. I imagined myself in another slow travel, nostalgic adventure where you can enjoy the view while the train moves leisurely through the nature. But it wasn’t meant to be, and I wanted to arrive in Tbilisi rather sooner than later to meet with my Iranian friend who hosted me in Esfahan.
Arriving in Tbilisi was a bit of a shock though. It was the first time in three and a half months that I found myself in a big, busy city full of H&M, Zara, McDonald’s and all the other stores I know so well from back home. The city was loud and I was tired which didn’t really help to lift up my mood. Nevertheless, when I saw my friend I immediately relaxed. He accompanied me to my hostel (which is actually called “my hostel”), showed me around the city and prepared lunch to make me feel better.
The people at my hostel were equally nice and so I skipped the idea to rent an apartment and stayed there for the rest of my time in Tbilisi.
In general though, the city does not have that much to offer and I gladly went with some of the people from the hostel to a lake to relax. The hills around the city allow for another quick escape from the city, but when I was there I got into a little thunderstorm and couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have wanted to.
I was hoping to get back into my travel mood and see a little of the amazing nature everybody is awing about in Georgia, but I couldn’t really find the travel bug anymore. But then out of nowhere, home came to the rescue and one of my Barcelona friends came to visit me spontaneously for a couple of days. Thanks to him I had a fabulous weekend and finally dove into a bit more of the culinary culture of Azerbaijan with lots of khinkali and wine.
Life is not only about food though and so we went to Kazbegi, a small mountain village with a famous monastery called Stepantsminda. I imagined ourselves wandering around nature with birds singing and some beautiful views around the mountains. We found ourselves surrounded by groups of tourists and school kids who all went up the road to the monastery. The mountains could have been nice but most of the time they hid behind clouds. Georgia just couldn’t convince me to be the amazing travel destination all the other travellers enthuse about and I felt sorry for my friend who only had one weekend in Georgia, but luckily he didn’t mind and thought of it more of an adventure to tackle.
However, I did meet some nice people in Georgia, even though I was wondering how I can fill one more month before it’s time to fly back home from Baku. Shortly after I thought it was the most stupid idea to change my flight from Astana to fly back from Baku, lucky me met Fabian. He visited his friend in my hostel and I overheard the word “Baku” which triggered my curiosity. He seemed a bit surprised when I asked if I could hitch a ride and mumbled something about going to Borjomi before crossing the border and go camping in the nature which actually sounded even better to me than just going straight to Baku. He didn’t seem entirely convinced of the idea but agreed to take me along anyhow (I found out later that he wasn’t really fond of my concentrated face starring at my laptop and ignoring my surroundings. I think I tried to upload pictures on the blog with an amazingly slow upload speed and kind of understand his hesitation).
Two days later we started what was about to become some of the most fun days of my travels so far.
