This tow truck is ridiculously small for Thor (July 2023)

After climbing we went back to Cindy’s friends who were living near Batumi to get Thor and continue our travels with both cars to the eastern part of Georgia.

But when Cindy started Thor up, his engine just stopped after driving two meters. For car travelers this is most likely the worst that can happen. The source of nightmares for some.

And especially when you love your car, your home as much as Cindy did. But Cindy was very brave. With the help of her friend we organized a tow truck. Cindy’s friend talked in Russian to the guys from the towing service to make sure that they understand how big and heavy Thor is.

But still they came with a small truck. For me imagining to put Thor on the back of this small truck was just a ridiculous idea.

In the beginning the guys from the towing service looked confident. And they did a very good job to pull Thor from his parking spot to the narrow street.

But then they started to pull Thor up on the back of the small towing truck. The small winch was crying and screaming while it pulled Thor up and my heart beat got a lot faster. Cindy started to laugh a lot more than usual and I got the impression she tried to calm her self down a bit that way.

When Thor was half way up on the towing truck the front wheels of the towing truck lost contact with the ground and the whole truck started rotating a bit to the side. It was ridiculous and interesting at the same time.

The guys from the towing service got less confident but after some adjustments they continued. The winch was screaming in almost surrender but finally the front wheels of the towing truck reached the street again, Thor was on the back of the towing truck and the wheels of the towing truck looked like they were only half way inflated.

The guys called their boss to make sure that they could drive that way. After a pretty long video call with a lot of pointing on the tyres and the towing truck with Thor on its back, we started our 40 kilometers trip following Thor in Rosinante.

It looked ridiculous. Even for Georgian standards. I mean these guys put a lot on their cars in very creative ways and nobody really takes notice of that anymore. It’s normal. But Thor on that truck caught some eyes in our way to the car garage.

The two guys from the towing service were super happy when we had reached our destination. And after half an hour of explaining what a receipt is and why we needed one, they left.

At the car garage they started analyzing what was wrong with Thor. But they did not find any reasons for Thor not starting up. But they contacted another car garage specialist on fuel lines and the whole fuel system. They made an appointment for us in about one week.

The beginning of my climbing life (July 2023)

Finally, after weeks of waiting for the package from Germany, I got my first own pair of climbing shoes!

In the past, I always had felt that rock climbing would be something I’d love a lot. But apart from two or three times in a climbing and boulder gym, I had not been getting into it. I had been too much into trial biking and downhill biking and I did not like the necessity of making appointments with a friend to be able to climb. This dependency… Did not like it. And only bouldering I did not want to do as well.

But now the time had come! I was with Cindy, the best climbing partner one can think of and it was perfect. We parked Rosinante right next to a beach close to Batumi and went climbing a whole lot. The climbing sectors were pretty crazy because they were located right next to a fuel station and the main road between Georgia and Turkey, but it was super fun and exciting! The rock was pretty hard to climb as well: just very few bigger steps and handles. Cindy taught me a whole lot. Including self-belaying and belaying from the anchor point/ top.

Check out the climbing area on The Crag.

When we were not climbing, we spent our time in the Black Sea or on the pebble beach. And of course Cindy became friends with all the stray dogs. Not only the small ones. Franz was one of them. A pretty impressive American Staffordshire with scars in the face. A fighter. Fearless as always Cindy played and danced with him. Once they had been playing enough, Franz went to the next group of people. They got afraid and their looks were begging for Cindy to come and take Franz away.

Opposing views on the world, one of the most psychologically demanding days in years (July 2023)

We went back near Batumi because the package from Germany was ready for pickup. We had sent it to a friend of Cindy and I was very thankful that he did invest his energy and time in this.

But the process of getting this package was crazy for me. I believe that basically humans are good and that experiences can make them behave not so well. So for me this is a state of confusion which is totally human and just part of us humans although we are basically good.

The friend of Cindy believes in mostly the opposite. That’s ok with me but still it was so demanding for me to get this package from the postal office and listen all the time to all the examples he had to somehow prove his view. And all the things that happened in the package retrieval process he saw as proofs of his beliefs. For him all the people we dealt with were bad and their only reason for existence seemed to be to make our lives harder. And about this he was sure even before we met the first of them.

So we started our odyssey and drove to the postal office. There we had to wait for half an hour. After that the people there started to ask questions about the contents of the package etc. Cindy’s friend was already pissed and had the people feel that. They were speaking Russian so I could not understand exactly what they said but that wasn’t necessary or even better that way. This procedure took about half an hour and I felt not good. Not good for Cindy’s friend, not good for the people in the postal office and not good for myself.

In the end we had to go to a Georgian Bank office to pay the import fees. I saw that coming because everything over 300 GEL (approximately 100 Euro) gets an import fee of about 18% in Georgia. For Cindy’s friend this fee was a proof of the evilness of the people in the postal office. At the bank we had to wait for a while and then paid. There was some discussion with the bank accountant about the fact that we only could pay in cash. Another sign of evilness.

We went back to the postal office. On the way I did tell Cindy’s friend about my perspective on the things happening and that it’s all ok. I did not want to convince him of my “Buddhist Zen-like” perspective but I could stay silent as well. I guess I just wanted to say something to calm myself or ensure myself that my beliefs were alright. And although I tried to accept that Cindy’s friend had just a different but not better or worse perspective than me, I could not remain neutral. And the fact that he believed that for example Trump would save humanity of evilness did not make it easier for me.

At the postal office the people told us that there has to be a mistake. The bank accountant did charge us three Lari too little. For me a mistake that can happen. For Cindy’s friend another proof of evilness.

So we went back to the bank. Cindy’s friend was pissed and had a big discussion with the accountant. I was smiling. In the end the accountant offered to pay the three Lari by her own. I liked the gesture. For Cindy’s friend she was making fun of us. We payed the three Lari.

After that we went back to the postal office and retrieved the package. I was happy that this was over. And I was still thankful that Cindy’s friend did go through this with me. Especially because this whole process was so full of evilness from his perspective.

I was super happy about the package full of mountaineering and climbing stuff and so we went to the nearest climbing area to try my first own climbing shoes. But I could not really climb. I was just not centered at all. Too busy in the head.

I guess this whole package mission just let me doubt about my whole perspective on the world. Maybe the perspective of Cindy’s friend was the right one and I was wrong? During the whole day, but especially at that point I felt that the “Zen perspective” really helped me to accept my perspective, his perspective and most importantly a part of the nature of human perspectives and beliefs: to have something that’s true, something we can rely on, something that gives us the feeling of having understood something about our own lives.