March 22, 2014
Georgian hospitality at its best: Come back with those bananas!
I spent a couple of days relaxing in the guesthouse, which was a few kilometres away from Batumi. I essentially had an apartment to myself for eight euros a night so I took some time to recharge my batteries after my recent exertions across Turkey. During this time I fixed my rear tyre, I fixed my front mudguard, I fixed my hair, I fixed my beard, I forgot to fix my tent, I did fix myself some eggs, and by the end of it all I felt like a new man. By the weekend I was ready to emerge back into the world and so I cycled back to Batumi.
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I was sitting on a bench in town eating some food when a friendly couple came and spoke with me, Jacek and Rebecca. I had earlier contacted them on couchsurfing as well but unfortunately they had also been unable to help me as they had parents visiting. The story of Jacek and Rebecca is that they are a Polish/Welsh couple who decided to travel around the world on motorbikes, very much taking their time. So much so that they plan to spend a whole year in the Georgia/Caucuses area before moving on next spring. They should probably call their journey the Really Slow Way Round.
Anyway, it was while I was talking with this cheerful couple that a gypsy girl walked up to us and held her hand out as if to ask for money. I call her a gypsy girl although she was really more of a grown woman, of about twenty or so, which makes what happened next even more ridiculous. We were all ignoring her when she suddenly reached down and grabbed my bag of fruit from the bench. It all happened so fast. I didn't know how to react. At least she didn't take all of my fruit, as she then stopped, pulled out my bananas, and dropped the rest. I couldn't believe what was happening. I'd never been robbed in broad daylight before. Not of basic food products anyway. Well, there was one time a racoon stole my bread, but even that acted under the cover of darkness. Oh, no, wait, a squirrel got in my food pannier when I was on a hike once. But that was completely different, completely different. The gypsy thief ran off with my bananas (there's a statement I hoped I'd never have to write), but she kept looking back over her shoulder, almost as if to tease me. With Jacek and Rebecca guarding my bike I boldly decided to pursue the evil fruit stealing woman. I wasn't giving up my bananas that easily.
I caught up to her and demanded my bananas back. I looked around for a security guard, as there were very many patrolling the streets of this strange tourist town, but just when I needed one I couldn't see any. I wasn't really sure what I would have said anyway - "Security Guard, quick, a robbery is in progress! This girl here has stolen my bananas!"
The gypsy held out two of the four bananas she had taken, seemingly as a compromise. I took them and walked back to Jacek and Rebecca. Bored with us we watched as the girl next began to tease and torment a group of men; dancing around them, groping at their chests and perhaps slipping their wallets out of their pockets all at the same time. She was quite talented because she was also eating a banana at the same time too. It crossed my mind that the whole sordid event seemed like it had just been a game to her - she had just been playing with me. Just playing, and a little bit stealing too.
It was time to get out of this crazy town while I still had two bananas intact. I had a couple of days to wait for my visa so I decided to ride a little out and back towards the mountains on the road to Akhaltsikhi. Kieran, Natasha and myself had all been keen to take this mountain road onwards from Batumi but we had heard from more than one source that it had been closed by snow all winter. Yet as I left Batumi I followed a sign for Akhaltsikhi that gave no indication of the road being closed at all. I guessed this meant that either a) the road was actually open or b) the budget didn't stretch to funding a couple of orange stickers to cross out the sign. I very strongly suspected it to be the latter.
With the pass being closed I'd hoped the traffic wouldn't be bad but it was frustratingly busy and dangerous. Adding to the chaos I saw a lot more cows wandering around by the road. These cows seemed to have no place to be, certainly no one looking after them. They were free to roam where they wanted, which all too often seemed to be the middle of the road. It really seemed like one was going to get hit sooner or later.
I made it through a town and I was finally beyond the worst of the traffic and out into more open mountainous landscape as I followed a river up through a fertile valley. It felt very nice to be out into the countryside again but it was getting a little late and I needed to find somewhere to spend the night. I had heard so much about the great hospitality of Georgians that I decided to test it out, stopping at a house and asking a couple of young women whether they had space for me to camp in their yard.
Now I quite often asked people to camp in their yards during the course of my travels in Europe, I just never told you about it, because it always followed a similar pattern. I would ask if they spoke English, they would say no, I would make a tent symbol with my hands, make a sleep symbol, point at their yard, then they would look very confused, have no idea what I wanted, then I would get frustrated and cycle off and camp in some woods instead. This was pretty much exactly what happened now as the women and a man who had also come out looked blankly at me. The man and one of the women even gave up and went back inside, but I was determined not to be denied, and kept on at the other woman. Finally I managed to do a good sleeping impression and her eyes brightened as she clearly understood. She smiled. Wonderful, I was going to be welcomed in. For some reason she went inside, still smiling. I stood there and waited for her to come back out and welcome me in. I looked around at the yard, wondered where I might sleep, wondered if they would invite me inside, whether they would feed me. Several minutes passed. I kept standing there. It started to get dark. I realised she wasn't coming back. So much for Georgian hospitality.
I cycled on looking for some woods to camp in and entered into a village. Some men were sitting at a table outside and shouted over at me. "Cha-cha, cha-cha?" they cried. "I'm sorry, did you say chai?" No, they did not.
Cha-cha, as I soon found out, is a homemade spirit similar to vodka, something like a Georgian version of moonshine. I was told that it is about 65% alcohol, although I don't suppose anyone really knows for sure. I sat at the table and tried some of it. It tasted like paint thinner. It was very good.
There were about seven or eight men around the table and there was one young guy who spoke good English. His name was George. I told him that I needed a place to stay and it was decided that I could stay with George. Not that George obviously, another George. To be honest I think they were all called George. If you've ever seen the Georgian flag you'll know the whole country has got a serious man-crush on St George and it clearly extends to naming every single male child after him.
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The men were very friendly and perhaps slightly more affectionate than I'm used to. At one point George I, who was sitting next to me, locked his arm through mine and then George II kneeled in front of me with both hands on my thighs. I knew Georgian men were very comfortable with close physical contact - I had witnessed them greet one another with kisses on the cheek, and I had actually seen two homeless men asleep on a beach in Batumi spooning one another - but I myself did not feel so very comfortable. What business did this man have with his hands on my thighs? I reassured myself by remembering something Kieran had read aloud to me; "Georgian men are very comfortable with close physical contact, but don't worry, they are one of the most homophobic countries in the world." I was greatly reassured and considered telling them that I was gay, that might get them to stop touching me. Or, perhaps, might get me beaten up. Probably best just to go with it.
I was walked to George's house. The men walked in the middle of the road even though they, like all Georgians, were dressed in black and it was pitch dark. There were street lights but they weren't turned on. George explained that it was because of the 'Energy minister.' I assumed he'd spent all the money on the lighted fountain displays in Batumi that no one was watching. So we walked along in the dark road and nobody, except me, seemed too bothered about moving out of the way when a car came either.
By the way, George is pronounced 'Giorgi' with hard G's and this particular George was referred to as 'Gio' which was really helpful in distinguishing him from everyone else. He was about twenty and had very short hair and a warm smile. He lived on a big hill with his mother and sister in a simple stone building. His father was away working on a ship. Inside the house there was a living room with a big wood-burning stove in the middle, a table at the side, a lot of chairs, and slightly disappointingly, a wide-screen TV on the wall.
We sat there and talked and an awful lot of people came to visit. I wasn't sure if this was normal or if they were doing it to meet me but during the course of the evening about 20 or 25 people must have passed through the house. As soon as someone left someone else arrived. And they all seemed to be related. "This is my cousin, this is my uncle's brother, this is my father's son's mother's husband." Of course it was wonderful to meet all these people, to see inside real Georgian life. The best of it was when a 12-year-old named Luka showed up. He was a chubby boy, but a wonderful one with a cheeky smile and a happy persona. I asked him what he wanted to be when he was older and he told me a singer, so I asked him to sing. This he did, a traditional Georgian song that he sang truly brilliantly. Here was the real raw Georgian life - inside a genuine old stone house, traditional music around the wood stove, men with arms affectionately draped over one another while the womenfolk brought us all food and drinks. Georgian hospitality at its best!
Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 15,103 km (9,379 miles)
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