Batumi, Georgia. This country is absolutely beautiful. I don't have the words to describe it any better than that. It is stunning - steep-sided wooded hills, winding mountain roads, rivers, gorges.
We spend our first night in the country sleeping out in the open, on the Black Sea coast, under a canopy of stars.
On a turd of a beach, next to a pile of rubbish, in the harsh orange glow of the street-lights from the road behind our heads.
Bollocks.
That's the problem with maps. You look at it and see the road running right up the coast, and just figure there could be nothing better than pitching up, cooking some grub and sleeping outside. And when you've been driving all day and it's getting dark, you don't have time to sort anything else out once you've realised that the place is a shit-hole. And we don't know where we are. For all we know it may be like arriving in London and camping on a Stockwell housing estate.
We're not beaten though. Jeff points out to the horizon, and says that our nights spent camping with Gabi back in Bulgaria were all the way over there. We've just driven half-way round the Black Sea. We toast our efforts with a hard-earned dip. Or Jeff does. I'm about to go in when he comes back out looking distressed. 'A turd just floated right past my face,' he says.
We figure this place will be as safe as any, but following the experience of losing the Punto in Bulgaria we don't want to take any chances. So after a subdued stove-cooked tuna pasta dinner, Jeff sleeps in the car. Steve and I lay our sleeping bags out on the beach, and settle in for what feels bound to be a very weird sleep.
And it is. I'm in and out of sleep constantly, dreaming about dog biscuits, the street-lights making it seem like someone has parked up and is spotlighting us in their car headlamps. The cops arrive at some point - I'm woken by the distinctive funk-fart sound of the Georgian police siren, and a few sharp words barked through a megaphone. But by the time I've woken properly and turned around, they've gone. The next thing I know I'm waking up staring up at 20 stone of woman. This big blond woman in a summer dress is talking at me and laughing these huge gutteral laughs. And doing little mimes. Seems like she almost trod on me, then got a shock when she saw my face peering out the sleeping bag. She keeps talking. And laughing. It's brilliant. Steve tells me it's 4am. Her name is Natalia, she lives up the road, and she's out for a swim. What a lunatic.
But that's just a measure of Georgia. Get woken up by a mentalist on the beach at 4am, and they have no intention of slicing you up. They just want to stand there laughing. And talking beyond the point where you'd really like to be going back to sleep.
We were hit by the Georgian attitude even at the border, which has to be the friendliest introducition to any country. I was stuck in some more admin hell (watching the Georgian border bloke repeatedly trying to type in the registration of the car in front with a D instead of a P), and when I finally got back to the car, Jeff was chatting to some bloke and Steve was on the phone - to this bloke's mate, who'd apparently just sorted another rally team out with a load of spare parts. Now he was online, looking over all the maps and stuff to see where the other teams were. He asks Steve our team name. 'Oh, I've been reading about you,' he says.
We then go through more border controls, where we suffer a few more procedural problems. The customs girl is suitably serious - just trying to do a good job - but when Steve gives her a madlob - thank you in Georgian - her face completely changes and breaks into a huge grin. Others wish us a great stay in Georgia.
Driving into the country there's a noticable change, even after Turkey's friendliness. Here everyone stares at the car, driving past eyes fixed on it. There's so much beeping and waving. Park the car, and within minutes you'll have someone doing a full inspection. When we finally park up by the beach, one guy does a full 360 of the vehicle, looking at every picture. It's brilliant. I go over to say hello. There's no English here, but say hello and thank you in their language and everything is peachy.
But there's a huge difference in conditions between here and Turkey too. The roads in Turkey were really good. Georgia is pretty fucked. As well as pot-holes, the roads also have huge square chunks taken out of them. People sell watermelons from the roadside, while cows walk around in the middle of the street - not only in the countryside as we saw in Romania, but in the centre of busy towns. The border town has the feel of the South Coast, but with a Soviet twist. Imagine Brighton full of uniformly bright green tower blocks.
So I guess our final camping spot is fitting - almost idyllic, but actually fucked. But in just a few hours here we've seen enough of Georgia - of the people, the countryside and the quirks -to expect amazing things in the next few days. We'll just be kicking off a little bleary-eyed.
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