A little update from Tbilisi

გამარჯობა/Hello! Been a while since I’ve shared anything, and even this is really just to tell some of you concerned folks that yes, I’m still alive. I’m still a little stuck on the larger project of writing about Turkey, so I’ll skip all that for now and give just a short update on what I’ve been doing since.

I left Turkey almost a month ago, crossing into Georgia around midnight on the 23rd of June and reaching Batumi at around 4am. I realised I was moving fast enough that I was in danger of having already crossed Armenia before Jonny arrived in Yerevan to join me, so over the last 26 days fewer than 10 of them have been walking days. I spent more than a week in Batumi, but wrote very little, instead spending the whole time working on a programming project that has been turning over in the back of my head for the last two months.

On the 4th of July, I set off in the direction of Tbilisi through the hills but fell ill after five days, probably from eating a home made Kupati (a kind of sausage common to the Caucasus) given to me by a generous villager. I was nursed back to health over three days by Anna, a very lovely Polish woman I met in the town of Aspindza. Another four days walking brought me from Aspindza to Tbilisi late at night on the 15th, and from there began The Great Georgian Shoe Saga wherein I have been back and forth by email, telephone, and in person with two government offices (customs & revenue/treasury) and a freight forwarding company in two Georgian cities in order to finally receive a pair of shoes I ordered more than a month ago to replace the pair under my feet that are now more hole than whole after 2300 kilometres of walking so far this year. Of course, such convenience would have been unimaginable for most of human history, so I’m not really complaining :)

My thanks to all the lovely people I have met in Georgia so far with special mention given to Simy of Portugal and Gregory for making my time in Batumi memorable; to Anna from Poland for nursing me back to health; to Makvala at the Revenue Office for her (successful) efforts to unite me with my shoes and her (unsuccessful) efforts to refund the duplicated customs charge; to Niklas and Damien for their kindred spirits and refreshing conversation; and to Nato and Thomas for making Tbilisi another place I don’t want to leave.

Tomorrow or the day after I will cross into Armenia and on the 24th Jonny arrives to join me for a week hiking through the Debed Canyon and Gegham mountains.

Much love from Tbilisi, talk soon x