18th September: Mestia, Georgia to Batumi, Georgia
We were at the marshrutka station at 7:30, expecting to be some of the first there for the 8:00 to Batumi. That was misplaced as the square thronged with more activity than we’d seen at any other point in the past 4 days! It was a good job we’d reserved two seats the night before. By 7:45, the bus was full and on the road.
Hopefully, we won’t get ill again from this ride. Two people sat behind us spent the journey spluttering away. White European boomers of course – the most fortunate generation in the entirety of human history but also perhaps the least considerate of others. Europeans should learn from the east Asian approach of wearing a mask if you’re even slightly ill (amongst many other things). Anyway, that was a roundabout way of saying we struggled to relax on the spectacular journey back out of Upper Svaneti.
The first rest stop came just in time for Kaja, who was finding the particularly erratically driven marshrutka on these twisty mountain passes a bit much. Fortunately, we weren’t far from the plains now. It seems she wasn’t the only one who found it tough going though as, unannounced, we took a detour in Zugdidi to a back street garage. I’m not sure what the problem was, but they took both front wheels off before replacing them again with the same ones!
Just after Poti, we saw the Black Sea for the first time on this trip. We’d travelled all the way from the Caspian on buses. The area between Poti and Batumi, known as Kolkheti, is actually a rare type of ecologically important rainforest and wetland inscribed by UNESCO. This area is very warm and humid, due to the surrounding topography channelling moisture, with abundant bog and forest species excelling in this niche.
The warm temperate nature was visible on the approach to Batumi too, where the verdant hills looked like they should’ve been situated many thousands of kilometres closer to the equator. 6 and a half hours after leaving the freshly snow-dusted peaks surrounding Mestia, we were dropped into the centre of energetic, subtropical Batumi. From 10km from the Russian border to 10km from Turkey. The threatened storms didn’t develop and it was a very pleasant 23C. I read a while ago that there’s apparently a short-lived period known to locals as ‘Golden Batumi’ in mid-September, just as the uncomfortable heat of summer has passed but the sea is still warm and the majority of visitors have left. It seems from a combination of luck and planning, we might’ve ended up here at this time.
We made the most the bonus few sunny hours to wander the impressive beachfront and grab some tasty snacks. Sunset over the sea backlit distant storms, as party boats boomed away off-shore and people swam amongst the jellyfish closer in. A hot air balloon took off from the shore, the lights showed off the mid-air golden ferris wheel, casinos lit up like constellations, and the crowds swelled as the surreal edge of Batumi was magnified under the cloak of darkness.
