I did wake up very early, I even though of jumping on my bike to ride the 70 km´s, if I really pushed, I woul have needed 3-4 hours maximum, but am sure I would have been able to catch a bus. Thank God I did not. Later, when I finally got through, I found out that this this ferry does not take passegers. Maybe its time to update the website and tell this ot the call center.

There was one more option, a ferry leaving from Batumi, but the departure would have been four days later, on the 11th. The reason I was so keen on finding a ferry was the darn bike box. Two issues here - my bike is a large one, so not all boxes fit. Second, remember all the rain in Batumi - it did not stop for two weeks...I had been in contact with Alex, the owner of the fancy bike shop, while on the road, he told me that they did have large-sized boxes, but they all got wet when his shop was floooded. He told me he did manage to find a regular box, but could not guarantee whether my bike fit.

I had some time to kill before Alex´s shop would open, so I rode around found the Batumi Shool of Future, with some stray dogs guarding the entrance.

School of Fuure

Also, I visited the synagoge, this time I was able to enter it...

...and I took a photo of the theater.

Just after 10 am, I paid Alex a visit and he started dismantling my bike into the box he was able to come up with , us keeping our fingers crossed. Just in case, I rode to another bike shop (with a rental Alex gave me - it was the shop next to the stadium), there a friendly owner unpacked a brand-new bike and gave me a box, it was longer, but shorter than the one Alex had found. Thanks, anyhow!

To cut a long story short, Alex did some magic and my bike suddenly - no, not suddenly, it required a lot of hard work, with mutliple challenges - was within the confises of the box! Thanks a lot, Alex, great work!

It was only then that I purchased my plane ticket for the following day, with departure from Kutaisi, a town 150 kilometers away. This was a Wizzair flight, leaving at 6:20 am, the same flight I took home in May. Remember Peter, the tourist from Denmark I had chatted with? I found the bus he mentioned, it would leave at 1 am the following day and arrive at 3 am in Batumi, perfect in time for the check in, I bought a ticket for around €8

It was around 4 pm and my bus would leave in 9 hours. I decided it would be hard to hang out with a large box and thee other bags (note: I was actually carrying 5 bags, two of these Alex was able to squeeze in the box), so I decided to book a hotel to snooze a bit, clean up, get dressed, pamper myself at the spa - and be able to store my luggage. I found a 4-star hotel for €30, it has a rather crappy rating, but was close to the bus station. Batumi has Bolt, so I ordered an XL-sized cab, it cost €2,50, quite a good deal.

There was a sort of securiry guard in the lobby (maybe "guest relations manager"), he laughed at my box, without as much as opening the door, let alone giving me a hand - not very friendly, I was not surprised at the poor rating.This was the Intourist Hotel & Spa, where the spa did not wok. I think they could rename themselves "Tourist, Out! No Spa" or something similar. The room itself was quite nice, as it was still daylight, I went for a walk to the bazaar, bought some Georgian cheese as present and got a haircut at the same shop as in May. I had a small dinner at a bistro, it was a cross between a Hungarian goulash soup and an Indian curry, quite nice, really.

Back in the hotel around 8 pm, I packed, took a shower and went to bed for a few hours. Before midnight, I woke up, not knowing where I was for a minute or two, and started getting ready for the flight.