Into Armenia Through the Debed Canyon

We managed to be on the road by 6am leaving Tbilisi. The city is not particularly an early riser so we didn't have to battle much traffic. Compared to the highway entering Tbilisi from the west, the road south towards Armenia was virtually deserted. We thought we might be able to change money and get lunch before crossing the border but there was not much as far as we could tell.

We settled for instant noodles and instant mashed potatoes on the Georgian side of the border and decided we'd try our luck purchasing our Armenian visa without any Armenian currency. 

  Instant mashed potatoes: lunch at the Armenian border

While we were enjoying our lunch, Kyle and Molly, two American cyclists pulled up to greet us. They were also about to cross into Armenia and we agreed to cycle together to our next stop. Kyle and Molly began travelling in March on foot but got bored and decided to buy bicycles. They have only their small backpacks strapped to the back of their bicycles, we were tanks next to them.

At the border, the customs officer on the Georgian side wouldn't let us into Armenia before posing for a photo with him (which he sent to us later). And aside from a surly visa issuing officer, things went smoothly. They even let us cross into Armenia, take out money at the ATM then come back to pay for our visas.   Crossing into Armenia (photo courtesy of Georgian border guard)

Like our previous border crossing we noticed a dramatic change in the riding conditions. The drivers were suddenly courteous, gave us lots of space and didn't drive very quickly. It was cool and the sky overcast, wonderful weather, if not a little gloomy. As we passed roadside vendors, our baskets were stuffed with fresh peaches. We were even treated to coffee and snacks by villagers who called us over when they saw us resting on the side of the road.   Armenian drivers are so cyclist-friendly that we can ride side-by-side

  Armenian peaches and Armenian hospitality!

Entering Armenia, the highway almost immediately begins following the Debed River, through an impressive canyon. The area is dotted with ancient monasteries and fortresses and we were hoping to visit a few of them while passing through. The monasteries are of course hidden away, several hundred metres above the river, on the plateaus atop the canyon. This limited the number of sights that we would actually visit. We had planned to sleep in Alaverdi, the first "large" town in Armenia, about 120km from Tbilisi, and use it as a base to explore the nearby attractions. Cycling into Alaverdi it felt like we were travelling back in time. A giant Soviet-era copper smelter dominates the entire west bank of the canyon. Russian Ladas and Pav-model buses (circa 1968) ply the streets.   Entering Alaverdi, it's hard to miss the copper smelter

  Pav-model buses (circa 1968) at the Alaverdi bus station

Somehow, we had decided that our guesthouse was at the top of the canyon, above the city centre, 300 metres up but less than 5km away. At the time, we were under the mistaken assumption (thanks Google Maps) that we were climbing to Alaverdi. Had we stopped to think and to look around it would have been clear that we were leaving the city centre, but we didn't stop, we just climbed (for almost an hour). We were in fact climbing to Sadahart, a suburb of Alaverdi. As we approached Sadahart our hopes of finding a place to sleep were fading and Yann and I felt pretty bad about having dragged two people up the mountain with the promise of a cozy guesthouse.

At the top of the climb, we stopped for water and asked a storekeeper where we could sleep. She called over a little girl who was instructed to lead us. We followed gratefully. Not only was there a place to sleep but there was a gigantic Soviet-style hotel in the middle of the village square! Why it was decided that this was a good place to build a hotel is a mystery, but what a relief. We were greeted by a friendly English and French speaking woman who showed us to large, somewhat renovated rooms that were less than $20. We were also lent a propane stove, pots and pans to cook with along with a complete set of dishes (there being no restaurant in town). We made dinner, drank wine and cocktails and enjoyed the cool mountain weather and the hot showers of the Debed Hotel.   The massive Hotel Debed in Sadahart (Sanahin)

  Cooking dinner on the hotel balcony

Kyle and Molly inspired us to slow down a little bit as we discussed onward plans (we usually try to leave before 7am, they try to leave before noon). After a good sleep-in, the four of us opted to stay another night at the hotel so that we could visit two of the area's most famous monasteries Sanahin and Haghpat. Not by careful planning, we happened to be a few minutes away from Sanahin Monastery, which Yann and I visited on our own in the morning. In the afternoon the four of us travelled by public bus to the neighbouring village to visit Haghpat Monastery. The monasteries were similiar but lovely.   Celebrating eleven adventure-filled years together at Sanahin Monastery

  Inside Sanahin Monastery

  Haghpat Monastery

The real excitement of Alaverdi was riding the cable car from the city centre up to Sadahart where we were staying. Purportedly making the steepest climb of any cable car in the former USSR, this ageing beauty took a little bit of courage to get into, but we joined the commuters who didn't seem to find it too scary. 

  Get me out of here!

From Alaverdi (Sadarhart) we climbed to the biggest city in the area, Vanadzhor. The road continued to be free of much traffic and the drivers who passed us did so carefully (except those with Georgian plates). We rode through two completely pitch-black tunnels which were a bit terrifying, but the cars did not even attempt to pass us and carefully waited while we made our way through. 

  Preparing to enter one of two unlit tunnels along the M6 highway

We spent the night camping on the outskirts of Vanadzhor. We chose a site away from the main highway, tucked behind the railway tracks. While it wasn't the most picturesque of settings, it was a convenient place to stop because we didn't feel like entering the city. The weather was cold enough that we needed our sleeping bags and jackets, a first on the trip. We had to lie through a lightning storm that kept us awake and a little bit on edge (we're grounded right?) and then a mysterious gas leak that filled the air with the smell of propane. Once we convinced ourselves that we weren't going to blow up (combination of lightning + gas leak) we fell asleep.   Our last night in the Debed Canyon, camping outside Vanadzhor

Stats for Tbilisi to Vanadzhor:

Days of cycling: 2
Days of rest: 1
Kilometres cycled: 163
Metres climbed: 1857
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 7

 Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support

A Week in Tbilisi

Our stay in Tbilisi marked our longest time away from cycling since leaving Istanbul six weeks ago. The main reason for our long stay was that we planned to apply for both our Iranian and Chinese visas in the city, thus beginning the annoying Central Asian visa quest circuit. China is actually a new addition to the list of countries whose visa processing is long and frustrating. Only recently have they added much stricter requirements for obtaining a tourist visa. They now ask for things like a list of complete hotel bookings for the duration of your stay in China, a flight in and out of the country or sometimes even a letter of invitation from a tour company with whom you will be travelling. The embassy in Tbilisi also listed the additional requirement of “being Georgian or having residency status in Georgia” (how did we miss that?). Despite this, we made our way to the Chinese consular services office to see if we might be able to secure a visa. We were told that with a letter of invitation we could apply for a visa. About 30 e-mails to Chinese tour companies later, we abandoned the idea of getting a visa in Tbilisi.

Getting our Iranian visa on the other hand was a relatively smooth process. We had applied for “authorization codes” through an Iranian travel company before leaving Canada. These codes are sent to the embassy ahead of time and we were theoretically pre-approved for the visa. Other than the embassy staff momentarily not finding our codes, we had our visas in one working day (we applied on Friday and had them on Monday) after filling out an application form and giving them all ten of our fingerprints (they didn't ask us for our knuckle prints but there was space for them on the form).

At the embassy were two other cyclists, British friends Imran and Jon, doing basically the same route as us (but at twice our speed). We met up with them twice in Tbilisi while we spent the weekend waiting for our visas. We also had two nights with our American friends Amy and Brian who happened to be staying in the same Tbilisi hostel as us. Brian is a terrific cook and on his initiative we made cheese burgers, baked potatoes and glazed carrots for dinner on our first night in the city. As Americans, they are unable to cycle through Iran, so they are taking the “Northern route” across the Caspian Sea. We expect to cross paths with them again somewhere in China or Southeast Asia (we'll never catch up to Jon and Imran).   Showing off our Iranian visas at the Tbilisi embassy with Jon and Imran

Tbilisi doesn't really have a week's worth of sight-seeing, or maybe we didn't have the energy to devote a week to sight-seeing. Whatever the reason, with the exception of a few strolls through Old Tbilisi and a half-day trip to the neighbouring town of Mtskheta we concentrated our energies on finding good cheap meals. Georgian food is pretty heavy but delicious and inexpensive. Yann would eat khachapuri (cheese stuffed bread) three times a day if had the choice but our favourite dish was badrizhani nigvzit (fried eggplant with walnut sauce) which we bought every time we saw it on a menu.   View of Old Tbilisi from the top of the cable car

  Backstreets of Old Tbilisi

  Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta

Tbilisi's biggest problem is general lack of consideration for pedestrians. There are virtually no traffic lights and crosswalks are completely ignored. Pedestrians are either forced to use unlit, urine-soaked underground walkways or make their way across multiple lanes of high-speed traffic. Around our hostel we memorized the best (least scary) places for street-crossing but getting around the city on foot was extremely unpleasant (forget getting around on a bicycle). Aside from the food, we weren't particularly torn about leaving the Georgian capital.   No traffic, a rare sight in Tbilisi 

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support 

Sightseeing in Central Georgia

We scheduled two days of rest in Akhaltsikhe to recover from our climb over the mountains from Batumi, but also because we wanted to visit some of Georgia's tourist attractions in the area. We didn't end up getting much rest in Akhaltsikhe because as usual we packed our schedule with activities.

Our first excursion was to the thousand-year-old Sapara Monastery, sitting in the mountains above Akhaltsikhe about 12km away. Rather than finding a taxi we decided that it wouldn't be too difficult to ride up to the monastery without our saddle bags. We set out in the late afternoon estimating a two-hour ride. After twenty minutes of climbing on a road that could barely be qualified as a road (averaging 4km/hr), with storm clouds filling the sky, we agreed to a ride from a group of young men heading up towards the monastery for a picnic (a drinking picnic).   Storm clouds appeared right as we set out from Akhaltsikhe to Sapara Monastery

They dropped us off about halfway to the monastery, but they brought us past the worst part of the road and the remaining climb was easy. The skies cleared right as we arrived at the monastery and we had a perfect weather for visiting and for our ride back down into Akhaltsikhe.   Late afternoon at Sapara Monastery

  Riding down to Akhaltsikhe from Sapara Monastery

On our second day visited Vardzia, a 12th century cave monastery, carved out of a mountainside along the Mtkvari River (Georgia's longest river). Vardzia is 60km from Akhaltsikhe and is the area's most well-known tourist attraction. In the morning we made our way to the bus station to find the daily mini-bus to Vardzia. In the parking lot of the bus station, we were approached by a driver who offered to take us there and back. The price we were quoted for the private car was about twice that of public transportation. I was feeling unenthusiastic about having to endure motion sickness (I had packed a few plastic bags for the road) and the idea of taxi was very appealing. Yann was really not into the idea of a taxi but he went along with it.

Right before setting off, a few taxi drivers approached our driver and began yelling at him. From what we understood, he was undercutting the others and they weren't very happy. He may not have been part of the official Vardzia taxi cartel. It wasn't clear to us what was going on, but in the end it appeared that another driver was next in line for the overpriced tourist drive to Vardzia. Our original driver did not put up much resistance when we were escorted to another taxi, so we assumed that by going with a new driver we were respecting the laws of the parking lot. We were charged more of course.

Our driver drove like an ass. When I told him to slow down he pointed at his chest and said “me good driver, no problem”. Yann was really pissed about our new arrangement and didn't trust our driver (who had been pretty aggressive in wrestling us away from the other driver). When we got back to Akhaltsikhe he annoyingly tried to get even more money from us (we refused). But on a positive note, we had visited Vardzia and the Khertvisi Castle in about half the time it would have taken by bus. And our driver had at least been friendly while he toured us around.   Approaching Vardzia

  Vardzia cave monastery

  Khertvisi Fortress

In the late afternoon, we visited Rabati, a newly restored castle complex overlooking Akhaltsikhe. While Georgia hopes it will be a huge draw for tourists, for us, it wasn't as interesting as original sights and didn't feel very authentic. There were more security guards than there were visitors.   The newly restored Rabati Castle complex

From Akhaltsikhe we got back on our bikes for a short 50km ride to Borjomi, a town famous as the source of Georgia's carbonated mineral water of the same name. As we weren't visiting the nearby national park, there wasn't a tremendous amount of things to do, other than drink water from the source: a warm, fizzy, salty, eggy gag-inducing delight. The water is thought to have healing properties which is why Yann and I drank a full mouthful each.

  Borjomi mineral water, straight from the source

After Borjomi, we had about 30km of riding on a secondary highway before reaching the country's largest highway (Ⴑ-1) , which up until then we had managed to avoid. The highway is two lanes and undivided for most of the fifty kilometres from the turn-off to the Borjomi road until Gori, our next destination. Most of the country's traffic is concentrated on this road, so you can imagine how pleasant it is for cycling. We tried a few detours, but none lasted very long so we pushed on, often riding in the gravel shoulder.   The busy Ⴑ-1 highway between Khashuri and Gori

Gori is most famous as the birthplace of Iosef Jughashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin. Stalin continues to hold national hero status in his hometown whose largest thoroughfare is known as Stalin avenue. Gori's affection for Stalin seems to be one of the reasons that the city is such a draw for foreign tourists. The city is home to the Stalin Museum, mainly a collection of photos of the former leader. In front of the museum is the house where Stalin is said to have been born and raised. We didn't take a rest day in Gori, so we visited all the “Stalin sights” soon after arriving in the city. 

  Stalin Avenue, Gori

After a short afternoon nap we got back on our bikes and cycled to Uplistsikhe, a cave complex, similar to Vardzia but far more ancient. Our ride to and from Uplistsikhe brought us to over 100kms of riding for the day. We left Borjomi at 6am and we weren't back at our guesthouse until 8pm. But we knew that from Gori we were heading to Tbilisi for at least a week of rest and visa applications so we decided not to miss out on any of the area's sights.   Uplistsikhe cave complex, about 13km from Gori

Our 90km ride from Gori to Tbilisi was pretty crap. We continued on the busy Ⴑ-1 highway and the traffic increased the closer we got to the city. Bicycles, tractors and other slow-moving vehicles are technically prohibited from using the highway, but police passed us regularly, continuing to not enforce the rules of the road. There was a wide shoulder until about the last 20km into Tbilisi when it disappeared to give way to five lanes of traffic into the city. The cars slowed down at this point, so in some ways it was less scary than when we were being passed by huge speeding trucks. We managed to ride all the way to our hostel, right in the centre of the city where we had an air-conditioned room waiting for us. Bicycles are prohibited from riding on Ⴑ-1 highway (this rule appears to be unenforced)

Stats for Akhaltsikhe to Tbilisi:

Days of cycling: 3
Days of  rest: 2
Kilometres cycled: 246
Metres climbed: 1403
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 5

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support

Over the Mountains of Southwestern Georgia

From Batumi we planned to ride about 160 kilometres until our next rest day. Our route would take us first into the humid forested valleys of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains across the Autonomous Region of Adjara, then over the 2025m Goderdzi Pass. We would break for a few days in Akhaltsikhe, the capital of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, a hotter and dryer region, where we would do some local sightseeing.

Ambitiously, our plan was to do the trip in two days with an overnight in Khulo. The road deteriorates right after Khulo so we knew our first day would be easy but that we might have to take an extra half day and camp somewhere between Khulo and the top of the pass.

We left Batumi a little bit later than we had hoped, thanks to some noisy roommates in our dorm room who had kept us up well into the night. The only way Yann could keep me from having a total meltdown was by promising (at about midnight when we were still lying wide awake in our beds) that we would sleep in until 6:30am. Luckily it rained most of the night and into the morning, cooling the air and making for extremely pleasant riding conditions. The scenery was great and the few vehicles were not driving very quickly due to the sharp curves on the road. Villagers were friendly and waved to us as we rode by. We felt very happy with our choice of route.   Along the Batumi-Khulo road

The historic Dandalo Bridge, on the Batumi-Khulo road

  We're in a good mood because we chose such a nice route

The day was relatively easy until about 10km from the town when we had to make up for 70km of gradual inclines with a 300m climb into Khulo. The only hotel with any vacancies was an additional 100m climb (which I walked). We had a great meal and an even better sleep in the cool mountain weather. I went to bed feeling confident, we had climbed to 950m and we were 30km from the top of the pass (Yann only told me the next morning that we would go down more than 200 metres before starting our actual ascent).

Having had such a lovely sleep we woke up at 4:30am not wanting to get out of bed. I convinced Yann that we should take a rest day since we had such a great, inexpensive place to sleep. We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast then decided at 9am that we both had lots of energy and that we should continue riding. So we set out an hour later (almost 5 hours later than we had planned).

The second day of riding was much more difficult, not because of the grade of the road but because of its generally terrible conditions. Not more than a few metres out of town from Khulo the road is no longer paved. But the traffic was sparse, the scenery beautiful, the people friendly and the weather cool once again, so we didn't spend too much time worrying about the condition of the road.   Yann making his way to the Goderdzi Pass

 These two beauties ran out from their home to watch us ride by

In the late afternoon, after about seven hours of climbing and after finishing the most difficult portion of the road (10% grades, large loose rocks), we were still 200 metres from the top of the pass. We were getting tired, Yann even had to push his bike for the first time (in solidarity he claims). We debated whether to set up camp but decided instead that if we did not reach the pass by 6pm (another 2 hours) we would stop for the night. At 5:45 we had made it to the top, averaging a whopping speed of 5.7km/hr. We had 2.5 hours of light remaining in the day and 55km to Akhaltsikhe and we decided that we would make it.   Emilie climbing up to Goderdzi Pass, moving average from Khulo: 5.7km/hr

    Goderdzi Pass, 2025m

This wasn't the smartest plan, mainly because we didn't get to enjoy what would have otherwise been a very easy 55km. We had 20km of difficult descent on steep unpaved road like the one we had just climbed, but then we hit a brand new pavement for 35km which we sped across without taking more than a few 2 minute snack breaks. We hadn't had dinner and our lunch had consisted of hazelnuts and dates.   Passing the village of Zarzma, it is getting darker, we have 35 km to Akhaltsikhe, and we still haven't hit pavement

The closer we got to Akhaltsikhe the more the traffic increased and as the sun set we got more nervous and peddled as fast as we could. At one point a car purposely swerved towards us and pulled away at the last minute (hopefully as a bad joke), making us even edgier.

When we finally arrived at the Prestige Hotel in the darkness, starving and exhausted, we were greeted by friendly staff who opened the front door as they saw us coming and instructed us to wheel our bicycles right in. We were in our room a few minutes later eating a huge pile of food from the grocery store next door, very happy to be safe and settled, having learned the lesson to slow down.

Stats for Batumi to Akhaltsikhe:

Days of cycling: 2
Days of rest: 1
Kilometres cycled: 174
Metres climbed: 2559
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 5

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support

Into Georgia (Trabzon to Batumi)

Turkey's border with Georgia is only about 200km from Trabzon. Two more days of flat, easy riding along the D010 highway. Our last two days in Turkey marked the first two days of Ramadan. Although we were sad to be leaving the country, our timing was right because cycling during Ramadan isn't that easy. Although many of the restaurants remained open, we rarely saw anyone eating. The tea shops were full of their regular customers, but no one had any tea. We ate our self-catered meals on the side of the highway, trying to stay out of sight.  We miss our daily pides

Shortly past Trabzon, we entered the country's tea-growing area. Tea plants fill the countryside and the hills along the highway. We passed dozens of Çaykur (the state-run tea company) processing plants near where the air would fill with a smell of tea. The highway was littered with tea leaves, fallen from one of the many fully-loaded trucks carrying the plants to be processed.  Çaykur tea processing plant

Crossing the border at Sarp was extremely easy. On the Turkish side we were treated as vehicles, so we lined up with the cars and trucks and rode ourselves to the booth where we were quickly stamped out. In Georgia we weren't vehicles anymore, but we were allowed to wheel our bikes along through the lines and were stamped in equally quickly.

On the Georgian side, the six-lane divided highway with wide, paved shoulder became a two-lane undivided highway with no shoulder. And the driving seemed to be very bad. Not wanting to prejudge the country's drivers we thought that maybe the 20 kilometres of highway to Batumi simply didn't have the capacity to handle the volume of traffic coming from the border. Although the “double overtake”, “triple overtake” if you count us (a car passing a car while it is passing a car while it is passing two cyclists) was really disconcerting. Especially scary is the “double overtake” coming in the opposite direction, towards us. We were forced onto the grass, or gravel shoulder a few times.

Yann's father pulled out this great (and seemingly accurate) description of Georgian driving from the U.S. State Department's travel advisories:

“You should exercise extreme caution when driving in Georgia, as many local drivers do not operate their vehicles in accordance with established traffic laws. Traffic signals and rules of the road are often completely ignored. Motorists drive erratically, often recklessly, at excessive speeds, and many times under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Motorists frequently encounter oncoming high-speed traffic attempting to pass other vehicles at blind turns or over hilltops.” 

 A rare moment of calm on the road to Batumi

 

We were happy to get of the roads and into the safety of the nice centrally-located D'Vine Hostel, recommended by three other cyclists for the garden (great for storing and/or working on bicycles) and the laid-back atmosphere. 

Batumi is a strange city. A resort town with multiple casinos and luxury hotels (and many more being built, including a Trump Tower) and a long pebbly beach front. It is apparently a top destination for domestic tourists, but also many Russians and Turks. We walked around the city centre but as it was rainy, we spent most of our time in the city planning our route to Tbilisi.

 Batumi's pebble beach

Batumi's "Alphabet Tower"

Upon the advice of the hostel owners, we were counselled to scrap our original idea of following the main highway across the country. Alternatively, we could take a mountain road to the south, through the Autonomous Region of Adjara and Samtskhe-Javakheti. The advantage of this alternative route, other than the scenery and mountain weather, was the lack of high-speed traffic. The disadvantage was that it involved about twice as much climbing, on an unpaved and poorly-maintained road. After much hesitation we opted for the climbing (only after finding a blog with cyclists who described the climb as “gradual” and after receiving a report from Amy and Brian who confirming that the road was “very very bad” but that we could do it). We figured that it had to be more pleasant than sharing the highway with Georgian drivers. 

Stats for Trabzon to Batumi:

Days of cycling: 2
Days of rest: 3
Kilometres cycled: 211
Metres climbed: 841
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 3

 
Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support