Sevan, crayfish, vodka

We arrived at Sevan lake inside a truck. Sevan lake is beautiful and really huge. You cannot see the other side. It's more a see than a lake actually.

We had to avoid countless taxis and people with touristic intentions.

We had dinner with American Armenians who travelled back to Armenia to have a business dinner. Dinner was great but I didn't understand what their deal was. The woman beside me was still serving me food and talking about uninteresting things. After a while they took a picture with us and kicked us out. I really don't get them. Ilona told me that the old fat woman was hitting on me. I still don't get Armenian logic.

Ilona said she didn't care about abusing these people's hospitality because they were assholes but I think that you should accept hospitality from people you like and respect and not the onces you despise.

Because hospitality is something you should share between friends.

I wanted to climb the mountains next to Sevan Lake because they were just next to the lake, they seemed high so you could probably see the hole lake or at least the other side.

But Ilona thought the idea was kind of stupid because they were just mountains next to a lake and she didn't really understand why the hell someone would like to climb them.

So we decided that she'll stay under the mountain and I'll climb them tomorrow.

 

The thing is we me a fisherman who invited us to eat tons of delicious crayfish. They're a protected species in Europe but maybe not in Armenia so it's a delicatesse you will rarely find.

 

Unfortunately the dinner didn't stay too long in my stomach because we met in his fellow fishermen with whom we drank so much vodka I spent the next day puking.

They were allright fellows but I swear to god these guys function on vodka. Vodka in the evening, vodka in the morning, vodka for lunch, vodka for driving, it's endless.

 

They were kind enough to buy me mineral water. I just can't stand any more vodka.

We camped near the mountains not far from the lake. An armenian soldier gave Ilona a belt and a military hat.

 

The next morning we ate breakfest in an armenian family where a clever 19 year old girl wrote me the armenian alphabet. All the people except one were democrats and I had only two glasses of vodka. Good for me, I would have puked the additional one.

Azerbaidjan, just a quick look

Armenia has a bloody history, you can figure out this much just by looking at it on the map. They don't have much love for their neighbours and the feeling is mutual. Russia is their only friend and according to some armenians, without the Russians, the country would not exist anymore.

The thing is, there is no work in Armenia and an awful lot of Armenians go work in Russia, most of them in Moscow. They come back to Armenia later and bring the money home. The only real job opportunity in Armenia is the army and it is a dangerous profession. From one side you have Turkey which, according to Armenians are occupying a great part of their territory and still don't recognise the Armenian genocide.

From another side there is Azerbaidjan. They're the worst, they just shoot at sight.

From the north, there is Georgia. That's the safest border probably, the Armenians don't have anything against the georgians but the georgians don't like Armenians that much because Armenians murdered a lot of georgians in Abkhazia but then again murduring georgians was probably the only decently paid job Russia could offer them at the time.

 

The last border is with Iran and I don't really know what the deal between Armenia and Iran is. I guess overall, being an Armenian soldier is a shitty job.

 

We rode close to the Azeri border and stopped and some village named Vostepar.

We passed cemeteries and Azeri villages. In Armenia, as well as in Azerbaidjan, towns and villages were deserted either by Armenians or Azeris depending on whose territory they were on. Abandonned muslim cemeteries are common along the border and probably the same with cristian cemeteries on the Azeri side.

Vostepar is an Armenian village part of wich was inhabited by Azerbaidjanese and is now abandonned. However, it still remains Azerbaidjan territory. It's a piece of Azeri land inside Armenia.

 

I was curious, for some time already about how the border of such land would look like.

I've read about ouzbek lands inside Kyrghistan and the many weird consequences of it and now I had one such like this, just next to me. So I went to explore the tiny Azerbaidjanese bit. Technically, I might even be crossing illegaly into Azerbaidjan but I was mostly interested how the border would look like.

 

Ilona didn't want to follow me because she thought discovering the border was pointless and she doesn't find that kind of stuff interesting. Ilona isn't overly interested in geopolitics and the histories of places. I think she's more interested about the look and feel of people, the hitchhiking and mostly, going east.

 

So she stayed somewhere in the village after we ran away from some guys who were acting weird towards us because they thought we were Azeris.

I just took my tablet and went towards the border, when possible staying clear from hypotetical landmines and snipers as the guy on the Abkhazian border showed me. Not that there would be any need but I like taking unnecessary precautions.

This isn't too hard anyway. You just have to walk out of sight of mountain tops and when exposed, keep an uneven walking rhytm.

 

The place was abandonned but there was a rusted fence where the border should have been. But no need even to climb it, a path was going into the Azeri part, I just had to cross a stream.

After that, nothing special, just mountains. The main problem was the sun which was shining like crazy and I didn't have any water so when I made it back to Ilona, I really was on the verge of fainting. Luckily Ilona has been invited into a family who was serving plenty of fresh water and sweets. Exactly what I needed.

At that time we had our first argument. Ilona still doesn't believe that people are genuinly inviting us home. She still thinks they are being polite or pressuring themselves into the invitations.

She thinks we should refuse because most of invitations will end up in exploiting the locals and they don't have enough resources for themselves let alone for us.

I think while it's true money is scarce in many Armenian families, they grow enough food to have guests for one day. And you can kind of tell wheather the family as the resources or not by looking at the stuff on the table.

At least that is my opinion but most importantly, how are we supposed to connect with people if we refuse all the invitations?

We kind of argued about that while the family was bringing us lunch.

Next stop, Sevan.

Armenia

We return to Tbilissi with a guy who sells watermelons and gives us one. Then, direction Armenia.
We cross at night. The policemen have ridiculous hats. Armenia is poorer than georgia, we don't know what to expect. At 1AM we hitch a ride with an armenian family with a million kids. They give some on the way, to the sister, to the Babushka. We end up with only one. They host us and want to pay for abus to Yerevan.

Fortunately, we talk them out of it. They are poor, the house has only two rooms and the bathroom is just a sink, no shower. You pour water into a cup and wash yourself with it.
No hot water either. It's not the first time that happens and I think it's the new bathroom standart in here.

We leave our watermelon there.

The next day we look for internet. Plenty of open Wifi but no internet connection unfortunately. We exchange some money and get a coffee and raspberries.

Wine region

Written on a rainbow gathering, some bob marley music playing.

The Kacheti region is where georgian wine is from. And georgian wine is supposed to be very good. If you ask me, it's less disgusting that french wine but you shouldn't ask me since I don't like alcohol.
We were hitchhiking to Telavi with a guy who decided to ride the 30 kilometers even though he wasn't going there.
"You sleep in a tent and you eat bread with cheese?" he repeated Ilona's words after she explained our situation, "are you serious? We are going home."
So we went home. He owned a huge garden with a vinyard, strawberries and god knows what other fruit and vegetables. He also had a plantation, hectars of peaches.
"No one buys them here, we send them to Ukraine". When the russians let them, of course.

We had a barbecue a shower and a wonderful dinner. Wine and vodka was flowing by liters. Georgian don't taste wine like french do, smell it and then sip. They just drink glass after glass.
But anyway why would you want to sip wine, is it boiling hot or something?Each family has its Eldar and today's Eldar was also present and as always, a true democrat.
He told us that he wasn't used to drinking and I rejoiced to have found a potential ally.

"I really can't drink, never more than 2 liters." Yes two liters of wine. We later learned that armenians are able to drink the same amount of vodka.

I don't count the days I go to bed drunk. I'm just glad that so far, I kept the food offered to us inside my stomach long enough for my body to process it.

"This is Babushka. She's 86." Babushka had a spine like a roman bridge but was still active and great in the kitchen.A millstone fell on her back thirty years ago and she miracoulously survived without any permanent damage.

The son was a free fighting champion and he looked that he could smash a bull into the ground. 15 years old and 110 kilograms. Ilona absolutly wanted a picture with him. The conversation shifted towards Abkhazia, sad stories, I can't write all of them.

"So why the hell do you let the Russians into georgia without visas?"
"We don't hate the Russian people, they are innocent. The Russian government is the creator of this war and we georgians can see the difference between man and government."

Such openness was mind-blowing, I did not expect this.

"It wasn't only Russians anyway. Armenian soldiers were shooting us too."

Outside, a giant storm was coming and we were lucky not camp in a tent this time. The experience would not have been pleasent.
TchetcheniaWritten on a rainbow gathering, some bob marley music playing.
The next day, cultural change, we are heading towards Tchetchenia. Tchetchenia extends into georgia and forms an interesting cultural mix.
In the minds of our fellow european citizens Tchetchenia would not be the best place to go but I can assure you that our experience was quite allright.

The region is poor, no work whatsoever. Taxis are so common that you barely see a normal car. At last, we hitch a ride with three tchetchens who shake down an apricot tree so we have a ton of apricots.
We pass through villages very much reminding those of Bosna and Herzegovina. There are no mosques though. Instead, christan churches are turned into muslim places of worhip, the corss is replaced by the moonish sign of Islam.

"It's like taking the georgian flag and painting russian stripes on it", says Ilona whose religious background is a little hurt. And she might be a little right, but who in this reagion can affort to build a real mosque?

We continue into the mountains with one of the tchetchens. He's 26, like me, his parents are dead god kows why and he finds us a great place for a tent. He's silent, he just builds us a fire, we light it and he leaves.

And tomorrow, Armenia.

Tbilissi, city of lights and hills

Written on a rainbow gathering, some bob marley music playing.

The Kacheti region is where georgian wine is from. And georgian wine is supposed to be very good. If you ask me, it's less disgusting that french wine but you shouldn't ask me since I don't like alcohol.

We were hitchhiking to Telavi with a guy who decided to ride the 30 kilometers even though he wasn't going there.

"You sleep in a tent and you eat bread with cheese?" he repeated Ilona's words after she explained our situation, "are you serious? We are going home."

So we went home. He owned a huge garden with a vinyard, strawberries and god knows what other fruit and vegetables. He also had a plantation, hectars of peaches.

"No one buys them here, we send them to Ukraine". When the russians let them, of course.

 

We had a barbecue a shower and a wonderful dinner. Wine and vodka was flowing by liters. Georgian don't taste wine like french do, smell it and then sip. They just drink glass after glass.

But anyway why would you want to sip wine, is it boiling hot or something?Each family has its Eldar and today's Eldar was also present and as always, a true democrat.

He told us that he wasn't used to drinking and I rejoiced to have found a potential ally.

 

"I really can't drink, never more than 2 liters." Yes two liters of wine. We later learned that armenians are able to drink the same amount of vodka.

 

I don't count the days I go to bed drunk. I'm just glad that so far, I kept the food offered to us inside my stomach long enough for my body to process it.

 

"This is Babushka. She's 86." Babushka had a spine like a roman bridge but was still active and great in the kitchen.A millstone fell on her back thirty years ago and she miracoulously survived without any permanent damage.

 

The son was a free fighting champion and he looked that he could smash a bull into the ground. 15 years old and 110 kilograms. Ilona absolutly wanted a picture with him. The conversation shifted towards Abkhazia, sad stories, I can't write all of them.

 

"So why the hell do you let the Russians into georgia without visas?"

"We don't hate the Russian people, they are innocent. The Russian government is the creator of this war and we georgians can see the difference between man and government."

 

Such openness was mind-blowing, I did not expect this.

 

"It wasn't only Russians anyway. Armenian soldiers were shooting us too."

 

Outside, a giant storm was coming and we were lucky not camp in a tent this time. The experience would not have been pleasent.

TchetcheniaWritten on a rainbow gathering, some bob marley music playing.

The next day, cultural change, we are heading towards Tchetchenia. Tchetchenia extends into georgia and forms an interesting cultural mix.

In the minds of our fellow european citizens Tchetchenia would not be the best place to go but I can assure you that our experience was quite allright.

 

The region is poor, no work whatsoever. Taxis are so common that you barely see a normal car. At last, we hitch a ride with three tchetchens who shake down an apricot tree so we have a ton of apricots.

We pass through villages very much reminding those of Bosna and Herzegovina. There are no mosques though. Instead, christan churches are turned into muslim places of worhip, the corss is replaced by the moonish sign of Islam.

 

"It's like taking the georgian flag and painting russian stripes on it", says Ilona whose religious background is a little hurt. And she might be a little right, but who in this reagion can affort to build a real mosque?

 

We continue into the mountains with one of the tchetchens. He's 26, like me, his parents are dead god kows why and he finds us a great place for a tent. He's silent, he just builds us a fire, we light it and he leaves.

 

And tomorrow, Armenia.

Borjomi, party

Borjomi is touristic place nothing to do there unless you like taxi or people who say: "hotel?"

Our daily budget has fallen under 1euro/person and we are still alive and well without paid accomodation or transport.
We are checking the state of our iranian visa periodically so we went searching for some wifi. We found one in a luxury restaurant where a bunch of people were celebrating their 10 years of graduation. Plenty of delicious food everywhere and we were invited of course.
"we are drinking to love", says giga, the guy who was holding the toast. I was supposed to make a statement about love in front of an audience I knew nothing about in the middle of georgia. And love a subject I tend to disagree on with a lot of people, especially the marriage oriented georgians.

Statement done we drunk to love, then to peace, to air, to trees. Two of the guys fell hoplessly in love with Ilona and she had to explain to them that no way in hell. Quite pitiful actually.

Then we went away because the waitress kicked us out because I went running around looking for Ilona thinking something has gone wrong when she was just explaining now-way-in-hell to the two guys.

For some reason also Ilona thought the girls hated her but the reasoning behind that was so fucked up that I won't even try to go into details here.

Drink to the wind!

So we went away but before that I ate a piece of their wonderful cake. The food was priceless. Third night in a row I wasn't sober but it was worth it.

Wandering with a weirdo

Written on beach of a huge lake in armenia, I think we are on a privite property of a luxury hotel.

We met that guy in a bus who took us for free to a city called Vardzia witch turned out to be another Vardzia, not the one we were looking for. We were sitting on bags of flour or whatever compressed like parisians in the city underground.
He didn't speak a word of english, that was expected but also not a word of russian. He told us to follow him into the mountains to se something we had no clue what he said because he was speaking georgian.

On the top of the hill Ilona told me that he has been eying her for the better part of that trip and since we had no idea where we were headed she was starting to loose patience. I didn't notice anything but girls know that stuff better. Anyway we went down the hill with him and suddenly the most romantic mountain plains appeared before us with a river and whatnot, the only not romantic thing in a 50km radius was that guy who had stopped eying Ilona but didn't leave us alone for a minute still rambling some gibberish in georgian, god knows what.
That guy for instance was not a democrat at all.

However he had a nice cabin in the woods with a well, a garden and everything one could dream of, once one has wandered in the forest of course.

Cabin in the woods

Before that cabin we ran into a guy who spoke Russian and had a huge garden with beens. That guy was pretty easy going and had a good chance of being a democrat. We tried to lose our weirdo guy to stay with him but without success. He said something to the democrat in georgian and he went away.
It was obvious he wanted us for himself. In a strict sense, we were being kidnapped. I didn't mind that much because the nature was stunningly beautiful but Ilona who very much values her personal freedom was quite spoiled by the kidnapping part.

The cabin has everything, even a well with nice clear water

A stream was running from the mountains through the prairies where cattle was wandering around. Two guys with horses rode in and gave us each a horse to ride on for a while.

Two guys gave each of us a horse

At night there were three bed in the cabin.
"No fucking way", said Ilona, "not in the worst nightmare"
The weirdo brought 2L of an insanely strong and disgusting cha-cha, some kind of local version of a spirit, home made and not very well probably.

We drunk three full glasses of it with his old uncle also who was a democrat but didn't have much of a say. The weirdo was shouting drunkingly in georgian drinking to peace, to friendship, to georgia, to cows, to water, to trees. When we realize he was never going to be out of imagination and was probably going to drink the full 2.5L of his disgusting stuff with us, we both realized it was time to run away.

We told him that since we were very much in love, we would like to build our super-romantic-paladka (tent) near the river. The weirdo argued that the cabin was merely 50 meters from the river but we stuck to our story. He waited until we finished building the tent and finally went away. We heard him shouting drunkingly into the dark.

Of course we disn't stay at the spot, as soon as he went away we changed the tent's location, we hid it about 200m away.

The morning after the weirdo guy went looking for us pretexting we have lost our drinking horn. He woke us at 5 in the morning rambling something in georgian. I told him to let us be and surprisingly that worked.

We slept until 9 AM and the weirdo was waiting not too far from our camping site. Besides, a horse and its baby were wandering around in the grass. That was beautiful and cute, I wish I'd added them to my album of cute little things.

We went swimming in the river, the georgian democrat next door brought us honey from his bees. Wonderful!

Plains in the mountains and a river, everything one could dream of

After a while we decided to go back besides the rambling of the weirdo guy. The balance of power slowly shifted to our side and he looked like a poor little thing abandonned by his mother.

He stuck with us until the crossroads giving us his disgusting cha-cha and a bottle of pears. We through out the cha-cha as soon as he dissapeared from sight.

Sopo and Kutaisi

We leave Zugdidi, too much police, too much saving us from harmless georgians. That day we arrive in Kutaisi where we sleep near a church. Pretty cool place. We notice that it's been around three weeks we are together and still not getting on each others nerves. Probably because we're both tolerant characters and also because of the weather which has been kind to us so far. Not too much rain (except of the beginning) and still no horrifying heat as we expected with summer coming.
We leave for Sairme as Eldar and Maka have advised us and sleep in a church that is being costructed. The concrete is still fresh. There is a waterfall right next to us.Pretty romantic if we were sexually compatible I guess. But we're not. Still very romantic.
We are woken by construction workers a bit too early. We rush to Sairme again and then Kutaisi. We are low on food and everything again and it's raining.
In Kutaisi we stay with Sopo and her husband.
Sopo is an amazing and without any doubt hyperactive woman. She's a badass lawyer, it's weird to realize that she actually earns half of the french minimal salary. I like her a lot and I think she likes us. When she realizes that we are not a couple nor plan to be she tells she'll find me a pretty georgian girl.
Not sure how serious that proposition is but enough to go to her sister's dentistry clinic and point out one unearthly beautiful female being doing an internship there:
"that one is single", she says.
The georgian girls are all so amazingly beautiful that I would almost reconsider my ideas about relationships.
Because there is one problem with georgian women: they are as stunning and faithful as they want to marry. And they want to marry a lot. For life. Forever. Kill me now!
If someone could somehow change the love mind of georgian girls and outprogram marriage out of it then georgia would be a dream country.
On the other hand, georgian marriages are amazing, I would do five of them, just for fun.
That's one big difference we have with Ilona. Each time she sees herself in that glorious day and I'm just thinking: "nicely done F., you avoided that one!".
Chances are there was some wedding cake left. So I celebrated my 26 th birthday on the road. Unbelievable.

Birthday celebration in Kutaisi, Georgia

I must make a note about georgian families. So far they were all composed of a husband, wife, some children and a random guy who comes from god knows where who knows very good russian and is wise and socially active. In Ozurgeti that role was that of Eldar, in this family, it was a georgian living in russia bordering abkhazia.
That guy is usually a first class democrat altough Sopo and her husbands were pretty badass democrats too.
The next day we visited Sataplia and Sopo and her husband paid for our tickets. 6 lari each, a fortune for us. Our budget is closing in on 1E/pers/day.
After that their son who spoke very good english told us to go to Vardzia so we went.

Zugdidi and Abkhazia

In the morning, Babushka show Ilona how to bake Katcha-Purin and we're on our way. Not exactly because Vacho and Eldar wanted to show us an anciet monastary. The view was really beautiful. When the sky is clear, said Eldar, it is possible to see Abkhazia.

Cooking lessons in Georgia

And that's a monk!

The monk gave a small bag to Ilona. We also recieved gifts from our adoptive family: a drinking horn for me and a wooden hand made box for Ilona. The good family drove us to a hitchhiking place and stopped a car for us. The goodbyes were brief. What are they good for anyway? Democrats don't bother with goodbyes

We arrived in Zugdidi shortluy. With the police.

First, two officers stopped to chat with us, kind of friendly tough I am always weary of Police, these people are known to carry more guns than IQ. After a while we were silently greeted by two scary dudes from criminal police who told us to get into some police vehicle. The car was civilian-looking and the dudes driving it seemed to be detectives or something, they didn't wear the uniform. They didn't speak much for a while and I wondered if we aren't in some kind of trouble until one of the guys gave us a telephone with an english speaking friend who asked us:

"do you like Georgia?"

What the fuck? Afterwards she said that the police guy was a good guy and told Ilona to tell him something in georgian. It must have been some kind of obscenity but it made him laugh and he asked if we wanted something to drink. He bought us each a bottle of Fanta and sent for another police car to see us to Zugdidi.

In Zugdidi the police found a place for our tent in front of the police station where a guard was keeping an eye on things. What the fuck?

Riding with the Police

The downside of all this was that local cops seemed to follow us around everywhere to make sure we don't get killed by georgians Babushkas.

We continued north of Zugdidi towards Abkhazia, on of the two Georgian regions occupied by Russian forces. We probably cannot enter abkhazia but we might see the border.

Our last ride, the guy towards the border goes the extra few kilometers just for us. He likes Czech Republic he says, he even has a Czech handgun. He shows the weapon to us, it's similar to those carried by Czech Police.

"It's in case I get into trouble with the russians, all sorts of crazy people in the border region"

On the border, we cannot pass but the guards seem to be moved by our hitchhiking story and my interest in the Abkhazian conflict. They dispatch an officer to guide us to the border. It's an improvised border, a fence and some baricades on the road. Two georgian soldiers with automatic weapons are resting in the area. We walk pass them and are now in no man's land. The officer tells us to stop: no further. I ask why?

"There is a sniper on the hill"

"A what?"

"A sniper. If we go further we are in range of the sniper", the guy tells me in a calm voice

There are people walking between borders, carrying bread or various supplies.

"These people, are they in range of the sniper?" The situation seems a bit unreal.

"Yes, they are."

"And does the sniper shoot at people?"

"Sometimes he does."

The conversaton goes on as casually as possible. I, however was kind of taken out of my confort zone.

"Why?"

"Why?" The guard looked surprised, "how can you know what goes on in the mind of the russians?"

Border to Abkhazia:"If we go any further, we'll be in range of the sniper"

We don't have to stay here any longer, we back down towards Zugdidi in the direction of Kutaisi.

Side notes for our parents:

We were never in range of any snipers or guns of whatever type nor did we taky any risks that could have put our lives into danger. This visit to abkhazian border was reasonable and safe, no different from a touristic visit of for example, the border of North Korea.

Our adoptive family

Written in a cabin in the woods, while waiting for the rain to stop near Sairme, Georgia

Second day with our hosts. We go on a picnic near a stream, it's green everywhere. Green is the color of Georgia. I swim in the water, climb the rocks, it's fun. Nata, the 13 year old girl doesn't want to get too wet. She's been playing princess the day we saw her. She avoids cows and dogs, it could do in France but how the hell does she survive in Georgia?
She seems to like Ilona a lot though.

Ilona and Nata, at last she got into the water.

In the evening we go fishing. It's a real success this time, I caught 5 of them. Eldar hung them on a grass string through the mouth, it was quite disgusting especially with the blud flowing with the fish which was still alive. I'm still too sensitive for the world or so it seems.

Ilona trying to catch a fish

Ilona processed the fish with the help of the older lady we met first. We had another amazing dinner, visited the neigbours again and since these good people didn't have time to show us everything, we'll stay for another night.

Eldar gave Ilona a georgian sim card so they'll be able to call us and check if everything is OK every day we stay in georgia. In armenia, he said, the roaming charges kick in and they won't be staying in touch anymore. Obviously.

Eldar is the communicative one. He isn't only socially active, he also has a great georgian wisdom. In that sense, he is a true Georgian Democrat as would Zurab, the georgian truck driver say.

You may wonder what I mean by democrat in the georgian sense so pay attention closely for this word will be widely used in the future and has become an essential word in our vocabulary.

If a person is helpful, has an intelligent view on things but forces his viewpoint on us then he might be of great counsel but he is not a true democrat.

If a person has no clue about what they are talking about and still give us plenty of solutions that are not really usable then he might be of good will but this person is still not a true democrat because a true democrat has to have both feet on the ground to keeo living in a democracy. If a person loses touch with reality and constructs a democracy based on an idealist understanding of reality then his democracy will get invided by the nighbouring Russia and there will be no more democrats.

A true democrat is a person who knows how to be helpful and informative but always leaves the full choice to his counterpart. And that kind of person is Vacho or Eldar.

It is important to note that in Georgia, unlike un Turkey, we were always given a choice. We can stay but we are always free to leave whenever it suits us. They don't try to convince us to stay, they just state some arguments about why it would be better.

In the evening, dinner is amazing, as always. Georgia keeps its promises.

Vacho, Eldar and me

Ilona is crazy about the Hatcha-Purin, the local food, a kind of pizza wih cheeze inside. So tomorrow, before they leave us on our way, granma will teach her how to bake them.

First steps in a peculiar country

Ozurgeti, first morning in Georgia. We are pretty much alive, the georgians didn't kill us. In fact, they've already invited us home. Twice. But you don't sense the turkish gentle naiveness. They are kind but you don't fuck with the georgians. Ozurgeti is a small town, connected to the rest of the country by small roads with cows on them. The whole country is full of cows randomly crossing, sleeping or walking on the streets. Drivers just slalom around them.

Georgian roads are a safe haven for cows

We are greeted by and old lady, a Babushka, she says in russian:
"Chodte ke me domu", come to my home.
We refuse, hoping to reach lanchkhuti this afternoon but not a single car stops.
Nata, the 13 year old girl walking with her repeats in english "come to our home".

So we go. We are greeted by Vachan and by Eldar, then the grandmother, the grandfather and god knows how many people. They bring us a shitload of food and are looking for a translater who speaks english.
They only find german which is good enough. Maka speaks perfect german and even some english. She's a strong spirited woman with strong opinions, she likes to talk.
Meanwhile, Maka's husband also comes and even the mayor of the village is summoned to take a look at us and at our trip.

"Come to my home", says the woman in black. Suddenly, we are greeted by all the neighbours

The mayor doesn't talk much, others talk to him. We go and drink coffee and say hi to the mayor's wife. Then we take a tour of all garden of the local community. We don't even notice the cows anymore, they're part of the landscape.
"Today you stay here", says Vachan, "we'll show you around you can go tomorrow"
Even Ilona doesn't have the heart to refuse.
They take us to see the wonderful nature around the village with the stream full of fish and fallen logs as bridges.

Crossing the river

They tell us about their country, how they were isolated by the russians and how they have no choice but to rely on themselves both as a country and as individuals. Incredibly brave nation and brave people.
The words of Zurab the democrat now start making sense. It's not sheer paranoia and suggesting that on my part was just being naive.
From the georgian point of view, the Russian threat is a reality. they share a huge border and are the personification of david and goliath, as far as countries are concerned.
Georgia is neither europe nor really Asia and doesn't really fit in anyones closet. Especially not in the russian's. And when Putin decides something Georgia takes the full blow of the consequences and no one will help because basically, nobody cares about them.

So their world is basically very influenced by Russia and they are right to fear a swing in the mood of the giant and lunatic country. In Europe, Russia is far away, we like to joke about them. But here in Georgia, everyone is affected by their every move. Because who knows what will happen tomorrow. Do not forget that five years ago, russian troops were marching on Tbilissi and the country was this close of dissapearing from the map. Think I'm exagerating? You should come here.

Georgia

Written in Sairme, in a church in the making

Midnight approaching, we leave the turkish minibus paid for by our last truck driver. He invited us to our last turkish meal and probably the best one so far.
In front of us, the georgian border. This is unknown space, I hide all the money I can. We crossed the border drunk with Ukrainian vodka and a kebap. We met Natasha a while ago with some group of other Ukrainians and then we crossed.

God I couldn't let my eyes off the georgian women. We switched from the cloaked turkish girls to sexy border control guards in skirts, uniform and red lipstick. Cultural shock.
I should have crossed to this country illegally and try to get caught.

But let's return to our senses, this is georgia. You don't fuck with the georgians. You don't fuck with Zurab the Democrat from Samsun and there are millions of democrats here.
The border is full of taxis, real and fake ones. Two girls in overly sexy clothing pressure us to go inside. The half-drunk Ukrainian chases them away. Prostitutes at best, mafia probably.
But then again, after Turkey, all normal looking girls seem like prostitutes to us. But don't get me wrong: this is no criticism. If I, by chance, become leader of the world, I will make Tbilissi and Kiev capital of fashion and set nuke Channel, l'Oréal and Paris alltogether.

Either way for me and the vodka in my blood there is no doubt: The georgians will kill us. We must get away from this taxi infested border. So we hitchhike at night and only trucks, turkish trucks when possible.

We make our way to Kobuleti safe and sound and camp near a river. Ilona is starting to get enough of my rambling about the georgians who will murder us: "Come one what the fuck are you saying, you're supposed to be the man here? So I'm supposed to be the reassuring one here? Get a grip!"

Writing a hitchhiking sign in georgian

The morning after direction Kobuleti, city center.

No visa to Iran

Written in a georgian home, OzugretiIn the morning we wake up early for a good breakfest and we're away towards Ardesen.

My tablet has a full batteries again, both of them and that doesn't happen that often. Until now I didn't deplate the battery a single time but in the harshest times it got to 30% of the primary battery and the secondary one completly depleted.

We were running down the hill inside the back of our host's pickup truck. The truck was speeding through the randomly paved and steep roads picking children on the way.

We disembarked in central Ardesen and started a quest for wifi. I forgot to mention that our guests didn't have the internet. We try to get to a wifi spot for obvious reasons and also because we need to know the status of our iranian visa. So far, the consulate didn't send us anything. The deadline is in a few days.
It was incredibly hard to find a wifi spot. People offered us computers, they gave us tea and talked to us about a million things but no way to connect. Besides their good will, the people didn't know they even had a wifi let alone a wifi password. After countless attempts we made our way into a high school. Some of the teachers spoke english (victory!) and they called the english teachers to make the communication flawless. They invited us for food into the school canteen so we got our free lunch but still no wifi.
We ended up getting wifi in front of a store which sold chainsaws. They knew their wifi password and we got our internet. No news about our visa anyway.
So we got out of Ardesen, to some city called Of, between Rize and Trabzon.
Still time to visit some mountains so we wanted to hitchhike further into the mainland. Before we even started a young couple very much in love stopped and we rode with them until Uzungol.
The next day we rode with them high into the mountains, we reached the snow in 2500 meters and didn't even 19062013Today we hitchhike to Trabzon. The stress is rushing through our veins. Will we get our visa? There were times we wondered about how it'll go and elaborated various hypothesis, some more realistic than others. I was wondering weather Iran will discover that I'm also french. It's not that hard to search my email and discover tons of french forum posts and whatnot and probably not too difficult to figure out that I also have a French passport. And Iranians don't like double nationalities and they seem to like the french even less.Or they could just have forgotten to ask us some information needed for the visa and we'll have to wait one more week. Don't I know administrative officials are useless as hell, I've lived in France long enough.So we entered this iranian embassy after eating brunch with our last driver (another free meal) at a local restaurant, it was really great food.
There was a woman who, I am sorry to say would look her best in a burka and had an obvious hormonal problem. She asked us for a reference number, how the hell are we supposed to know that? The last guy a week ago asked us the same question at first but when we told him we had no such thing he didn't seem to care that much and just took scans of our passports to send to Tehran.
The woman came back after a while and told us just this:
"No reply from Teheran. No visa."
When we asked why and what should we do she just said "No visa, I don't know. This month no visa maybe next month visa." At least she should learn proper english when you work at an embassy.
Next month, easy for her to say, we have to cross Iran, we can't wait a month for it. We don't even want to stay in their stupid country, at least not right now and not in our current mood. We just need to cross it and be on our way.

No visa to Iran

We've heard such wonderful things about the Trabzon consulate, now they just seem to be incompetant assholes with no clue whatsoever.They should at least have known that we don't stand a chance without that reference number or they should at least have sent us an email to say that Teheran was not responding, they said so much the first time.
So we searched for a wifi spot again and signed up with key2persia, a travel agency which obtains these reference numbers.
We asked them if we could retrieve our visa in Yerevan, Armenia. This way we can at least travel east and leave Turkey behind even though it's full of good memories.

Turkish mountains, one last time

Written in a georgian home, Uzugreti
In the morning we wake up early for a good breakfest and we're away towards Ardesen. My tablet has a full batteries again, both of them and that doesn't happen that often. Until now I didn't deplate the battery a single time but in the harshest times it got to 30% of the primary battery and the secondary one completly depleted.
We were running down the hill inside the back of our host's pickup truck. The truck was speeding through the randomly paved and steep roads picking children on the way.
We disembarked in central Ardesen and started a quest for wifi. I forgot to mention that our guests didn't have the internet. We try to get to a wifi spot for obvious reasons and also because we need to know the status of our iranian visa. So far, the consulate didn't send us anything. The deadline is in a few days.
It was incredibly hard to find a wifi spot. People offered us computers, they gave us tea and talked to us about a million things but no way to connect. Besides their good will, the people didn't know they even had a wifi let alone a wifi password. After countless attempts we made our way into a high school. Some of the teachers spoke english (victory!) and they called the english teachers to make the communication flawless. They invited us for food into the school canteen so we got our free lunch but still no wifi.
We ended up getting wifi in front of a store which sold chainsaws. They knew their wifi password and we got our internet. No news about our visa anyway.
So we got out of Ardesen, to some city called Of, between Rize and Trabzon.
Still time to visit some mountains so we wanted to hitchhike further into the mainland. Before we even started a young couple very much in love stopped and we rode with them until Uzungol.

Uzungol at night

The next day we rode with them high into the mountains, we reached the snow in 2500 meters and didn't even exit the car. The turks like their cars and they like to use them. Is walking on foot kind of bad here? I don't know but you would be surprised what you can climb in a usual street car. The french wouldn't even dare to enter that kind of dirt road, these guys didn't even blink.

Our turkish couple, a cow, and me.

Tomorrow we'll leave  for Trabzon again and we'll see if we got our visas for Iran. If we don't? We go to Georgia and try our luck in the iranian embassy in Yerevan. If we get it? Well... Ilona go find your head scarf!

Wedding

In the morning the spleen was more on me than on Ilona. Maybe we exchanged it. Maybe I just didn't want to be on the reassuring side anymore.
Anyway we were so depressed, especially me that we didn't leave the tent until noon, even watching a serbian movie. It was similar to the french mindfucks I used to watch with my former girlfriend, except with serbs and it didn't end so badly.
We managed to make it back to Ardesen and without too much hope, started to look for an exchange office. And... we found one! We happily exchanged another 20 euros which makes our spending speed 1.7 euros/day/person. Still under the previsional average so far.
We bought a kebap in a sandwich and it was great.
Then we made our way towards the sea to try to catch some fish. There are plenty of fishermen down there so why not us. Of course we don't have a fishing cane but I have a fishing string. I just have to attach it to a stick.

Ilona's making a fishing cane

We didn't catch anything but a turkish family who was fishing nearby found our feeble tries amusing and started taking pictures. Who would blame them, consider the sight:

Fishing in the black sea

After having their dose of fun, the good turkish family had mercy and gave us some delicious turkish candies. Ilona said it had a lot of calories and since we're underfed that's very good for us. Afterwards, the firshermen gave us all their fish and left.
It's funny how an epic fail suddenly turns into an epic win in a matter of minutes.
So we gathered some firewoord with the firm intention of cooking the fish. We decided that I'll kill the fish because I'm the man and stuff and Ilona will cook the fish since she might actually know what she's doing.
Before we found our camping spot, all the fish died. We didn't catch them, we didn't kill them, at least we'll learn how to cook them. But you shouldn't jump to early conclusions. yet. On our way up the mountain a man spoke french to us. He used to work in a turkish consulate in Marseille for 33 years. He called his neighbour to ask wheather we could pitch a tent in his garden.
The guy invited us in, gave the fish to the cat, asked what the fuck is our firewood for and invited us to a huge dinner. We got another shower, the third in a row.

View from the balcony, the sun sets up

The house belonged to the father, a 55 old man, silent and retired because turks know when to enjoy life. One of his son was getting married to a sweet and reserved girl. She was young and beautiful, you could see she's pretty even trough her hijab. Actually, her hijab seemed more like a beauty accessory than a way to diminish women, at least in her case. She was proud and had character. She didn't flee the sight of other men and she sure as hell wasn't born yesterday.

Us and the bride

You could see her social ease when you saw her dance. It's nothing like the stereotype of muslim submissive women we have in the west. At least not right now.
Let's not get too extreme, turkish women are not as liberated as their european counterparts but if I had to put the bride on a scale of liberated women, I would put her just under the french average and just over the spanish.
So we all danced in some pre-wedding ceremony. The bride was horrified with my dancing steps but Ilona seemed to get the rythm.

Round and round

While the grown ups were dancing, countless children were running around posing for our photos. Here, families had up to 5 children and there were quite a few families.

Children signing: turk

They all used the "turk" sign, two extreme fingers up, the ramaining two central shut against the thumb.
Some of them also showed the juniour scouts salute also known as the peace signed. Our host's look got dark suddenly: "Hide that for god's sake. This is the sign for Kurds! Hide that, hide it! You are not signing for Kurds here!"
I felt a little thrown off balance but the celebration quickly rekindeled.Tonight, we'll sleep in a warm bed again, it's been a while.

Spleen

Written on a mountain side, around Uzungol and in a truck going to azerbaidjan.

Spleen. The wait for the iranian visas is too long and we have no information about the process. We don't even know if we'll get them. Ilona feels we are wasting time, she'd like to hurry east without these administrative worries so she would be home faster with the feeling of an accomplished deed. She has more reasons to return than me and therefore more reasons to worry. That is one our big differences and it will follow us during the whole journey.
Ilona hates to waste time and any meter we could go east and stay on spot is a wasted second. Wasted seconds, minutes, hours days.
I don't care about time. But I'd like to see Ankara. The protests in Taksim square. When we passed Istanbul it didn't really feel that important to see this and maybe not worth the (feeble) risk but now that time is slowing down, I'd like to do something of note and play reporter at these protests. As we travel trough Turkey, we experience it from afar. From much closer than you guys in Europe or other parts of the world but still indirectly.
The turkish media shows shy and somehow chaotic protests being handeled by the police.
Nothing unlike a french week end demonstration actually.

People talk about an organised resistance with people carrying gas masks and medical students organising resistance. Most people are with the protesters but some call them socialists.
Some think the demonstration has gone rogue.In the evening, we made it to Ardesen, a small city on the coast. That day we discovered that we don't have anything to eat besides some old bread and a few vegetables. Our water supplies are almost drained and we have something like 3 liras left. That's a little more than 1 euro.
We do have euros but the nearest exchange office seems to be in Rize, 100 km from here.
100km isn't a big deal, especially in Turkey but this region is harder to hitchhike than any other region in Turkey. Nesli has warned us about this. It's said to belong to the Lasz - very distant people.The last two guys who we got a lift from seemed to be high on meth and we just didn't manage to get anyone else. Not even the çocuk-yok weirdos.

That night we slept in a kiwi field. We didn't know they were kiwis, they looked more like little apples not to grow up until november.

How we got a shower

Written on a mountain side, around Uzungol.
You wouldn't expect, in a country as friendly as Turkey, to be saved by a foreigner. It might be because Ilona systematically pushes me into refusing turkish hospitality because she feels bad about it, it might just be bad luck but we haven't spent a night in a Turkish home just yet.
Our showering situation has become so desperate that we have even resorted to couchsurfing a few days to solve it. And did I mention that after our last drying attempt, our clothes have now holes burned in them?
We got a quick reply from Nesli living in Cayeli, about 100 kilometers from Trabzon.
The couchsurfing was supposed to happen this evening; so early in the afternoon, when we finally went down from the mountains, we started to hitchhike towards Trabzon, about 40 kilometers away.
We got a lift from Denis, a guy from Alberta (Canada) who was working in Ankara for a few months and had gone to the trabzon region for the week end.
He's been to the protests in Ankara and has been pepper sprayed pretty bad. Milk and lemon juice for the burns, that's a useful information for all intents and purposes.

Another view of trabzon harbour

He had a rented car and was the same kind of explorer of random places as we are.
So we explored the region in his car, taking breaks to take photographs.
He was the kind of guy with plenty of ideas and a joyful mood, Ilona was kind of taken with the character.
Afterwards he kindly invited us into his hunderd-star hotel in central Trabzon. Shower time. Oh yeah!
The reception people were surprised and genuinly scared to see us enter the premises, one of the reception people even followed us to the room and try to ask us (in turkish) if we were planning to stay for the night. After I told him we'll be out of his way in one hour he breathed of relieved and returned to his duties.
After showering Denis invited us to dinner at some great restaurant and we ate like it was the only food of the week which wasn't so far from the truth actually. We probably seemed like hungry animals and Denis must've felt lucky we didn't eat him as well.
It was showered and full that we said goodbye to our Canadian saviour and continued towards Rize and Cayeli, Nesli's home town. Nesli seemed a little uptight in her text messages so we hurried as much as we could to be there on time. We later learned that she wasn't uptight at all, she just had some bad experiences with couchsurfers.
Hitchhiking in this region proved surprisingly difficult. We witnessed passing cars for ages, almost like in europe. We finally resorted to hitch a truck (which are slow) only to Rize.
Hitchhiking in Rize sucked even more. We got there at night and only got a lift from some weirdo witha truck who tried to grab Ilona's breasts while helping her to get out. We should've have known that he was weird when he said that "çocuk yok!", "no children". When a Turk has no children then you know something is wrong with him. Either he is a weirdo or he knows a little too much about birth control but in most cases, it's the first choice.
We will avoid the çocuk-yok guys as much as possible in the future. Anyway this weirdo only got us to the exit of Rize where we waited for ages with taxis and buses bothering us endlessly until some happy family decided to take us to Cayeli even though they weren't going there at all. They gave us their facebook and emails but we lost them. Hopefully they'll contact us on their own.

"We don't go to Cayeli but we'll get you there anyway"

We met with Nesli a little late but she was here and she was great. And by all wonders of the world, she spoke english! We slept at her boyfriends in a huge appartment, washed our clothes (they don't seem that bad once they are burned and washed) and got a giant turkish breakfest. The morning after, we were on our way, east towards Ardesen.
East, yes, but temporarily. We're still waiting for our iranian visa, so we'll return the same way west.

Breakfest in Cayeli with Nesli and her boyfriend

Mountains in the mist

Written while couchsurfing at Nesli's place.
The one ring is starting to leave a mark on my body. A greenish line of oxydized copper. This is the day we reach Trabzon, our compulsory destination. There, we will ask for our visa to Iran, our gateway to Asia. I really do hope we will get it. The only other alternative lies through Azerbaydjan and a very difficult boat hitch accross the caspian sea, towards Kazakhstan. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Trabzon, an industrial complex at the first glance, houses are built high into the mountains

We did half the ride to Tranzon with the police, half with a bus driver who got us there from free. The police part was because they wanted to bring us to a better place to camp and finally they chose us much worse than we had.
The iranian consulate was nice, way nicer than the one in Kazakhstan, I just hope the visa will follow. The Trabzon embassy is supposed to be the fastest one, a lot of people got their visa the same day. For us, it'll take 5 days to a week.
We met some random guys in a tea bar who gave us some tea and some internet. They told us to visit some monastery in Maçka a few kilometers from here. Trabzon was getting on our nerves anyway so we went. There are mountains there and maybe there will even be a shower. I still haven't had a proper bath, I'm starting to get desperate.
Bad luck though, we are caught in a storm. We hide as well as we can next to the highway.

The storm caught us right on the highway.

So we continued towards Maçka to see the mountains. We got there and for the first time in a long while we pitched our tent in a safe and pretty place in the mountains. I could sleep until late without Ilona worrying someone would discover us. Ilona worries too much and I don't worry enough. She wants to go fast, I like to go slow. Differences arise but so far our communication is good, we work them out.
We make our way towards the monastry, the place is quite touristic. My bag is heavy but nothing like before, I can manage. At the top, they want money for entrance.
We'll skip that one.

Old christian monastery in the neighbourhood of Maçka

A small path inside the bushes goes up the mountains. Ilona follows, I don't think she likes this way too much but I sense that she wants to keep an open mind. Her open mind starts to close as the path seems to go nowhere until it dissapears completly. We're lost in a mess of trees and leaves, completly covered with water from the leaves. Ilona wants to leave, her motivation hangs only by a thread: she doesn't want to be the one who gives up.
Luckily we quickly reached some more practicable path and stopped for a while. To rest our feet, admire the view. And I haven't lost face to Ilona with my ideas and that just might be the most important thing to date. Until now, I've tried to be reasonable but the time will come when I'll want to climb Mount Danavand or what's that mountains name so I better not screw up on the kindergarten playground.

Wet and tired, we contemplate the landscape

A little higher we find a great place to camp. About 2000 meters high, we see the snow.

An abandonned village is the perfect shelter

We're also low on food and very low on showers. It'll soon be a week. Luckily, there's a garden. Several salads and onions are there. Not much for a caloric intake but we only have bread and are glad to add some taste to this diet. So Ilona climbs inside accross the barbed wire while I collect some wood.
We're wet and cold, and the tomorrow's not going to be any hotter so we decide to make a fire and dry our things. We did try but we burned our things, despite my wonderful invention of a drying rope. Ilona burned both of her socks and a part of her shoe, I burned a part of my only pants. I sew them afterwards.

Drying our things

Just before we go to sleep we feel like in a horror movie. The place is confortable though.
However, we must get to that couchsurfing in Cayeli tomorrow otherwise we will just die of not showering and possibly hunger.

Along the black sea

Written in a georgian truck and then a turkish one.
If you want action-packed stories you'll have to wait a little while. Or wait a lot. We certainly are not here for your entertainment. So far our stories are the ones of emotional truck drivers. The last one took us towards Samsun from Bolu but it was so slow we never got there. It is commonly known among hitchhikers that you shouldn't hitchhike with Turkish trucks. They are too heavy and average a speed of 60km/h.
Ilona was complaining we were moving too slow since she wants to be in Kamchatka in 3 months. It's quite unusual because usually I am the one who wants to hurry.
The good truck driver bought us lunch and made us dinner with home-made giant bread fresh from the bakery. It was still warm when we ate it.
The trip continued slowly but surely, sometimes sleeping sometimes talking pseudo-turkish. Sometimes I had to hide from the police so I hid while eating cherries on semi-pornographic magazines. Don't ask.

Our truck driver bought us this giant bread-EKMEK

We are still travelling on a complete zero-budget for turkey and a 4 euro budget. For breakfeast we still rely on the great plum djam from Irina's brother (still forgot the name, shame on me), we have plenty of bread to put it on from our various invitations to restaurants. We also have plenty of water from the countless 50cl bottles that our drivers buy us. We still havrn't touched our apple juice. Lunches and dinners are on invitation and we have enough of those. We refuse them fiercly because Ilona is afraid of looking needy but I think the Turks are often happier when the invitations are accepted.
We desperately need someone to invite us home because I need a shower.
That invitation could just be this piece of paper our good truck driver gave us. We should visit his friend in Samsun, and give him this. No way to know what was written there, I could deciefer something about friend:arkadas and help:yirmi. Btw thanks so much Hana and Zevla for help!
We slept in a field very far from everything because Ilona had a bad feeling about that night. Ilona is paranoid about Turkey in general, it might be because one guy she hitchhiked with to there was a complete tool. But there were a bunch of Turks who told us that someone is going to cut our throats but if I got a dollar each time I heard that...
Still, we were careful.
We made the few kilometers left to Samsun in a Georgian truck with a russian speaking driver.
"You travel without money to Iran? Are you stupid? I give you 10 000 dollars if you
end this madness now!"

Zurab, the only true Democrat

Zurab the Georgian democrat (and maybe the only true democrat as he said) tried to discourage us. He invited us into the only true democracy which was his truck. All other countries were ran by Putin maybe except America which was run by an equally evil dictator. I was labeled an idealist because I tried to express the idea that some countries had different level of dictatorship and France was kind of a democracy.
However, the Georgian seemed to talk from experience.
"Do you have temperature? I must look for thermometer!", he exclaimed in Russian after he heared my thoughts, "France democracy? You brainwashed. France Italia Czech Republic all Russia. All europe Russia. All mixed in cup like chocolate. Putin not like europe, europe kaputt. No chocolate. No europe. Idealist young people. Stalin, Hitler, all Idealists. Lenin, he was a true Democrat."
I actually think he spoke good russian but he had to simplify for us. I won't even try to express my russian here.
It's true though I do have a naive understanding of the world but I pointed out that Stalin is a Georgian national icon so the label wasn't that bad coming from a Georgian was it?
He was a straight up guy with both feet on the ground or should I say the accelerator and, let's say it again, a true democrat. We said we are democrats too.
I think we are, what else could we be?
In Samsun we tried to figure out what that piece of paper the truck driver from yesterday gave us was for. I posted a translation cry for help on facebook in the morning. The address pointed to some Casino. Were we supposed to go into a Casino in Samsun and ask for this random Rifat guy. And what was he supposed to do? What if the note said "Off with their heads" or something like that?

Fisherman in a philosophical mood

At a local restaurant we asked or help to find this place and we got a personal driver who tried to locate that casino for us. Without success unfortunatelly. So they made us half a liter of turkish tea, offered us ice cream and invited us to a fish restaurant. We refused three times in a row, energically. This is crazy, how is it possible for tourists to spend money in Turkey? We offer to pay each time we get someting and they don't even seem to understand the concept.
In an attempt to communicate with us they called some friends who spoke english on the phone. They also got me on a chat where people spoke german and turkish. So I spoke german on the chat and turkish with our hosts, it was a language mess.
We wanted to hitchhike out of Samsun, hopefully with a private car instead of a truck because they are too slow. And because a private car could head home and invite us in for.. a shower!!! But a truck stopped anyway so we might only get an invitation to a good restaurant. Damn. However they are rivers on the way, we might just camp nearone. The coast near the black sea is beautiful, the mountains are falling into the salty water.

Dinner on the road: This is my friend the animal, said our driver

Hurry towards turkey part 2

Written on a feeble free wifi on a gas station in Boulu, Turkey..

Fucking serbian cops. They really need to make a show of their authority. To be completely honest, it was kind of my fault, I didn't come up with the right attitude. We were hitchhiking on this pay toll and there was this cop who started blowing his whistle because we were on a highway. He told us we should've come to Nis by plane because we're tourists. Because tourists use planes. You don't say to black people they should sing rap music, how is it any different? And how are we supposed to take a plane in the middle of the highway, perhaps he'd like to land one for us. But anyway he just wanted to play with us a little so that was it. Serbian cops don't like what they can see so he advised us to go somewhere else on the highway where he didn't see us so he didn't have an excuse.

Afterwards a very cool serb guy whom I forgot the name (sorry) took us stopped for us on a highway just after two albanians going to kosovo dropped us there because Kosovo wasn't on the way. Anyway we went to his place, Ilona found a church to pray in since she's christian but it wasn't the right kind of church so I kind of failed I guess. The serb guy was great to us, he dowloaded us serbian movies with subtitles so we can watch them somewhere in our tent, in the middle of nowhere. His sister Irina was funny, she seemed to liked cycling and doing dumb stuff kind of like us and they both spoke great english wich makes things waaay easier than me communicating in pseudo-serbian.

The way to the Turkish-Bulgarian border

After that we quickly hitched a ride to the bulgrian border (back in the union again, what a joke) and that day we camped less than 100km from the turkish border.

Bulgaria towards the turkish border: Trucks, sheep and taxis We reached Turkey in a truck (our first truck) who was going to Kayseri which was a chance to skip instanbul which I would like very much although I'd also like to see the what these protests in Taksim are about.

On the road we passed columns of carried tanks, god know what they were doing there.

Truck transporting a tank, maybe towards Taksim square

Anyway we ended up on the highway in Istanbul with something like 20 km to go before we could get to a hitchhiking spot. So we hitchhiked inside the highway filled with slowly driving cars, it was kind of messy.

To that mess you have to add two turkish guys selling water and fruit on the middle on the highway who thought we were their competition and started shouting at us quite harshly. When they understood we were hitchhiking they stopped selling their stuff and instead they started threatening cars into taking us in. A poor guy gave out and there we were going the the istanbul pay toll from where we hitched a ride towards Gebze. The guy bought us dinner, he was really nice and tried to protect us from any harm, like most turks do. Then, another guy bought us tea and we were on the way again with a truck driver who bought us dinner again, tea again, twice until we reached a parking lot at 2 in the morning and at least slept a little. Today, we ride towards Samsun.

Hurry towards Turkey part 1

written in a car from Slavonski Brod to Nis.
The waking up and preparations went slower than I expected, I kind of hoped we would start hitchhiking in the morning. Not because of Ante but because of us. At least we got a good night sleep and a wonderful breakfest. The food was excellent as always and... well everything was great. The Anteans are a bunch of silent people except the mother and Barbara. We left with food for two days and Ante kindly drove us to the pay tool east of Zagreb.

The initial plan was to get to Turkey today so the interesting part may begin. But since we got to the hitchhiking place at 1PM, this plan was compromised. We'd be lucky if we catch Belgrade.

There we caught a ride to Slavonski Brod with a blond lady and a boxing teacher who kept talking about sex. Ilona, of course, was taken when she heard about the boxing. Unfortunately he talked more about sex than boxing. He explained to me that his front teeth were missing because of licking too much and not ice cream if you see what I mean. But it was kind of fun. And they bought us coffee.

Thank you Petra for teaching me the word kurat, I heard it a lot during this conversation.

The blond lady, her name was Ljuba which means something like "lovely" got a glimpse of a car with NIS plates. She went and asked the driver if he would take us further and there we are, going to Nis.

So we drive to Nis with this guy who works in a company and also sails and dives and rides a motocross. From the pay toll before Nis we may catch a ride to the border. So we might sleep in the serbo-bulgarian border today.