Last day in Armenia and the trip back to Georgia

Today marks our return to where it all began, Kutaisi. We had to wake up pretty early though in order to have the hope of getting to the Yerevan international bus station on time. With a late breakfast served we left our stern yet accommodating host at 8,20 and crammed the luggage into a marshrutka. Thankfully today I was feeling somewhat better after the water poisoning. A marshrutka gathered us up at the station and after the typical delay with unofficial transportation, we were on our way about 10 am. The drive itself was fine and we got to the border at around 1 pm which might I add was MUCH quicker than the drive from Georgia. The scenery was your typical ex-soviet mountain republic - the paradox of beautiful mountains and landscapes with abandoned villages and roads and buildings so poorly maintained that nobody paid attention. The last stretch of the drive to the border was the best with epic cliffs and rolling mountains while were descending in a zig-zag pattern.

The Border

Once through to Georgia the drive was much less interesting though it started to get quite hot - 23 degrees in Tbilisi. The friendly driver dropped us off at Pushkin square where we caught the metro to old Didube. At Didube we found a marshrutka to Kutaisi almost right away when the usual "marshrutka criers" pointed me in the right direction. In retrospect, I wish we had used the afto-bus as not only is it more comfortable, punctual, and modern, but is in fact even cheaper. The ride was quite tiring and smelly, with the fat dude in front of me letting it rip on a regular basis. To add to that my stomach cramps were worsened by the fact that the driver ran over the all too common potholes at full speed, with an old bus minivan from the 80s that quote possible still used its original suspension coils. After finally getting to the station by the McDonalds in Kutaisi a taxi driver went over to us right away and we agreed on a fare for 6 lari.

Back in Georgia

The hostel turned out quite nice at first, we had a 2 double bunk room all to ourselves with a bathroom ensuite. The only thing was that the hot water ran out with water with very little water pressure. The stomach cramps were really getting to me so I decided to make it an early one.