Samtredia - Tbilisi

Samtredia - Zestaponi 68 km
Zestaponi - Chashuri 72 km
Chashuri - Tbilisi by train

Guess what is the safest and fastest road for cycling in Georgia? Secondary roads, bicycle path, main road??? Highway!!! Few kilometers after the town of Samtredia the highway started and a cab driver told us that is was safe and allowed to drive on it by "velociped". Since all the three of us have some bad experiences with cycling on  highways we were a bit scared. However there was nearly no traffic so we decided to have a go. We drove on  the breakdown line and felt very safe. The policemen and road workers we encountered cheered at us and did not have anything agains cyclists on the highway. On the downside the highway was pretty boring to drive one since there were no curves or holes...
We then were happy to arrive in Zestaponi where we soon found a kind of modern hotel. It seemed that the hotel was built with a belief that Zestaponi would become a known tourist destination. The hotel was very big, built with much glass and the rooms were equipped with two tv's, aircon and so on. It has to be said that the shower was not working and one of the lifts wanted to hurt Kim. We were the only guests in the whole hotel! For dinner we had khautchapuri.
The next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel and were positively surprised. We ate in a galant room and there was plenty of eggs, cheese, sausage, cream and so on. Well fed we started our journey on  the main road towards Chaschuri. We followed the river Rikotula and the scenery was staggering! There were many restaurants on the road side and in one of them we ate delicious grilled fish and pork.
We had a mountain pass to climbe a d it was a hot day. There was a tunnel near the top and we planned to cycle through the tunnel. In contrary to the highway bicycles were not allowed in the tunnel, which was reasonable because the tunnel was almoust two kilometers long and had no safty line. The bypass road was very calm and a man gave us some bread which he had made himself. And we had so e nutella left...
In Chaschuri we were loking for a hotel but there was no hotel in the whole town. Guess what? Giga Berozashvili invited us to stay at his and his parents house! He also offered some chai, some figs and wine his family made themselfs. He also showed us around in Chashuri and can therefore be considered as the one and only tourguide of the whole town. There is an old castle in Chaushuri and a beautiful church. His mother Marina prepaired some beds for us in the meantime and cooked a lovely dinner.
In the next morning we were also invited for breakfast. We then sadly had to leave. On this occasion i learned that in Georgia man give also to man goodbye kisses. We thank family Berozashvili so much for their hospitality and hope to meet them again!
Then we boarded the train to Tbilisi. Our bicycles were not the only big luggage on this train. One man had big bags of leaves and another had many chairs with him. I was happy when we could unload our bicycles u damaged. We then searched for a hostel in Tiblisi and went for a pizza. Tbilisi is a beautiful city with many trees and many parks. There is also a nice historic city, an old and well preserved castle and many churches. Therefore Tbilisi is quiet touristic and definitely a city that would be worth a longer stay!

Batumi - Samtredia

Day 32: Batumi - Ozurgeti 46 km

Day 33: Ozurgeti - Samtredia 68 km 

After a nice breakfast under the palm trees in Batumi, we got back on the road. We made a quick stop to reinflate our tires and were offered some very strong schnapps. We are lucky to have a good excuse (you know: sports, we can't drink so early (it was 10 am)) so instead we were given a 5dl bottle to enjoy it in the evening ;) On the coastal road, we met a georgian cyclist, Giorgi, member of the National team !! He wanted to cycle a few kilometers with us but seemed to think that we were very slow so he went ahead when we stopped for lunch. But this was not the end of our pleasant encounters. We have never received such a wonderful welcome in a country before. We can't stop for more than 2 minutes without people coming to offer us water, hazelnuts, schnapps, cider or just to chat or offer their help. A driver passing by even stopped just to tell us how cool that was and that he loved cycling as well. The weather was extremely nice, we could ride in t-shirts and shorts. Worried that Kim 's pain would come up again, we stopped after 45 km and camped along the road. We had Fondue in the evening on our emergency stove, it was just perfect ;). The night was warm as well but it rained a lot. 

Luckily in the morning the rain had stopped and our tent almost dried up. We had khatchapouri for breakfast in ozurgeti and then guess what? Khachapouri again for lunch in Chokautauri !! Its a typical georgian dish which looks like some kind of cheese pizza. It's good but once a day would actually be enough.  The problem is that the menu is totally unreadable for us (only in georgian) and if people dont speak russian its very difficult to order anything, so khatchapouri is the only thing we are sure they have and they understand. The road was Very nice but it was also quite rainy... So we decided to stay in a hotel (or the hotel) in Samtredia. We made friends with a small kid that was playing around and wanted to try our bicycles. His father took some pictures and later when we got out for dinner someone came out of a small store with our pictures printed !! So the whole town probably already knows us. They spoke russian in the restaurant we went to so we explained them that we were happy with anything except khatchapouri as twice a day is already enough. We ended up with amazing oriental food. 

Snow is not far

Looking for a camping spot

xotchapouri 

Breakfast in Batumi 

They gave us some very strong schnapps 

Rain rain rain 

Odessa - Batumi

Day 29/30/31

Odessa - Burlatschka Balka 20 km
Burlatschka Balka - Batumi by boat
Kim is cycling again! The three of us cycled nearly 20 kilometers together from Odessa to Ilyichevsk where miss Tatiana was waiting to hand us the boat tickets to Batumi. One hour and some passport checks later we boarded motorvessel "Vilnius". Back in 1991 Motorvessel Vilnius was the biggest ferry in the world and it therefore even got a diplome by the guiness world records book! We have a cabin for three persons and three meals are included every day per person. Today we ate Schnitzel and Leila and Kim claimed that they have never eaten as well for so many days in a row in this journey. The rest of the day we just hang around reading and watching films, even some films in russian language. Weather is very foggy and we hope not to encounter any icebergs. Update: weather is not foggy anymore and the sun is shining. I feel like on the ferry to Elba in the mediteranian see. So promissing!
The ship departed at 9 o'clock p.m. Ukrainian time. Most of the passengers are truck drivers who go to Tbilissi and/ or Yerevan . They are very kind and also interested in us since we are the only "western" passengers. Of course we took advantage and asked for the best route from Batumi to Yerevan. There was a whole council of guys who showed us the different roads and possibilities. Some of them even offered to take us with them in their trucks. It seems like they would really enjoy some people in their trucks to talk to!Problem occured that there is still snow in Georga in the mountains. For this reason we had to adapt our route a bit. The truck drivers laughed when Kim asked them if there are snow plows in Georga and told us that nature is plowing in this part of the world. Let's hope the weather will not be too bad...
Approaching the eastern coast of the black sea was spectacular. Weather was good and we saw impressive mountains, some of them more than 5000 m high and just next to the sea. We finally arrived in Batumi on midnight of the second of April. Boarder control was very friendly and welcomed us warmely. Batumi has many (neon) - lights and looked as I imagine Las Vegas. It also got many casinos to gamble. We weren't expecting that! However, we soon found a nice hotel to stay!