Tblisi to Azerbaijan 181km

I continue...

We left Tblisi with heavy hearts, we had a great time there with David and the fellow cyclists, but it was good to be getting back on the road after such a long break. We left late, as usual, and wound our way out of the city, weaving in between the traffic. My cycling 'skills' or ballsiness learnt in Amsterdam, dodging tourists, came in handy here dodging the cars...Humphrey got a puncture pretty soon so we stopped and sorted that out, this was the first day we had really noticed the heat and it made cycling very different! Once we got a little way out of the city we got into wine making territory and it was more like cycling in rural France, wonderful rolling hills covered in vines with the odd sunflower field to birghten the horizon. It was a real treat to cycle through and we decided to camp that night by a river tucked away from the road. Ominously we found a bleached sheep's skull where we wanted to pitch the tent but we decided to risk it. Pasta and sausage for supper as we watched the shepherd herd his sheep past us and their dead friend.

That night I got up to go to the loo and as I poked my head out I was stunned by the crowd of stars in the sky! It was beautiful, the Milky Way was so bright, I sat out there for a long time watching them and as if to cancel out the bad omen of the sheep's skull I saw a couple of shooting stars...

We started early the next day to try and escape some of the heat. Another wonderful cycling day through great scenery so it wasn't so bad when Humphrey got another puncture, I just lolled around in the shade while he toiled away at his broken bike, so a nice rest for me. We took a left turn as a little shortcut and found ourselves climbing up quite high; climbing, climbing, climbing, although I was complaining alot less and was actually enjoying the scenery while my legs powered me up. We got to the top and a vast stretch of flat, patchworked, plains spread out before us. At the brow of the hill there was a model town with very luxurious public loos, it had all been revamped and was looking very smart although we didn't stop for long. We enjoyed the downhill and from there it was flat to the border with Azerbaijan.

It was about 6 in the evening when we reached the border town, but we decided to get the crossing out of the way. Approaching the border we took our border photos early as we had heard the Azeris are pretty strict and do not like photos! The last sign we saw on the Georgian sign, was a huge blue board which said 'GOOD LUCK' , it was definitely worth the risk for a photo of that! The Georgian side was pretty painless, but to add to our concern of the sign, the policeman also bid us farewell with a parting, 'Good Luck' and a mischevious smile. We tentatively crossed the river that marked the border and were very sad to be leaving Georgia...

The border police were very polite, but they did ask us twice whether we had been to Armenia who they are currently still at 'war' with, we quickly said no, as if we had never even heard of the place! We had been told the Americans NGO workers who live in Azerbaijan say they are going to Kansas when they visit Armenia. In preparation we had covered over 'Armenia' in the title of our guide book, as a token gesture at least.

We were stamped in and cycled off with a dog chasing us and on a non existence road, it seemed that we really did need luck in these parts! We tried to find somewhere to camp but made it to the next town instead and found a motel to stay in. This is my third country of the trip!