Category: nature

Finally in Georgia, differences to Turkey, and climbing with Isarne and Humpelino (June 2023)

Finally we made it out of Turkey into Georgia! When I had started my journey in December 2021, Georgia had been the first country I really wanted to visit. Of course the other countries were all nice as well but Georgia was always special to me. It looked just awesome in the videos and photos. And for me it is the country between the West and the East.

I often thought: from Georgia eastwards the real adventure will start.

Immediately after crossing the border between Turkey and Georgia, we felt the difference: no singing/ chanting of Imams, alcohol everywhere, the people were dressed more revealingly, and although we met a lot of lovely people, some people seemed to be a bit grumpy.

After visiting old friends of Cindy near Batumi we continued to continue our traveling only with Rosinante and would pick up Thor some weeks later.

The weather got better and better and we decided to try the first climbing area in Katskhi. I did not have any climbing equipment at that point but we met again with Isarne who we knew from Cyprus and they borrowed me one pair of their climbing shoes.

Climbing was awesome and I loved how much it fits into the car and nature live. It was awesome to wake up, have some breakfast and just walk some hundred meters to the first climbing wall. And all of that together with very good friends.

Katskhi itself is an interesting spot for sightseeing as well: they have a chapel on a big stone pillar. Although it is not allowed to climb up there, it looks awesome.

And again we found some dog friends. Especially Humpelino was a nice companion. He got his name because he was limping and the German word for “limping” is “Humpeln”.

A multi-day hike with a fantastic view and a bear in Turkey (June 2023)

Cindy was still resisting to accept her nickname Bengel and suggested the nickname “Lausmadl” instead of “Bengel” but I did not like that one.

We searched on Open Street Map for a hiking route in northern Turkey and found a really good one.

On the first day it was raining a bit but our rain covers, especially Cindy’s natural one, did their job.

At the end of our first day, we found a fantastic place to put our tent and the next day was super nice as well.

After we had reached the summit on the second day, we went all the way down. In total almost 30 km. In the last part, when it started to get dark, we met a very big bear. We were just running down the mountains when we heard him next to us in the woods. We guessed that he was surprised by us and when he started running through the woods. Breaking the branches etc. he made a lot of noise. He was really big.

You can see the first day of our tour in Komoot.

Sea of green in northern Turkey (June 2023)

We continued our journey together and Cindy turned out to be not afraid when driving her van called Thor over the often demanding roads of northern Turkey.

One day, we had found a nice spot on Google Maps. It had been looking like a super nice place next to a lake. When we reached that place the track leading there turned out to be very muddy and soon Thor got stuck and we had to recover him with Rosinante. In the end we found a nice spot to stay next to the “lake” which turned out to be a swamp.

And Cindy and I developed our signature meal: wraps with vegetables and Pampe (a German word for kind of a spread for bread).