Georgia up close

When I woke up this morning, it was raining heavily—and the forecast said it would continue like this all day. So we decided to take a rest day—temperatures were still low at a maximum of around 12°C, and combined with rain, that’s not much fun for cycling. Originally, I had planned to ride all the way to Tbilisi first—which would take about two more days if all went well—and then take a break there. But we had already been riding for seven consecutive days since Amasya, so a rest day was definitely needed.

What could be better on a rest day than a warm bath? Near Wani, there is a sulfur-rich hot spring located right in nature, and that’s where we went today. Since it was a rest day, we allowed ourselves the luxury of taking a taxi. The ride was quite adventurous, and although it was less than 10 kilometers away, it took more than half an hour.

Originally, we thought we would stay there for about 30 to 45 minutes—after all, what can you really do in a bit of warm water? But once we arrived, we first met a family from Poland and Andy from Germany. Later, Jan and Sonja joined us as well, who also live in Germany when they’re not traveling in their camper. The latter were kind enough to take a photo for us. We had interesting conversations about Germany, the world, and of course our travel routes. Andy had been traveling in his self-converted truck camper for about four years (if I remember correctly), gaining lots of experience and having plenty of great stories to tell. He usually travels with his wife, but she is currently in Germany and will return to Georgia tomorrow.

Time flew by as we kept switching between being too warm in the water and too cold in the rain—probably quite good for recovery. In the end, we stayed there for more than two hours until the taxi came to pick us up. By the way, the containers in the hot water are used to heat water, because Jan and Sonja also wanted to take a warm shower—quite clever!

In the afternoon, I called my parents—for the first time on this trip—and then lay down for a bit and immediately fell asleep. The rest day clearly did me good as well. Since we could only find a very limited selection of food in the village supermarket, we asked our hosts if they could cook something for us. They were happy to do so for a small fee, and shortly afterward we were surprised to see how generously the table was set. It was definitely worth it, and now we can set off tomorrow with full energy again. The weather forecast had looked quite bad yesterday, but it’s already looking a bit better now—the trend is positive.