In the morning a great thunder storm and lightning show passed over Zugdidi causing a few more power cuts than normal. By the time we were packed and ready to leave in the afternoon the weather had somewhat cleared but the clouds promised more rain for the night. These were not good conditions for departure but we had to get back on the road to not fall behind our schedule.
We ended up leaving Zugdidi just a few hours before sunset. Not an ideal time to head off but at least there was enough daylight left for a 20 km or so. With these unpredictable weather conditions every kilometer counts. Just out of town the gear shifting mechanism on James' bike failed to work. After a quick inspection we discovered culprit: a kinked gear cable housing. Somehow a bit of rust must have formed along the cable causing it to stick to the housing thus resulting in a kink once the cable was put under tension during shifting. Luckily we were not in the most mountainous part of the world but it was not exactly flat either so not being able to shift gears is somewhat of a problem. However, James manually set the chain in a gear that should get him up most of the upcoming hills while being able to maintain a decent speed on the flat. Unfortunately, the nearest bikeshop was in Tbilisi, which is five days from here. Yeah that was a bit of a downer.
When it was starting to get dark we came through a little village and decided to ask to camp in someone's yard. Since we do not speak more than about ten words of Georgian, the reference letter which our friend Valeri had written for us came in very handy. We got permission to camp without much hesitation but our arrival and request must have been the strangest thing that has ever happened to this family. They seemed a bit stumped and slightly confused at first but were also very curious. Somehow with James's few words of Russian, my primitive English-Georgian phone app, hands, gestures and sound effects we were able to communicate where we came from and where we were going. As we were about to prepare our dinner, the man energetically gestured that food was about to be served. We said that was not necessary because we had our own but he insisted. Lo and behold, his wife put a real feast together for us. So kind! So delicious!
It rained like crazy in the night and stopped only long enough next morning for us to take the tent down without getting ourselves soaked. Typically Georgian style, our hosts made fresh khajapuri in the morning. They were baked in an iron wood stove out in the garage and instead of wood they used hazelnut shells for the fire. Mmm khajapuri!
MADLOBA! THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY!
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