Sept 30 - Eat last breakfast in quiet Akhaltsikhe and are preparing to troop to the marshrutka (minivan) station, when Zura, owner of the hotel, says he is going to Khashuri and can drop us off there. Get into his car for the third day in a row and go north.
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We stop for about 40 minutes in the town of Borjomi. The town sells itself as a ski village in the Alps (without the skiing, though it does get snow). There are, however, hot springs, and Borjomi water, a slightly carbonated brew that is sold as a curative. We tried some and it tastes faintly of sulfur.
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/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
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On to Khashuri, where we find that there are no scheduled marshrutkas since the main highway does not connect through here. Get onto a minivan driver that just wants to ferry passengers around, though I have a feeling that it is not going to work out smoothly. We pay and head off west.
Most of the way on the main highway is under construction. Almost immediately the road goes downhill along a steep valley, winding around all the new bridges and tunnels that, when complete, will surely cut transit time significantly.
The vegetation changes almost immediately on the descent. Gone are the dry open fields and barren hillsides, replaced by lush greenery. It is as though the moisture from the Black Sea gets here and no farther.
The minivan driver stops in a small town and announces that he has to do something else but we can all go with another marshrutka that is just ahead of him. There are assurances that we already paid, but I already recognize this crappy situation, having been in it many times before. We take off again, and in half hour are in central Kutaisi. Since I am sure we will have to pay extra, I opt to make the guy drive around town until we are a few blocks away from our destination. Sure enough, he gets all serious about wanting money when I pull the bags out, mumbling what I imagine is a complaint about being made to drive around town. From my perspective, even if he had driven us straight to the Kutaisi marshrutka station ‘for free’, we would still have paid a taxi anyway since it is 4 km from the town center. So the money is a wash. This is the sort of fuzzy math I figure is going to become much more common for me to calculate from now on.
We are in a newish apartment building in a nondescript part of town, about 10 minute walk from the much more interesting downtown core. There is a supermarket downstairs, a welcome convenience that tends to make our lives just a bid easier
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