Soon more joined and we met Costa who owned a house in Abkhazia , the area we hadn ’ t been allowed to go without permit . He explained that the region was basically taken over by Russia . Even locals could not travel freely in and out , making visiting friends and family elsewhere difficult . So now he was looking to relocate to Tbilisi and had popped to Ushguli for this weekend ’ s bank holiday .
The party was in full swing . I don ’ t remember much about the end of the night , only that I had managed to convince Costa ’ s friend Dato to let us syphon some petrol from his car before setting off . The other side of Ushguli was even more remote and we wouldn ’ t have enough to reach the next bigger town .
He duly showed up with his car the next morning and let us top up our tanks in exchange for being allowed to sit on our bikes . The road out was even more difficult than the road in . If only we had changed the damned tyres ! It didn ’ t take long before I dropped the bike . It was leaking precious petrol , but it was lying top side downhill , so I had no chance of picking it up alone . A cyclist coming the other way stopped to take photos of my predicament ‘ for his blog ’ but made no attempt to help and just rode off with a wave . I still wonder what on earth he was blogging about to use that photo for ! The petrol kept flowing and I was beginning to panic , just as Aidan crested the hill . It had taken him a while to notice I was missing and needed rescuing again . We picked the bike up with mammoth effort and soldiered on .
Today I was in a better frame of mind , almost enjoying the trickiness of it all . Aidan never complains and just gets on with it . But this morning Dato had been quite shocked at how heavy the bikes were . And if a tall man like him was struggling to hold it , then I was a little bit proud to have made it this far , even if it was with
Aidan ’ s help . Progress was awfully slow as we bounced over boulders , slid through mud , and navigated dirt roads that had become slippery streams . Such demanding work requires coffee , but brewing a batch wasn ’ t an option . Unsure how much petrol I ’ d lost , we were worried we might need the spare from the stove . Rounding a bend with white wildflowers taller than our bikes , we spotted a sort of guest house identifiable by a group
of tourists packing up their minivans to leave . We stopped to ask if we could buy a coffee and were led into the grey , ageing stone building . The father and son duo ushered us past ancient wrought iron beds sporting bulbous spring mattresses into a bright dining room with two more beds and sat us down at a large table . Out came a giant bottle of home brewed beer and some cigarettes .
But what about the coffee ? The father led me into the kitchen , where
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