Tuesday, June 4 - Day 15

We agreed with Katarzyna that we would go for a hike to MtiralaNational Park this day,

Early morning, I went in for a quick swim to the sea, coming back, I saw a stray dog feeling very relaxed on a park bench.

Then I headed off for our meeting point, close to her hotel, I took a Bolt from the seafront to the old town. From there, we found a bus stop towards the national park. It was pretty full, but luckily people started getting off - so there was more room. It was about a 20-minute ride. From here, there was no public transport to the entrance of the park, which was high up on a mountain.

We tried for a while to hitch-hike at the bus station, then we decided to start hiking up. Some cars stopped, but they were offering a ride for a fat fare. We walked about 15 minutes, when a bearded guy stopped and he rode us right to the entrance. He told us he had family there he was visiting, that he was a third officer on a large ship and divorced. He pretended to be wanting to be friends with me, but in reality he only wanted to have Katarzyna´s contact. The sailor went to see the sea, you see?

At the entrance, there was a funny thing - a river was to be crossed and while there was no bridge, there was a cable-car you had to operate yourself by turning a large wheel, pretty cool.

We started our walk, it was a relatively easy and short hike and got to a not-so-amazing waterfall - far cry from the amazing 40m one a couple of days ago.

This was the end of the path and we had to return the same way we came. Funny detail: we met some other people doing the same route, they were sweating, swearing and panting to make it - well, it depends what you are used to. We were done in about two hours and heard there was one more waterfall. We hiked there, took about half an hour and were again anything but impressed. Would this be the waterfall? It seemed to be the case.

We exited the park and met a young guy on sitting on a plastic chair by the side of the road. We asked him whether he knew some interesting spot - and he pointed to a yard, with a couple of buildings on it and told us to cross the yard, where there was a nice "beach" of the mountain river. Yes, the hikes were a bit of a disappointment, but the place he recommended was a real secret escape! We later learned that the houses were actually rooms to let - and he was the caretaker of the property. We picnicked there and then went in for a swim in the water, which was not that cold as one would think.

When leaving, we started hitch-hiking again, it lasted just 5 minutes, a minibus with a Ukrainian family, some members of which lived in the UK; picked us up, we chatted happily. As far as I could understand, they were more for the Russian cause in the war, than the Ukrainian one - but I did not want to explore this topic in detail. Anyhow, they dropped us back to the intersection, where a bus came after a couple of minutes. When arriving to town the previous day, I noticed there was a fish market, so suggested we get off there, which we did.

In the evening, we went to the same restaurant as the previous evening, as we liked it so much. We started eating, then we realized it might be a good idea to take a photo - so some things are a bit devoured.

Well, this was is pretty much all that happened on my fifteenth day in Georgia.