When we were in Cappadocia, we weren’t sure yet to go to Trabzon or straight to Georgia. Many people said Trabzon is really nice for its beautiful green valleys (calling it Georgian valleys) and some other places like the Sumeyra Monastry but after thinking it all through we decided it was time for our next destination! Excited we were, until we heard how long it would take to get there from Cappadocia: 22 hours! Everything’s first time I guess… There were some difficulties getting bustickets since each bus company offered the busride only once a day. Many buses were full and at first we had to wait couple of days until there were free seats available. So a tip would be: get your bustickets for your next destination as soon as you arrive in Cappadocia (check also online for availability). Our plan B was hitchhiking and plan C flying to Tbilisi.We were lucky though because we found two free seats lastminute on the day itself. It was quite expensive for what we were used to paying for busrides in Turkey; 90 lira per person. The bus departed at 1.45 pm and would arrive in Batumi (first Georgian city across the border) the next day around 11 am. The busride itself, well what can I say.. it was quite challenging not getting insane for sitting that long in the bus. We tried to sleep in several positions, but it just didn’t work out. We were exhausted, nauseous and in a hallucinating state haha. We both still managed to get some sleep for couple of hours, but it was not much. Farhang woke me up and when I looked around there was nobody left in the bus except us. Apparently we had to change buses suddenly so we had to hurry and get our stuff together to get on the next bus. When we got to the border, the busdriver told us to get off and kept calling there was a problem (we couldn’t really communicate since he didn’t know english). We guessed we just had to get off for the passport control and after the border we would meet him again. The passport control went pretty smooth and we were welcomed in Georgia by a very happy friendly Georgian police officer with: Welcome in Georgia (in a Russian accent haha). We waited outside at the bus arrivals for our own bus, but we couldn’t spot it and were pretty sure the busdriver wasn’t very excited to drive to Batumi just for 2 people and had probably just flashed us. At last another bus from the same company (Metro) passed by, which was also heading towards Batumi and we managed to get in. Around 11.30 am we finally reached the city center of Batumi and got off to walk to our hostel. When we got there, I only remember falling asleep. We woke up in the evening and were really hungry, but didn’t have the energy to go searching for special Georgian food so decided to stick with McDonald’s. We witnessed one of the most fancy, sophisticated McDonald’s we had ever seen in our lives. There was this super fancy building, cool ambiance inside with chill music in the background. After that we encountered this nice lounge café. We deserved to treat ourselves after such a long busride so went inside to enrich our tummies with some sweetness. We got back to our hostel and decided to take a shower. I didn’t know it would be one of the most horrifying showers in my life. Farhang advised to let the warm water run for a while because of salmonella (there were no other travelers in the hostel and you don’t know how long the showers haven’t been used). So after couple of minutes I get in and just chilling, shampooing my hair when suddenly the warm water stops. Instead of saving the warm water, I spilled it thanks to my lovable husband. I had never been tortured like that before. It was freaking cold outside anyway and this was just the cherry on top I needed for that day. After the shower I needed couple of hours to unfreeze and feel human again.
We made a planning for Georgia for what we wanted to do/see and decided to leave to Tbilisi the next day!
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