The 5000 Project

I walked through the border, there was a lot of sludge more than snow on the sides of the road, the holes in my boots were very noticable as my feet and socks started to get quite wet – sludge is a lot worse than snow as snow is cold enough to keep a solid state whereas sludge melts to a point where it becomes really wet.

I took a break from attempting to hitchhike (there were hardly any cars going through this border, none wanted to know about poor ol me) and found some emergency rubber shoes that I bought in iran for $1 deep within the bag, along with a nice dry pair of socks. Swapped the bad for the good and continued on the semi-frozen road to nowhere.

After an hr of walking down the only road, I walked into a shop to buy some bread – I asked what thankyou is in georgian, they asked me why I needed to know the georgian word, when I was in azajaban. I paused for a minute for a momentary check of reality, yes, I definitely passed through the georgian border; I was fairly sure it was difficult to cross over to another country when I was still on the same road from the border. In my moment of hesitation a guy next to the shopkeeper pointed to himself and said ‘azabaijan’ then pointed to me as if to ask where I was from, all while carrying a rifle raised waist height and all together seemed to have a very serious mannorism about him. I answered australia and hoped that it was the correct answer, it was, the man put down his gun. I could almost hear him thinking the words ‘You may pass’. There are conflicts between armenia and azajaban, I assumed after this meeting that I was in the not so happy area of azabageorgia. I paid for my bread and continued on.

After a couple more kilometers I walked through a small town with a school and lots of goats. There was a large and what seemed quite luxurious passenger bus that was just about to leave, I was quite pleased. I approached the driver and asked how much it would cost to get, what I assumed would be, to tbilisi (the capital city of georgia) – the man, to my dissapointment, let me know that the bus was going to the azabajan capital – once again I hesitated and required another reality check – surely an unnamed friend back home hadnt finished his teleportation device this early, surely he had not been testing out a prototype on me via some kind of satellite relay… or perhaps, perhaps. I kept walking. One local was nice enough to let me know which road to head down for tblisi once I hit a T junction, I was definitely heading in the right direction, this pleased me greatly; although I still had to get to the city.

I saw the passenger bus overtake me, I waved goodbye in an act of mental strength as the cold started to chill through the jacket. The brake lights came on, the bus slowed to a halt. I stopped walking for a second, then ran to the bus door probably looking a little too cheerful. The bus gave me a lift to the turnoff for the azabajani city and tbilisi which was about 40km down the road. They didnt charge me anything, never thought I’d be able to hitchhike a luxury passenger bus before, well to be honest I never really thought i’d hitchhike before this trip either.

5min later a car picked me up! the two guys knew a bit of english too, it was such a relief at the time – they took me to a city close to tblisi and I took a mashutka from that point onwards, as it was starting to get dark.

I managed to find a hostel for $10/night, then couchsurfed with a japanese/american guy for the following couple of days. Tbilisi was a typical ex-soviet city, with plenty of international (US) corporate influence as a statement against russia/USSR, the people still seemed cold and damaged however. I took a marshutka to stalin’s hometown of gori (apparently people in gori still love stalin), although the driver didn’t tell me when we reached the town, the van was still on a highway in the middle of nowhere when it stopped so I assumed it was nowhere near a town – I missed the town and decided to just head to the border of gorgia and turkey ($15) as there was too much snow to enjoy any scenic countryside. Batumi was a good place to get off as the snow had thawed and the sun was shining above a cloudless sky. I was heading for turkey, overlooking the black sea, with a church on the gorgia border and a mosque on the turkish border – it was plain to see the quick changes in culture and society, once more.