We knew that there is a long road ahead of us to Batumi and we wanted to start the day on a relaxing note beforehand. We learned from house owner that one sulfur bathhouse is just in neighborhood. In fact, it was the closest neighbor which could be seen when walking around hill on which our territory stand. House owner called the bathhouse announcing that we will come soon. The guy from bathhouse welcomed us in Russian and was explaining us price and other stuff. The bathhouse was placed literally under metal barracks. He showed us inside, shown sulfur rock. There was bigger pool with steaming green water and small one with cold water. Rooftop was on one half covered by metal sheet and on another only partially by tent material and rest open with only rusting frame. That small open side actually was for the better, because it left us with beautiful view on the mountains while we were bathing. Sulfur was leaving green patina on the sides of the pool, something that under other circumstances would be worrying. It was really pleasurable to get into this warm pool. I was swimming leisurely back and forth, only sometimes stopping in place. The guy screamed something from the outside to us, but we couldn’t properly understand him. We understood only something about 15 minutes. We noticed smoke through opening in the rooftop. We thought that maybe he meant that we could sit in warm pool only 15 minutes at a time, but then we discovered that there is sauna behind locker room. He was heating up sauna and then we realized he was talking about 15 minutes maximum in the sauna at one sitting. We circled between warm pool, cold shower and pool and sauna few times. It was difficult to force myself to enter cold water, but somehow I managed it. We were fully satisfied with that experience and we were ready for long journey ahead.
We started road with quite familiar landscape, despite of running joke that Damian was pointing and claiming that we didn’t see something like that so far every five minutes. Something notable along the way was Akhaltsikhe fortress that we just passed. Soon we saw snowy mountains in the distance and it looked like we will be passing through them, because we were crossing between the regions. We get excited and we indeed started to climb through serpentine roads higher and higher. When we were close to the snow, this time landscape truly looked different. Not only in nature, but habitats looked like they have been frozen in time. Simple wooden houses seemed in some stage of decay, but still visible inhabited, laundry and other signs of life on display. We stopped at some patch of snow. It was still surprisingly warm and I was able to be only in T-shirt at the top without discomfort. I touched the snow. It was covering stream underneath. It was dirty, very thick and hard pressed, hard in touch. Probably that made it so resilient to plus sign temperatures. It melts slowly and survives until next winter comes and gather new batch of fresh snow to fuse with.
It must have been the highest altitude during our journey, because after crossing that time-forgotten village with patches of snow we started to go more or less downhill for the rest of the travel. We didn’t see more snow anymore either. Empty road ahead was under construction for a long stretch, almost to complete bottom. It forced us to drive with snail pace, even in comparison to already slow movement along curly mountainous roads. We understood why navigation was showing so long time estimation for arrival to Batumi. At some point we realized that we managed to drive only for few kilometers since last two hours. I wasn’t particularly bothered, because views were amazing and with such low speed we could soak them peacefully.
When we were in the valley and road works stopped, signs of different region started to crop up. Palm trees and general impression in the air was of an approaching sea, but we were driving at the bottom of imposing mountain walls, which reminded me of all this artificial map boundaries in video games. We also noticed distinctive flag of the Adjara, which is the region of which Batumi is capital. This flag consists of regular Georgian flag in the top left border and blue and white stripes at the rest of it.
We entered Batumi through traffic jam and poor city outskirts. Damian was telling that he read about wealth contrasts in Batumi’s architecture. Everyone was in haste to calling it slums, but I insisted that whatever we saw out there was definitely poor, but probably doesn’t deserve moniker of slums. When we crawled into city center it became apparent why this city is sometimes called “Las Vegas of Black Sea”. City skyline consisted of distinctive skyscrapers, luxury hotels, but also Soviet era apartment buildings. We circled a little bit around our hotel, before we managed to find any parking spot. Our hotel, Orbi Hotel, was huge multistory building with distinctive white-blue palette. The entrance was churning people in and out constantly. We met the guy from whom we booked room there. He led us to elevators. Despite multiple elevators, there were so much people and traffic that we waited a bit until we managed to get into our room at 20th floor. We asked him where is the pool that was advertised in booking app, but he laughed as if not understanding and said that we have sea nearby. He gave us the keys and left. We weren’t happy and Gosia swore to smear him in the app.
While we were unpacking, Damian and Gosia decided to go out looking for restaurant at the roof that was advertised in the elevator. They vanished for quite a while and my mom started to feel impatient. We couldn’t leave hotel before their return, because we had only one key. Our view from balcony had old residential buildings in front of us, while at the right was view of the shining sea just short walk from the hotel. When Damian and Gosia returned, there was a little tension between them and mom. They explained that they couldn’t found the restaurant at the roof and that waiting times for the elevator here are terribly long. Tension fizzled out a little after a moment, but didn’t disappear completely, as far as I felt it. They decided that they had to rest a little bit before going out, especially because Damian was driver for whole day. Me and mom were restless and we wanted to see the city and the sea. We decided that we will call each other after they rest and decide if they want to go out and meet.
When me and mom went out, sunset time was approaching and we wanted to arrive at time. The promenade was spacious, going along wide rocky beach. My attention went to rows of palm trees along the bike lane. It was surprising sight for my mind, already used to seeing Caucasian mountainous ecosystems. Demographics changed as well, while in the mountains I was seeing mostly Russian, Polish and Indian tourists, here we had more Turkish and Arab families lazily strolling walkway. We went to sit at the beach to wait for sunset. I was surprised with this beach, because I was familiar only with sand beaches and beaches with huge rocks. Here beach was fully covered with smaller stones, in size of at least clenched fist. I thought that it was exactly size that would be the most uncomfortable to walk on. If it would be more like small pebbles cover, it would adjust under foot pressure. If it would be larger rocks, it would be easier to just leap from one to the other. At least, they were very smooth in texture and shape, thanks to tireless work of sea waves through the ages. I noticed group of young South Indians waiting for the sunset as well and idly building fragile towers out of smooth oblate stones. I indulged in building my own tower and it wasn’t trivial to build stable construction out of oblate stones. The sunset was nice, sun vanished behind narrow strip of purple clouds just a little above the horizon.
After sunset we went back and forth at the promenade. As night city lights started to glow, I was eager to believe what I heard, that Batumi never goes to sleep. There was something in the atmosphere at the beach and city night skyline with its mosaic architecture that I was eager to believe in moniker of “Las Vegas of Black Sea”. We were hungry so we started to look around for place to eat. Weirdly it wasn’t easy to find restaurant with Georgian cuisine. Among common Turkish restaurants flaunting their halal marks of approval, I spotted even restaurant serving Ukrainian food. Painted Slavic woman with blonde braids and in folk clothes serving borsch was smiling at us from the wall. Finally we decided on one which apparently served varied cuisine. My instincts were telling me that it’s too expensive restaurant, but I wasn’t traveling alone and either way costs are not so big in Georgia.
Inside there was dance and music show, but we were quickly led by waitress away from central room to side room with view at the sea. Still I had some limited view on the show through the door. Before we realized, waitress brought us tablets with menu and she set little polish flag at our table. We didn’t even remember saying or being asked about nationality, but probably we just filtered some questions as unremarkable courteousness. Music was changing and soon there was belly dancer at the center. To our surprise, she went through dynamic dancing through our side rooms as well. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but to some degree it reminded me “Mayya Mayya” song from movie “Guru”. Soon Damian and Gosia joined us at the restaurant. I saw that show changed to Georgian ballet and I was disappointed that I was able to see those crazy moves only to limited degree through open door. Mom told them about belly dancer who went through our room. We were there long enough though that shows started to cycle back so belly dancer again appeared. Gosia looked disapprovingly at Damian’s reaction and started to speculate with my mom that there should be equality and some scantily clad male dancer should also come. After we were satiated we returned to hotel to sleep.