Trip Archives: To the Caucasus and Back

For more than a year I have been dreaming of doing a cycling trip around the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the political situation in the North Caucasus has been unstable for a long time and is still far from being calm and safe for independent travel. Nowadays the border between Georgia and Russia appears to be open again, but the Russian Autonomous Republics of North Ossetia (where the border crossing is located on the Russian side) and Ingushetia nearby are said to be not safe. Chechnya is just around the corner, too. So, at least currently, it seems not wise to entirely circle the Black Sea.

After changing plans a couple of times, I’m now attempting a trip that takes in the countries south of the Greater Caucasus, namely Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and involves a lot of cycling but also some trekking.
A visa for Iran has been arranged and I will pick it up here in Budapest in the next days. I was unable to contact the Azerbaijani embassy in Berlin so I will have to try and apply for a visa for Azerbaijan either in Kars, Turkey or Tbilisi, Georgia.

The first leg of the tour is done by train. I arrived in Budapest tonight where I am staying with my brother and his family. From here it’s a 1200+ km bike ride to Varna at the Bulgarian Black Sea coast from where I’ll catch a ferry to Georgia on May 31st – if I manage to secure the Iranian visa within 2 days.

From Poti, Georgia, where the boat will drop me off, I have a rough idea of where to go and what to do and see, but it will all depend on mood, stars, visa, weather, wind, people, countryside, and last but not least the political situation in those countries.
I had pretty much exactly 3 and a half months of time for this trip. However, a couple of things have changed and it is now more or less open-ended. It’s unlikely to last much more than 4 months, though.

Well, first I have to get there…

The past two days in Budapest were great. My brother took the days off and we spent quite some time together both at home and cycling around the city, organizing and buying stuff for my trip. I managed to get the visa for Iran within one hour including getting cash from a nearby bank.

Not everything went smoothly, though. Right before leaving home I lost a credit card and a contact lense. The latter is now on its way to Budapest. However, getting a new credit card appears to be more difficult. I was unable to reach my bank’s agent (Deutsche Bank) by phone and she never called me back. Very poor service. One more reason to finally get rid of my account there.

Anyway, I’ll have to stay here for a few more days. Unfortunately, it appears to be impossible to take the bike on a train or bus to Varna. So right now I’m unsure how and when I’ll get to the Black Sea.

It looks like I’ll do a little subtour to Slovakia over the next days while waiting for contact lense and credit card.

Somewhere in Budapest. Pretty much the only picture I've taken these days.

Last night I came up with the idea of going to Slovakia for two days or so while waiting for my parcels to arrive in Budapest. At the same time András offered to take me to Eger where he would go for work reasons. I decided to combine the two things and go from Eger to Budapest via Slovakia. András suggested a visit to Bükk National Park and we decided to camp there for one night.

So we took the car and drove over to Eger this morning at quarter to 7am. I started cycling to Szilvásvárad at 10 while András went to work. The sky was clear with about 30-35°C in the sun and the road was a bit hilly. Szilvásvárad is about 30km north of Eger and I arrived there at noon. Our meeting place, Bankut, is about 20km inside the national park on the Bükk high plateau at about 850m altitude. It took me 2.5 hours to get there. The ride was lovely, on deteriorating roads with almost no traffic, even though at times I wasn’t sure I was still going in the right direction.

Shortly after András arrived it started to rain and hail quite heavily and we fled into the car and stayed there for almost 1.5 hours. Then we did a 500m hike up Bálvány peak (956m) and enjoyed the amazing vista from its lookout tower. Eventually I cooked some pasta for dinner and we decided to pitch our tents right on the platform.

Cycled: 53km

Eger - Bükk National Park

Near Szilvásvárad

Sunset over Bükk National Park

Had a lovely relaxing day in the beautifully wildish place (the house was built in the 1940s and the land surrounding it almost looks like it hasn’t been touched since then – that’s only a slight exaggeration :)). Went back to Budapest for the night by car.

Didn’t do much today except for shopping for some groceries – the contact lense arrived and I’ll be heading south first thing tomorrow morning.

What a bad start, what a hard day, and what a nice end.

Well, first things first.

András had offered a ride to Kecskemét which is about half way to Serbia, since he was going there for work reasons. So we got up at 4:30am (ouch). Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to pack all my stuff before he had to leave. So I stayed back – and fell asleep again. :( Eventually left his place at half past 11 (second ouch) and left Budapest’s outermost suburb after 15km of riding.

The direct route to the Black Sea openrouteservice.org had prepared for me goes straight to the south-east. To save some time it doesn’t go via Csongrád (where I had already arranged for and subsequently canceled a CS couch) and western Romania.

So not far from Budapest the road turned into a dirt track. At the beginning of that track I crossed paths with a number of cars with half-naked men and women, and some were parking next to the track getting it on…

A bit later the track became quite muddy and on average every ten meters or so a puddle barred my way. I had to push the bike through some of them and each time I wasn’t sure if I’d just get wet feet or loose the whole bike in the mud. Then the surface became fine lose sand and the wheels slided left and ride at their will. After more than 40km of hard work I emerged on paved road and in civilization. I wonder where in Germany would it be possible to go on dirt tracks for 40+ kilometers without meeting a single human soul?

It was late afternoon already and I was in serious need of a shower before I could get anywhere near my sleeping bag. So I deviated from my route and headed towards Kecskemét looking for an official camp site.

There were indeed signs pointing towards a camp site in Kecskemét, but I lost track of it at a big intersection in town. I asked two random people sitting at an appartment block’s entrance for directions. They didn’t know from top of their head where a camp site might be located but started phoning around to help me. Eventually they recommended some bed & breakfast. However, instead of giving directions they invited me to stay at the guy’s place, who lived in the building we were sitting in front of. So I met Erika and János.

After a shower they took me to a restaurant and showed me around the city. Lovely people!

Cycled: 97km

Budapest - Kecskemét

Muddy and sandy track

Sometimes flooded

With Erika and János at Kecskemét's Zero-Mile stone

Erika picked us up at János’s place at 7:30am and we walked over to her work place, a coffee and sweets shop were I had breakfast.

Left half past 9 – and wasted more than an hour finding a way out of the city. All the roads heading in a southish direction would not permit cyclists! So I was forced to take road No. 44 to the east!

Attempted a shortcut via a dirt track again but gave up after a couple hundred meters.

Anyway, to make a long story (read: ride) short: I zigzagged my way around road No. 5 and cycled almost 140km to Szeged instead of the 80 it would have been had cycling been allowed on that road.

Decided to stay in Szeged for the night and cross into Serbia tomorrow. The border is about 15km from here. The campsites I found were either in the wrong direction (back to were I came from, or closed. I’m now lodging in Hotel Izabella, a simple place on the 2nd floor of a run-down … hm, dunno what it used to be. Looks a bit creepy from the outside.

Sitting in the city centre. It’s still warmish and there are quite some people out. One stall-like pub has live music, everthing from Cranberries to Lynard Skynard. People dance, erm, in formation, for lack of a better expression. That is, there are about 30 random people on the dancefloor all doing the same moves.

I’ve heard that girls in Tbilisi, Georgia, are dressed for party 24/7. Szeged girls definitely try that, too. :)

Cycled: 137km

Kecskemét - Szeged

Bikes are awesome, eh?!

Szeged - look at the tower's top

For the curious