From Turkey to Tbilisi Martin Edwards 28.05.2005 After passing through steep mountain gorges north of Erzurum and hairpin bends at Artvin, I arrived one morning by minibus at the otogar (bus station) in Hopa with a view to crossing the border into Georgia. As a foreigner carrying a heavy bag, I was immediately approached by a taxi-driver and agreed on a price for the journey along the coast to Sarp. When we arrived there, however, I found I did not have enough Turkish lira left for the fare. Luckily the driver did not seem to mind. Crossing the border from Sarp to Sarpi (an "i" is added going into Georgia) seems to be easy now. After hearing stories of corruption and bureaucracy, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a burly customs officer, who merely asked me if I liked the music of John Lennon. Welcome to Georgia! In a small shop in Sarpi two women carefully checked to see if my euros to be changed into laris were genuine. They were, and I also managed to arrange a taxi into Batumi at a feasible rate. The road was good and almost empty except for some calves which had strayed onto it. A narrow miss! In Batumi one or two small dogs were lounging in the sun near the statue of Memed Abashidze, the grandfather of the recently exiled regional governor, who reportedly kept about 200 much larger dogs - Caucasian sheepdogs. I avoided a furious barking dog at a nearby cafe and went to another near the promenade. Sitting outside in the sun and eating a dish of pizza I was surrounded by kittens as well as dogs. Later I strolled along the extensive promenade by the stony beach and then walked north towards a lighthouse, admiring clear views of the port, the hills behind, and the coastline stretching as far as Abkhazia. A foreigner would find it hard to locate Hotel L Bakuri from the outside; its name is only in Georgian. It was from there that I took a taxi in the morning past the disused railway station to a road next to the prominent Church of the Virgin Mary from where marshrutkas depart for Tbilisi. The driver told me that he was leaving at 11 AM - a wait of 90 minutes. However, his associates took me specially by minibus and without payment to the bus station, where another marshrutka was due to leave shortly. A very helpful act. After we had climbed up the steep hills north of Batumi amongst the lush vegetation, the driver soon stopped for refuelling. He went outside and started smoking while petrol was slowly fed into the tank via a flimsy external pump. Soon afterwards the marshrutka broke down. The driver fiddled around under the bonnet but then hailed a passing minibus. We were towed for a while but luckily our engine started up again. This was just in time for the very rough road surface near Kobuleti. But we soon turned inland and the road was fine. As we now headed towards Tbilisi, I could clearly see the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus in the distance. We stopped once for a break at a dusty little park with a cafeSome apples were on sale but I did not have any small change to pay for them. A passenger on the marshrutka - a complete stranger to me - paid on my behalf. That was generosity again. After one of the passengers had alighted with about ten bundles wrapped up in black plastic, we approached another town in hilly country. There were animals on the road again. This time not only calves were to be seen and avoided but also pigs appeared. They were boars with well-developed tusks, and I thought that they would charge our vehicle but they turned away. We had finally arrived in Tbilisi. It almost seemed as if the marshrutka was going too far east away from the centre, but the bus station proved to be fairly central. As soon as we had stopped and started unloading, the figures of taxi-drivers could be seen outside waiting to pounce on potential customers. I reached my hotel quickly by taxi but at an inflated price! <<Previous Back to STORY archive Next>>