Racki and I went to Turkey for a border run to extend Rosinante’s stay in Georgia.

In advance, I had to find a lithium battery and bigger solar panel in Georgia, but there had been no real options. Shipping and importing from Germany would have been super expensive. So I had contacted a Turkish online shop and the owner was super friendly and had a battery and panel in stock. He had shipped it to Hopa to the Turkey-Georgia-border where we could pick it up easily.

At a small beach promenade in Hopa we started installing the panel and battery. The panel was super easy. The battery was a crazy operation! The batterie’s dimensions were perfect to fit it in the space behind our toilet but that made the wiring a puzzle.

To make it possible, we had cut our toilet at Hof Marani to be able to slide it over the battery.

We searched for cables in Hopa to make the installation easier and cleaner but had no luck finding some. But after we did shortcut the battery and nearly destroyed it, we finally made it!

It was interesting to experience the difference in Georgian and Turkish culture. In Turkey more than ten people stopped, asked if they could help us, were interested and curious. Although there are a lot of lovely and helpful people in Georgia as well, the experience would have been very different there, I guess.

Our plan was to spend the winter in Gudauri, the biggest ski resort in Georgia.

Racki wanted to find a job there and I was looking forward to learning snowboarding.

So we decided to get the temporary Georgian license plates for Racki’s car Thor. These ones are valid for three years and with them we won’t need to make a border run every three months.

The process of getting them was partly confusing and did take us about five hours in the offices in Rustavi.

If you ever want to do it, stick to this order:

• Technical inspection (if you have a camper car, you need to get a special document there which says you have a car of the category “special”)

• Getting a tax number

• Document that says how much you have to pay

• Paying at the bank office

• To another desk which checks everything and gives you all the necessary papers

• Getting license plates

It may be a good idea to have a friendly Georgian on the phone who can explain and translate when getting stuck in the process.