Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling by myself, but there are times when I’m not such a fan. I seem to always forget this feeling until it comes back again, and then I’m reminded, “oh yeah. I don’t like doing this all the time.”
When I left Tbilisi on Friday I was pretty excited to get out to other parts of Georgia. I planned one night in Kutaisi, one night in Tskaltubo, and two nights in Batumi before heading into the mountains to Mestia. I did research on hostels and found two that had good reviews and seemed to have a good social atmosphere. In Tskaltubo I stayed in a hotel, more on that later.
I arrived in Kutaisi on a rainy afternoon. The hostel I booked was empty except for the host, who was nice enough but didn’t seem to be in the mood to chat. I took time to settle in, update my blog, and nap before going out into town. I was having a hard time dragging myself out of my room and into the city, which is one of my personal signs of getting into the solo travel funk. It’s totally okay to do that sometimes, but I knew I *should* get out and see some of the city.
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| Rainy, empty Kutaisi |
I was really hoping I’d meet one or two folks in the hostel to grab dinner with, but with no one around I finally put on my shoes and went outside. I did my usual routine: wandered around for a while, sat in a park and people watched, walked to the top of the tall thing (though this time on the way back down I was followed by a random dude, not fun), and then scavenged for dinner. I found two decent tomatoes, plus a cucumber and onion, in a market on the way back to the hostel, and picked up a can of beer to stick in the freezer. Back at the hostel, there was no one around, so I made a salad, drank beer, and watched TV for a bit. Eventually, a group of Czech hikers walked in, so we had a nice chat. They had just come from Mestia, where I was eventually headed. I was craving conversation so it was good to talk to them.
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| Entrance to the market |
The next day, I forced myself to get out again before I went to Tskaltubo. It was raining most of my walk to the market, but I’m glad I went- it was one of the best I had been to. I bought provisions for my lunch and my time in Tskaltubo- including peppers, white nectarines, some dill, and some tklapi, which is essentially Georgian fruit leather. I’ve learned that all not tklapi is good tklapi but I got lucky with this round of peach and apricot flavors.
I took a taxi to my hotel in Tskaltubo ($5) instead of lugging my bag to the bus station and taking a marshrutka. It would have been five times cheaper but three times as long, so I opted to spend the extra couple of bucks.
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| My anachronistic hotel in Tskaltubo |
That night I stayed in the Tskaltubo spa resort, a renovated sanatorium in an old spa town that was popular among Russians, including Stalin, during the Soviet era. I want to dedicate an entire post to Tskaltubo so I won’t say too much, except I knew that this would be one of my more solitary days so I had mentally prepared myself ahead of time.
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| Snaps from the Marshrutka |
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| The Black Sea |
It wasn’t until I got to Batumi, on the black sea, that I was really feeling the solo travel funk in full. I got to the hostel, allegedly “staffed 24/7”, but no one answered the door. I was already on the booking.com app looking for another place to stay when someone walked up the stairs. I had been waiting about 10-15 minutes, not terrible, but I was tired and a little cranky. Luis, an interesting Cuban dude who was helping the owner out, let me in and showed me the place (empty except for a dude sleeping in one bed, and some kittens). Again, in a quiet hostel with no real motivation to leave except to find food, I was hit with solo travel blues.
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| The hostel kittens |
When people ask me about solo travel and how I do it, I sagely say something like “you’re never really alone unless you want to be,” intimating that it's pretty easy to meet folks on the road. As I mentioned earlier, I forget that that’s not actually true all the time. It’s much easier to meet folks when the hostel is full or when you’re Couchsurfing, which used to be my default form of travel. I really wanted it to be easy in Batumi, but it wasn’t. So, giving up on finding any travel companions, I went out to a pasta place that purportedly had the best fresh pasta and pesto in all of Batumi (it did), immediately returned to the hostel, watched an episode of Chernobyl, and went to bed.
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| Batumi in all its weird glory |
I woke up the next morning with a laundry list of things to do. Alone or not, I was going to get myself out there to...wander around, sit in a park, get to the top of the tallest thing, and go to the market. Despite the raging “I am ALONE” feeling bouncing around in my head, I got out early, saw the stuff, did the things, came back and made lunch, went out again, did more of the things, and got back around 6:30pm. I was pretty proud of myself for forcing myself to get out, even if I wasn't feeling it. For the most part, I liked Batumi. The sea is still a pretty foreign thing to me, so it was pleasant to walk along the boardwalk, look at cool old buildings, find some great Soviet-era mosaics, and smell the eucalyptus trees in a park near my hostel.
Fortunately, someone I had met online through Couchsurfing hangouts in Tbilisi was back in Batumi where they lived, so we made plans to grab beer. Ruslan works for the National Democratic Institute, an American organization, and works with city councils in Western Georgia. He was great to talk to and I learned a lot more about the political climate in the wake of the conflict with Russia. I also had a pretty excellent IPA, my first of the trip. We only met up for two hours or so but my social battery was fairly recharged. Later that night I ate sushi in anticipation of the next four nights, where I would likely be eating only Georgian food while in the mountains (narrator: she was right). The quality was pretty good, and the price was right- I think I paid $8 for two maki rolls and some tuna nigiri.
I didn’t sleep well my last night in Batumi- a combination of snoring and errant cigarette smoke that had wafted from the porch and, in my halfsleep, I thought had been trapped in my lower bunk space. However, I was looking forward to the next day, which primarily consisted of taking a shared taxi the eight hours to Mestia. I was excited to see more of the Georgian country side, but more importantly talk to other travelers.
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| I expertly snapped this photo from a moving vehicle |
When I met the driver at 6:30am the next morning, to my dismay I realized I was the only one in the car. For eight hours! What?! I tried to laugh about it internally and took it as an opportunity to listen to an audiobook (thanks Mom for buying David Sedaris’s Calypso). Fortunately though, after a few hours we met up with another group. I was sandwiched between two Brits for the rest of the ride, but I didn’t care. Finally, my social battery was recharging and I was ready to face the next four nights in Mestia, where there were bound to be more travelers and curious locals to talk to. Right?
(Narrator: yes, she was right, and hasn’t had to eat a meal alone since)
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