Caucasus

Hello Folks!

It was Sep 11th, so the very last day of my regular Russian visa. I stayed the night before in Vladikavkaz and the next morning heading towards the boarder, which is just 30 km south. Right away after Vladikavkaz the mountains begin and saw "the gate of Caucasus"....

Almost... :-)

But as you can see, I am really very much exhausted, becuase Russia took very hard on me...  :-/

I was really suprised how easy it was to cross the boarders. No hassle, at all! It took me just 20 mins to get out of Russia and I felt sooo much eased. Yes, I did it and survived!!!!! Jippeeeee...

30 days in Russia!!!

After the RUS-boarder there was 5 km of "no mans - land" till I got to the Georgian boarder. I guess both nations just don't want to see eacht other...?! 

And the road condition was a kind of poor. But I liked it very much and am happy that I changed my tire a few days ago in Volgograd, because the HEIDENAU K 60 has much better offroad performance... ;-)

The Georgian boarder was the same easy and quick. The boarder guy even waved me to pass all the cars and I got my passport stamped right away! "Great welcome!" I thought... :-) 

Here my first stop in the Caucasus-mountains...

And with Ivan and Stefano from Spain and Italy I meet two travellers right away who came from Tbilisi by car.

Already here it looked to me more touristic and like a western style country, because a lot young hiking-tourists were around. There are numerous tunnels through the mountains, also with the road surface in bad conditions and withouth any light... :-(

So at this time I highly appeciate my additional "working lights"! :-)

Also watch out to not leave the road. Running into this concrete ditch would probably not turn out very good... :-/

I continued riding to Kazbegi, the first town behind the boarder and there I felt like beeing catapult back into Western civilization. People who spoke English everywhere, a bar with a big "wifi"-sign and even the restaurants menu was in English! "I am in heaven!" I thought, and decided to stay there for the night! Because Georgia issues 360-day visa on arrival I now can finally slow down and turn back into my usual very slow travell style! :-)

All over the town there are many homestays, mainly runned by older women, because many hiking tourist come up here by bus from Tbilisi and at the main square these women are bagging for the people to stay at their place. So for 10 € I got a room, but it was already rather cold...

It was Mazen from Syria, who stayed at the same house with me and we did spent the evening together in a bar. :-) He told me many interesting things about his country, which he already left years ago to Qatar. He explained about the religious problems between the different Islamic cultures and oil and gas reasons which include the conflicts and other reasons, which made totally sense, but never appear in TV-news and documentation...

Really good breakfast we got, just for 5 Lari (2,30 €) :-)

Afterwards we were preparing to leave and the sky became clear and we had great view on mount Kazbeg, which is 5.047 meter with its summit.

While talking the night before, he was so impressed about my travell and that I decided to break up everything and just took off. He told me he often thinks about it, but is afraid about the "Maybe..." and "What if's..?" and especially the money. So I tried to convience him, that everything comes by itself while beeing on the road and that I had the same doubts in my head before I finally started...

I gifted him my last "Fire inside" - sticker from Kosta in Bulgaria, which is totally about this to even follow your Fire inside!!

We said "Goodbye" to each other and I moved further south, while Mazen wanted to hike into the mountains.

Really really nice riding and I enjoyed it veeery much! Great weather, awesome scenery and good road!

What does a real biker need more, to be happy?? :-)

Man, I really love my bike! It's a fucking awesome one...

I saw this farming area out of a distance and while looking closer I recognized, the people farm right till the edge of that canyon...

Awesome!!! :-)

I continued till the town Kobi

where the part of the road starts, which was just used by the military in Sovjet times and especially afterwards in the conflict between Georgia and Russia. So nowadays it is called the old "Georgian Military Highway" and it was famous in the last years for it's bad condition! 

Jipeee! So here I come! :-)

But nowadays it's almost allover rebuilt and covered by brand new tormac. Just 10 km are still in gravell shape... At least! ;-)

On top of the passo at 2.395 meters

The way down was really relaxed and in good condition, except a few semi-tunnels...

A famous national Georgian monument, which is not maintained very well...

The nature in the Caucasus is very beautiful, but unfortunately the majority of the people don't care about and waste all the area with their trash ...

... like in almost every of the countries I visited so far! :-(

Who wins the "stearing contest"... ? :-)

This is a very common picture according to bridges and other metall obstacles in the road surface. If it's worn out they just add another steel bar and weld it on top some how...

I always try to avoid passing over those spots!

I came to Tbilisi and the the weather is still warm here, about 25° to 30° C in the day time, altough the locals consider the summer to be over. But for me it's like summer is starting after my odyssey across Russia. In Tbilisi I stay at a CS-couple. Gabriel and Franzi are borth from Germany, but temporarly living here in the capitol of Georgia, which alos offers some other German "benefits".... 

And it is very nice to talk some German again. After a few days in the city I will go and explore the country side and ride into Armenia...

I am very happy that I am here now and can slow down tremendously. I also feel good again to do some camping again within the next weeks, because the temperature is still pleasant during the night...

All the best to everyone!!! 

Alex

:-)