Gori – Uplistsikhe – Tbilisi

First port of call today was Uplistsikhe, 10km from Gori but not exactly en route to Tbilisi. I made the detour anyway. Why? Uplistsikhe is a cave city inhabited since the 6th(?) century BC, but now abandoned. The visit was quite interesting.

Otherwise the cycling today wasn’t very pleasant. More than 41°C (in the sun) again and hilly landscape. The bike had made funny noises two days ago. Yesterday I didn’t hear anything. Today the noise was back. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to identify the source yet.

I also noticed that the rear tyre will give up soon. The reason, probably, is that the air pressure was not high enough for the amount of luggage.
Need to cure/fix both issues over the next days.

So, I cycled into Tbilisi, aka Tiflis, Georgia’s capital, in the late afternoon. Coming in on the southern bank of the Mtkvari river, there is only a motorway. Not willing to make the long detour to avoid it, I just cycled onto it and – nobody cared, not even the police.

Bori, who I’d met in Batumi and who’s long back in Budapest by now, responded promptly to my desperate help request and recommended a hostel which I quickly found.

And guess who was sitting there at a table when I checked in? Zoltán, the guy I’d shared a cabin with on the boat from Varna to Batumi! Small world!

Went out to dinner with him. One(?) beer and I’m ready for bed. Good night.

Almost forgot: I cycled 90km today.

PS: It is HOT here in Tbilisi, even at night. It’s 30°C at half past 11pm in the room I’m sleeping in. I’m sooo looking forward to going back to the mountains soon!

PPS: I’ll stay here for a couple of days. Most importantly, I need to organize a visa for Azerbaijan. Last I heard is that visa application handling is a bit chaotic since new visa procedures were introduced in June. I’ll see how it goes.