Our adventurous journey to Kutaisi

Right now we are sitting in a local restaurant in Kutaisi, enjoying a lovely dinner. We've arrived today around 12 hours later, with a lot less sleep and a lot more stories to tell than planed. But how did we get here? Let us tell you the story.

We've arrived a couple of days ago in Trabzon to have a few relaxed days, a small break from the exciting, adventurous backpacker lifestyle. And that's what we did. So, so far no interesting stories to tell, unless you count in some new recipes you can cook in a "well equipped kitchen" aka a kettle and a sink. The real adventure started when we left our apartment to commence our journey towards Kutaisi, this was roughly 30 hours ago. Our bus was supposed to leave that evening around 8.30. Until then we still had some hours to kill. We wandered past the black sea and when it was time for lunch explored a mall. As it happened the cinema in that mall is currently running the Harry Potter movies in English. The fifth one was playing exactly at the perfect time for us to still get dinner after and make our way to the bus terminal (15 minute walk from the mall). At this point we considered ourselves extremely lucky, if this statement holds up at the end of the evening depends on your definition of luck... But let's not skip ahead.

We obviously went to watch Harry Potter, got dinner and then made our way to the bus station, around one hour before our bus was set to leave. As we had taken the same bus a couple of days previous to get to Trabzon and had gotten out at this bus station this shouldn't be a problem ... Or at least we thought so. When we arrived at the bus station we found it deserted. All shops were closed, no lights, no busses. Some guy in front of it said just walk 20 meters up the road. There we found a parking lot with an overly helpful guard who we asked for direction. Side note: people in Trabzon speak little to no English. He gave us some phone numbers to call and wanted to order a driver to get us somewhere, although we just wanted some directions. So we went to ask the next people walking by: a young Arabic couple who also were overly helpful but didn't have a clue either. We saw a bus passing by and the guy sprinted over two red lights to ask the driver for us, but to no avail. The people exiting the bus looked at Google maps and informed us that the bus station would just open in 10 minutes, at 8pm... Not a weird time at all. But we just accepted it for now and went into a nearby supermarket to buy some water for the way. There we asked the cashier about it, just to make sure. He then told us that the international bus station had moved the day before ... What bus station just moves??? But apparently it was just a kilometre away and some other gentleman described us the way in Turkish and sign language. So at 8 pm we started to speed walk towards the elusive bus station, praying we would make it in time for our bus at 8.30. Thanks to power metal and our ability to walk fast we arrived 15 minutes later at the brand new, very modern, but still half empty bus station (at least better than deserted). In that moment we were very proud of us that we found the station on time.

We had booked our tickets online and wanted to just make sure that everything is in order and inform us about at which platform the bus would leave. However the office of the bus company we ordered the tickets over was empty. An employee from another bus company informed us that this specific office was not open yet. So we asked at another office if they could tell us more about our bus. With a lot of help from Google translate they told us that our bus was apparently cancelled and we should instead book a bus through them for the next morning. That seemed a bit suspicious to us so we decided to first wait the last 5 min till the bus was supposed to leave just to make sure. But the set departure time came and went and along with that our hope that the bus would still arrive today. We were stuck at a bus station, in a foreign country, without speaking the language and no access to the internet (we downloaded Google translate before (it's a life saver)), so we didn't feel that lucky anymore. Eventually we asked a nice looking girl for help. She didn't speak any English but she went to fetch her sister who spoke a bit of English. These two and their father ended up to be our saviours of the day. The father went back to the ticket office and informed us that the bus was indeed cancelled and that we have to call a number to cancel our tickets. The phone number did not work on our phones. It all became a bit messy. In the end there were 5 or 6 people standing around us: one was calling the bus line cancelling our tickets, one was looking for the new tickets and the father was doing a lot of the discussing and explaining. This all happened in Turkish so one of the girls was trying her best to translate everything for us. In the end the tickets needed to be paid in cash. But as we were planning to leave Turkey that night, we basically had no Turkish lira left. So the father paid for us (we gave him the money back of course) and he and the girls invited us to stay at their place until the next bus would leave at 5 am in the morning. As we had nowhere else to go and the three were so incredibly kind, we went with them. At their apartment they served us tea and snacks and told us a bit about themselves. We tried self made Baklava (without the sirup that stuff is delicious), börek and dried fruits from the region. They even gave us a bag of nuts for our travels and made us a bed on the sofa so that we could sleep there until the bus would leave in the morning. Small reminder: if you say you like something in a Turkish family they will bring you a lot more of it. The father had somehow managed that the bus company would call him around one hour before the bus would be arriving in Trabzon. We first set ourselves an alarm clock at 4.30 am. But after a call with the bus company one of the girls told us that we could sleep for another hour. We left the apartment one and a half hours later, accompanied by the father and the English speaking sister. They brought us to a spot near a highway where the bus would pick us up. And they waited with us for another half an hour at the crack of dawn, next to a highway until the bus actually came and we were in the bus. That family made us regain faith in humanity.

The bus ride was also an experience. One lady in the bus gave everyone somekind of valuable thing to smuggle over the border (e.g. bracelets, perfumes, watches). Basically the whole bus was a smuggling stuff. But in the end we arrived in Kutaisi at around 2 pm. There some guy gave us a lift to our hostel (for free). Now we are tired and will go to bed early tonight. But overall we met a lot of incredibly kind people and learned that asking for help when you need it is a great thing to do.