My hotel decided, that it's a good thing not to eat breakfast before 9am. Well, they might have read the most recent research reports about this topic, which I obviously failed to do, keeping on with my unhealthy lifestyle. But I doubt. Anyways. Skipping breakfast, I took a taxi to the central station. To be accurate, the central station was an unpaved side-street behind the McDonalds. The taxi was slowly approaching the area, left, right, maneuvering between broken cars and stray dogs on the street. Finally, I saw a group of men standing there in front of us. They were all quietly looking at the taxi as we were approaching. As I opened the door they all came, I told them that I need to go to Mestia. They immediately offered a taxi ride, for a bargain price of a hundred euros, to which I refused politely. I took the marshrutka instead. A marshrutka is a shared taxi, in which 8-16 people can fit. It fills up slowly and leaves, whenever it's full. Although when *you* think the vehicle is full, is not when *they* think it is full. There are degrees of "being full". They master a very high degree on that scale (on a scale of 1 to 10, it's about 12). Seat choice is by the order of arrival. I met some Chinese tourists, American climbers, and locals, creating a perfect mix of languages in the small space. They tied the backpacks on top of the car, in a really professional manner.
Essential stuff on a 6-hour ride:
We finally hit the road around 9am.
We made two stops. One at the Enguri reservoir, the other one is at a bakery.
The wonderful Enguri. With crystal clear water and transparent blue color. A reservoir with a hydroelectric power station which supplies as much as 46% of the electricity consumption of the country. Georgia's electricity demand is 80% produced by hydropower plants.
Tonis Puri (Georgian bread) in a popular paper cover, with our marshrutka in the background. Tonis is the traditional Georgian oven, and puri just means bread:
We were about six hours on the way, arriving around 3pm. :)
Essential stuff on a 6-hour ride:
We finally hit the road around 9am.
We made two stops. One at the Enguri reservoir, the other one is at a bakery.
The wonderful Enguri. With crystal clear water and transparent blue color. A reservoir with a hydroelectric power station which supplies as much as 46% of the electricity consumption of the country. Georgia's electricity demand is 80% produced by hydropower plants.
Tonis Puri (Georgian bread) in a popular paper cover, with our marshrutka in the background. Tonis is the traditional Georgian oven, and puri just means bread:
We were about six hours on the way, arriving around 3pm. :)
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