March 24, 2014
Collecting my Azerbaijan visa and moving on: Now lets get Gary Neville in on this
There were sad goodbyes as I left Gio and his family in the morning. His mother, who had spoken no English to me the whole time, suddenly blurted out "stay" to me, but I couldn't stay. Much as I would have loved to, there was just too much ahead waiting for me. I would always remember the incredible hospitality of these amazing people. Listening to Luka singing traditional Georgian songs, sitting in the field sowing the potatoes, drinking 12% beer as a pre-match warm-up - these were memories that would stay with me for a long time. I could see that Georgian hospitality really was something special (as long as you're not gay. Or a dog) but it was time to move on and see what else there was.
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The road back to town seemed even more crazy and dangerous than it had on the way out. It wasn't just the speed that people drove at, it was the insane overtaking and the lack of road markings or seemingly any rules at all. As a bicycle I was naturally required to give way to anything with an engine, something I was happy to do. It was as I was doing this that I saw on a side road a sad scene of a cow lying in the road in front of a stopped car, surrounded by a large group of men. A passer-by confirmed to me that the cow had been hit by the car. 'I can't have been the only one who saw this coming, surely?' I thought. It was very sad, but the car wasn't badly damaged and the cow didn't seem to be too hurt, so I hoped that with a bit of luck the poor creature might live long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse.
I took on my usual survival technique in places like this of making myself as visible as possible and then riding like I was invisible, checking my mirror every few seconds and preparing to bail out whenever necessary. I thought with some concern of Kieran and Natasha who were both wearing black on the morning that I left them and did not have working mirrors. I had urged them to make themselves more visible and to be prepared to do some defensive cycling but Kieran had even said to me "Its kind of up to the cars to miss me." That might work in Oxford buddy, but this is Georgia. They can't even miss cows in broad daylight. Who knows how many cha-cha's some of these drivers have had, most of them probably don't have licences, and the day before I'd seen a 12-year-old get behind the wheel.
I made it back to the relative safety of the Batumi cycle paths and sat for a while. As I had to wait until two pm to collect my Azerbaijan visa I sat on a bench and wrote some of this blog. It was as I was writing about my earlier experience in Batumi of my date with George Michael that a familiar face walked up to me. He was holding a pink flower in his hands. As you may have guessed, it was George Michael.
It was a little awkward. We sat and talked for a while. He told me he wanted to give the flower to someone. I was quite relieved it wasn't me. I told him about my wonderful time in the village. He told me about his weekend. Then a gypsy girl ran up, picked the pink flower up of the bench, and disappeared off with it. That's the way it goes sometimes. Just be thankful she didn't go for your banana pal.
I left George and collected my visa from the embassy. It was the first one that was completely handwritten and I watched the consul do it there and then (in his office, not the cafe.) I'm not sure if he was in a rush to get back to his holidays or what, but if anyone out there is able to tell me what it says, I'd really appreciate it, thanks:
I had something that looked a bit like an Azerbaijan visa and I was finally ready to leave the insane Batumi and I was able to follow the bike path for a few more kilometres out of town. By the way the bike lanes that run through Batumi are great as they are bright red and similar in design to in German cities. The only problem that I found was that absolutely nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to them and most pedestrians actually seemed to prefer to walk in them than on the pavement. Definitely the least respected bike paths I'd ever seen. This picture was fairly typical and reminded me of the funny Casey Neistat video that follows:
Beyond Batumi I followed the main road north along the coast which was a narrow two-lane road with all the traffic bound for everywhere in the country on it. It was about as fun as it sounds. Some respite came from a man selling oranges and other citrus fruits at the side of the road. He was very nice and welcoming and we talked for some time (mostly about football) before he gave me about fifty mandarins for free which was very kind but probably more than I really needed.
I was grateful to reach a turn off for a smaller road. I had heard that the smaller roads in Georgia were of terrible quality but I could not have cared less if the road was made of marshmallow and popsicle sticks if it got me away from the traffic. Unfortunately it did not, as a lot of the vehicles were also taking this road. But at least the increased number of potholes meant they had to slow down a bit.
Late in the day I zoomed past a group of kids as I went downhill and one of them that was on a bike followed me. He caught up to me at the bottom and I saw that his little brother was also sitting on the bike. I knew that they were brothers because they looked almost identical. In fact I would have been certain that they were twins were it not clearly the case that they were of different ages. They also looked just like Gary Neville. I suppose we could try and get Gary and Phil Neville to take on the movie roles, although if we do Phil will have to start looking a lot more like his brother, and they will both have to look a lot more like pre-teens. Maybe they can do something in make-up. Or otherwise we can just CGI Gary Neville's head onto a little kid. I'd like that a lot. I think it will add something to the film. Anyway these two kids followed me all the way up the next hill, which was steep enough that the little one could run alongside at the same speed that we could cycle. They smiled, they asked me questions, they were great kids. I was concerned the whole time though, because they really didn't seem to be paying much attention to the road, and we were on a section that had a roadside memorial every few hundred metres. I suppose when you grow up with such dangers you just get used to it.
After saying goodbye to the Nevilles there was one final reminder of the dangers of the Georgian roads when a car drove past towing another car. This car was an absolute wreck - the front windscreen was all cracked and the whole rear end of the car had been smashed in to such an extent that it was now only a two seater. It was incredible the thing was still moving. But the most incredible thing of all was that the car that I have just described was the one doing the towing!
Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 15,164 km (9,417 miles)
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