Wir haben die Türkei verlassen und sind mittlerweile schon im Land #17 – in Georgien. Schon allein der Grenzübergang war ein klein wenig abenteuerlich. Unseren vorletzten Abend in der Türkei verbrachten wir bei Murat, der in der Nähe der Grenze in einer kleinen Hütte am Meer wohnt. Wir staunten nicht schlecht, denn während der letzten Jahre sind dort so einige Reisende gestrandet und haben sich auf seiner Wand oder in seinem kleinen Büchlein verewigt. Die Welt kommt zu Murat. Von ihm haben wir auch den Tipp bekommen in das kleinere Krankenhaus in Arhavi zu gehen, um unseren COVID-Test für den Grenzübertritt zu machen. Gesagt getan.
We left Turkey and are now already in country number #17 - in Georgia. Let alone the border crossing was a little adventurous. We spent the day before the last evening at Murat's, who lives in a small hut near the border. We were pretty impressed, because over the past years many travelers ended up here too and perpetuated themselves on his wall or his small book. The world comes to Murat. He was also the one giving us the tip to go to the smaller hospital in Arhavi, to make COVID tests for crossing the border. Said and done.

The long rod was put into our mouths and our noses. While still gagging and wheezing, we realized, that this was our first test of this kind. Up until now we never had big problems with timing when crossing the border, without facing certain entry requirements. In the evening we got our test results. Melli's test was negative... but Dani's test kind of got lost. That was really annoying, because then he had to do it again and we only got the test result the next day. Besides that the test result wasn't allowed to be older than 72 hours. So we just camped in front of the hosptial.

How it turned out in the end the test was issued on Dani's dad, because the named had to be stated for the residency permit for Turkey... Ahhhhhh... Who cares, full of energy towards the border. The border guard asked for the filled out entry form. Yea um, which form? We had been so busy with the Covid tests, that we must've overlooked that. We thought, that we had to issue another request, that would go through all the bureaucracy fabrics again and we couldn't enter.

Nach 2 gemeinsamen Tagen trennten sich unsere Wege, die Schweizer fuhren durch das Landesinnere und wir in den Hohen Kaukasus. Es ging nach Mestia und von 
After 2 days of spending together our ways parted and the swiss cycled thorugh the center of the country and we went to the high Caucasus. We went to Mestia an from there to Ushguli. We are really glad, that we took all those altimeters on us, because Svaneti is just one of the most beautiful regions in Georgia. The rustic Ushguli With it's old watchtowers and the many small stone houses, was a place like you'd imagine it in a fairytale. After that, we went over the pass and back down on the other side. The streets became an adventurous gravel road and because it rained, many mud puddles formed. Although that was draining, it was a lot of offroad fun, that was definitely worth it! After that we celebrated Dani's 30th birthday at the hot springs. We really like Georgia up until now!
 

Best wishes from on the way
Melli & Dani
 

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