August 13 - The Georgian Military Road

With only two full days remaining, I decided to head north to the famous Military Road. The hotel promised to have breakfast at 8 am, usually this is between 9 and 11 in the Caucasus. Reminds me of my Pakistani teacher, whose immortal saying was "let's meet early in the morning at 11 am". This promise was not fulfilled, nothing was ready yet. It turned out to be a bad idea to wait almost an hour for half a slice of ham, some tomatoes, and a hardboiled egg. Well, at least they did a good job at washing my clothes.

I knew it would be though getting out of Tbilisi, soni made some half-hearted attempt at finding a bus, no luck. So I set off next to the river on the embarkment, which was actually really nicely paved. If I were the mayor, I'd convert it to a biker's paradise. Right now, it's a fishermen's turf, they are patiently waiting for fish to bite on.

Soon I was riding on a major road, where I joined a pack of five Georgian riders, I was surprised how confident they navigated thru the heavy traffic. Then I got on the a major highway, signaling that Ankara was 1000 km away, Istanbul some 1700. Nobody seemed to care about me, we had plenty of space after all, no warning whatsoever from the passing cops.

Autobahn in Georgia

The autobahn ended and the road turned into a mildly busy 2-lane highway, heading towards the mountains. The road led next to a river, making its way towards Tbilisi. I was tempted to jump in, but I also wanted to make it to the pass, which was at 2400 meters. So I pushed on, battling the heat and the incline. I reached a dam, which was the source of a beautiful lake. There was a fortified monastery, but I had pepper in my backside, so the mantra was to proceed uphill. There was a lonely biker coming my way - and it was Chris, the polish biker I had met both in Georgia and Armenia earlier!

Beautiful road

Beautiful lake

Mountains

A natural swimming pool

The mountain decided it was time real for a real climb, now cameva number of switchbacks. The scenery was of wild Alpian landscape, I was busy clicking my camera. It was getting dark and I knew I wouldn't reach the summit, but that was just fine with me. I found a little dirt road, which lead to a plateau, where I had set up my tent. From here I could see the next town full of hotels wouldn't have been all to far, but I was content with where I was, maybe a bit worried about the clouds, but there would be no rain that night.

My hotel