Qobuland to Tblisi - Into Georgia

May 17th Qobuland to Samaxi - I'm getting pretty sick of marriage proposals
We left Qobuland very late, making use of the luxury of our room, and I was still ill. We decided to only do the 30 kilometres to the nearby town of Samaxi, to make sure I was fully recovered (I really hope I'm not sounding like Mark Beaumont). These 30km were some of the most beautiful of the whole trip. Absolutely breathtaking. The desert had given way to beautiful windswept hills, full of soviet co-op farms.

Actually quite a lot of them had slaughter houses with pens of sheep outside, and dead ones hanging up right next to them. This wasn't so beautiful. When we arrived in Samaxi we found a hotel with a café on the ground floor and went in. So far in Azerbaijan we had barely seen any women at all, and this café was no exception. It was full of men who shamelessly stared at us. When Mum went to find out about the hotel they all descended on me. They start a perfectly innocent convo via google translate and then move on to "do you have a boyfriend?". Sometimes I invent a husband (I'm getting quite attached to him actually) but mainly I try and be as uninteresting and as unattractive as possible, like in the archers when Roy told Tracey that he likes watching BBC3 documentaries about building canals. I held them off until Mum got back and we checked in to the hotel. She went to explore the town in the afternoon which was hard work as it was built on a very steep cobbled hill. For supper we had delicious food. These vine leaf parcels filled with meat and mint and cheese, and this meat broth thing.

 The man who served us saw that we were sharing and took it upon himself to divide up the meat broth for us. There were an odd number of potatoes so he cut one in half! He gave me all the fat which was meant to be a treat - obviously not a treat for me. Anyway I hid it in my sock.

May 18th Samaxi to Vandam - Hills hills hills
We left Samaxi early and got back on the road. I was feeling better and we cracked on. The hills were hard but the view was really worth it. I honestly don't have the words to express how beautiful Azerbaijan is. I would say number 1 for me out of everywhere we've been (in terms of country consistency and not single view).

It's also so interesting! The people are also very friendly (a bit too friendly). We have to constantly refuse cups of tea and other invitations. This road was more of the same, and it flattened out a bit which was nice. We had another delicious lunch of meat on top of these potato sheets. At night we camped on the balcony of a restaurant and ate there. The man brought over the menu, which was a list of words we didn't understand. He looked at us expectantly. We shrugged. I did a very good impression of a cow and he nodded. I pointed to the first one on the list and he nodded, and then the second one, and he nodded at all of them. He kept waiting for us to make our decision. We eventually went for the top two and he looked pleased. He brought out a kebab and two pieces of steak. How we managed to order that I have no idea. At night it was surprisingly cold.

May 19th Vandam to Sheki - We meet some English people for the first time since Vientiane.
We left Vandam after the obligatory cup of tea, and made our way towards Sheki. This was more of the same, beautiful, friendly Azerbaijan. It was also sunny for the first time for us! At the bottom of the hill into Sheki we met three cycle tourists from Sheffield who are heading to China. They were all very funny, with good stories, and we stopped for a beer. One beer after a day of cycling in the sunshine is quite enough, and we fairly flew up the hill. In Sheki we stayed in the Karavansaray, an old stop for the camels on the silk road. This was really cool, with arched brick ceilings. We did find out it was newer than our house which was disappointing.

May 20th Sheki to Balakan - We're taken into a car for a three course meal.
In the morning the weather was grim. The scenery was still beautiful!

We had two choices from Sheki, a gravel road or a tarmac road, and went for the tarmac one (learning from past mistakes?) which turned out to be the first busy road we've had in ages. The rain was still pouring down and bus shelters were few and far between. We were standing by the side of the road feeling sorry for ourselves when a family stopped in their car and suggested we get in. We had lots of delicious cake and bread and cheese and salad and biscuits and chocolate and tea. The daughter was 22 and had studied English at university and was the translator. They lived in Baku and were on holiday. It was hard work getting out of the warm friendly car and back on the road but we managed it in the end. We decided to wild camp and started looking out for places. There were disappointingly few, and in the end we asked a café if we could camp there. Mum had learnt a bit of Russian previous to this trip, and I'd always thought it was a bit of a joke. I thought she could only say about 3 words, and she'd said them so often I knew them too. During our USSR time she managed to pull some Russian out the bag and by this point was communicating pretty effectively. Yes I was shocked too. I can say about 10 words in Russian but I love saying them, it makes me feel like I'm in War and Peace. Anyway we had a nice chat with the owners of the café, and then realised they were absolutely drunk. The only English they could say was "GOOD MORNING TEACHER". And they made us say "GOOD MORNING CHILDREN", so they could reply. My one word in Azer is "Yoch" which means No, and at one point I said that and they got very excited that I could speak Azerbaijani! As if I'd been hiding it for the past 40 minutes. Eventually they got called home by their wives and we got to go to bed.

May 21st Balakan to Sighnaghi - Phew that was a steep hill
First on the agenda was crossing the border, around 17 kilometres away. We were both sad to be leaving Azerbaijan, but our last feeling was not positive as the irritating border officials insisted on searching all of our bags. Anyway soon we were out and into Georgia. We'd heard there might be coffee(!!) in Georgia and in the first town there were lots of buildings with "café" written outside. Although this sounds promising, when we went into the buildings they looked as if nobody had ever been in there before. The owners were staggered. Anyway we set off. We immediately noticed that Georgian drivers were crazy. The road was the main road to Tblisi and was quite busy, and quite hilly. We were a bit stuck for where to stay, and a bit doubtful we'd get to Tblisi the next day, so we took a shortcut over an insanely steep hill, and stayed in a gorgeous hilltop village. We weren't sure where to stay and then were forced to go into a hotel by the woman who owned it. She really didn't give us a choice. On the plus side there were two other cycle tourists there!

May 22nd Sighnaghi to Tblisi - I REALLY hate capital cities
We set off very early to head for Tblisi. The road was getting busier and busier. We rode a decent amount with two other different cycle tourists - from the Basque country.

They'd been on lots of adventures. Eventually we hit the outskirts of the city. The traffic was crazy, with cars acting as if they were playing a computer game where they couldn't die. It was getting pretty late by this stage and as usual we fought a lot. Eventually we made it to Guesthouse Whiterooms. The rooms were actually white and we had a kitchen which was good! We bought a lot of food and wine and enjoyed the night before a rest day.