It’s spring in Batumi!
Oh how sweet that feels after having thigh-high snow!
It’s pretty much one of the first few days of proper sunshine and we decided to try to head towards unexplored mountains not too far from our house. Considering it probably takes less than a day to drive from one end of Georgia to another, nothing is too far here. So cosy 🙂
We’ve started taking this ‘let’s see what happens’ thing to a whole new level.
The roots of this tree had formed into a dome and I decided it would be a great idea to stick my head under it to wear it like a hat… until I saw the spider webs – eeek!
But I also saw something else I’d never seen before…
A butterfly pupa!
Egg, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly…
I remember witnessing the concept of having many lives in just one lifetime when I was visiting my soul sister Anita in New York in ’96.
People had daytime jobs as engineers, nurses, accountants and had quit them to follow their passion and were now musicians, actresses…
They were happier…
People had been married taking oaths to love each other until the day they died because they loved each other to death but then had taken all those words back and given them to someone else without dying in between as promised…
They were happier…
So many chapters, so many ways to live in just one lifetime…
Little did I know I would also lead a butterfly life like that. Minus the love/death vows 😀
Tips for getting around in Batumi on a marshrutka
So we are off the mountain we live on and we take a little marshrutka (public transportation vehicle) to drive us closer to the other mountains.
Not everyone speaks English or Turkish (Boyfriend claims I also speak Telepathyish and I suspect this might be true but it takes two to tango properly with that one) and public transportation is really cheap (40 to 80 Tetri which is 15 to 30 cents) so we just get on a marshrutka that is heading in the general direction we wish to go to and get off when it deviates. Saves us time and frustrations levels are zero 🙂
Where the marshrutka fails, our thumbs spring into action and we hitchhike… Two sweet young guys allow us to squeeze into their back seat along with some spare parts that smell of gasoline and thanks to them we make the acquaintance of this lovely church.
Church in Korolistavi
This bell doesn’t look like a bell and it looks really old.
My questions are triggered again:
Was it used by the priests who lived here? As they went to it during that blurry time early in the morning when they are awake, their subconscious is awake but their busybody logical mind hasn’t caught up yet, what were their thoughts?
Did they hate their lives? Did they doubt God? Or were their hearts filled with love as they took in the beauty of the view? Was there a girl in the village they were in love with? Were they celibate? Did they die with a clean, happy heart? Regret? Guilt? Terrified because they had sinned?
For the millionth time, I wish bells, trees, walls could talk… how I would listen! <3
Ah – the door of the church is locked.
I have a Narcissus moment as Boyfriend is not the photo taking type.
I take one step forward and this is what I see through the window.
I was told that most of the ancient holy pagan sites in Georgia had been converted into churches and that the energy on those spots was quite divine.
Shame we couldn’t get in but it’s also a nice excuse to come back again 😉
There are some graves on the church grounds. Always intrigued by cemeteries and symbols and customs I wonder why there are so many beer cans & plastic bottles near the graves. I will find out.
I wonder what the story here is as the lady on the right only has her birth year on the stone and nothing else…
Maybe she’s still alive but her beating heart is with her loved ones who are not… How sad.
The bigger picture always makes more sense, no?
Walking around Korolistavi
Spring is only just springing into action in Batumi.
It’s slowly thawing from sepia and white into greens and yellows and purples and blues.
We hitchhike deeper inland with a man who is a wrestling champion and his sweet little kids.
Lots of cemeteries over a large area here.
Boyfriend wants to cross the bridge over the river onto the other side. Apart from walking through the river (which Boyfriend is very happy to do – I’m the party pooper) this rickety bridge seems to be the only way.
I’m still feeling courageous here.
I still haven’t experienced how shaky and wobbly it is.
I could feel my courage disappearing and my imagination (blessing / curse) kicking in showing me all sorts of dramatic ways this can go very wrong…
I tried to remind myself I had done Hell’s Gate in Canada, I was a scary-bridge pro!
In my defense, please do compare the barriers…
My darling Boyfriend then says the magic words.
It’s not ‘You can do it’ or ‘Stop being a wuss’ – that would be too cliche for my guru-philosopher loverboy.
He says, “Did you know that fear is just perception?”
Whoa!
I think of all the times when other people are scared and I know there is nothing to be scared of.
Fear as our biggest No. 1 enemy, I had decided that years ago. It is really diabolical and disguises itself so well especially when it morphs into that little voice in your head…
Imma outsmart fear 😉
So I pretend I am walking in a garden: The ground underneath is solid, strong, nurturing; it’s grounding me. I can feel the energies of beautiful mother earth under my bare feet, I’m rooted. I am surrounded by soft green bushes covered in flowers on either side, not steep rushing water. They smell wonderful. I’m still very careful but I must say my heart is WAY calmer. Go Boyfriend!!!
Speaking of which after I am safely on the other side, he walks right back to the middle of the bridge mumbing something about how this structure is really quite safe, stops halfway through the damned thing, turns around and starts jumping up and down to demonstrate the point – which instantly blows my poor little heart into a thousand beats a second again!!!
As soon as I cross the bridge I see this heart-shaped rock. I started collecting heart shaped rocks to put on my daddy’s grave and I decided this is a small message from him saying ‘Well done’ for crossing the bridge (as well as laughing – he is one of the most fearless men I know and I never saw him worried – ever! My superman <3 )
Up we go
We walk quite a distance up the mountain.
We come across marshrutka no 141 and decide to hop on. We have no idea where it’s going but we wanna go too. Bit like life…
Marshrutka keeps going higher and higher up the curvy mountain.
Boyfriend and I are daydreaming about the ideal piece of land to build our ideal house on. Boyfriend’s ideal place is, basically, the middle of nowhere… I’m kinda cool with that because I know his definition of ‘nowhere’ is the woods <3
The marshrutka reaches it’s final destination and stops, we get off. We learn they take off every half an hour.
The sun is about to set so we rush to try to reach the summit and stop to check anything that looks interesting on the way.
We spot a graveyard. It’s beautiful and peaceful. Too many tiny graves though…
You know when you’re looking for something and *bang* you come across it… but you don’t see it?
Enter one of my favorite poems:
“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”
― Shel Silverstein
La Belle Verte Batumi – the only place that is dedicated to yoga in Batumi.
I’d heard it was up in the mountains on the outskirts of Batumi but wasn’t sure where… until we got home and realized we had walked straight past it…
This mountain keeps inviting us back…
We walk further up the path.
Boyfriend is a proper man of the woods and disappears instantly to ‘feel the land’ as he does when we are in these places. I can feel it too and it is like a sprinkle of calm infusing itself gently, chilling my soul.
We discover a side entrance to the Mtirala National Park. It has stunning rivers, waterfalls, plunge lakes, deer, as well as bats, foxes, brown bears, jackals.
I love bats!!!
This is the side gate – off the beaten path much? 😉
I start chit-chatting in Turkish with a gentleman who was there whom I suspect is the guard of the park entrance. He tells me this house has just been sitting there for years as the owner had passed away.
I wonder what dreams they had for this house to become a home…
As Paulo Coelho would say ‘Maktub’.
The sun is wrapping up for the day. I can see the skyline of Batumi buried in the hazy distance. Thank you Lasik 😉
Her beauty beckons but we only have around 7 minutes to get back to the marshrutka.
Going back down
I can just keep going up and down this mountain on this little marshrutka – it’s like getting a mini city tour of the outskirts of Batumi.
I notice these beautiful little sisters dressed in matching coats. They look like little angels, so sweet and pure. The elderly ladies in the seat in front of us give their cheeks a little squeeze and telling them how pretty they are (I listened in Telepathyish). I want to do the same but instead just take a photo of them like a stalker. The marshrutka stops in front of a house. A granny gets off and carries a little toddler to a lady that awaits at the entrance of the house. Smiles and hugs and love. The driver waits for her to come back. No one complains. The marshrutka is filled with a lot of elderly ladies and the energy is very nuturing and I feel like I am being cuddled…
The marshrutka diverts. We get off and climb on a bus.
The end of the day is as beautiful as the day itself.
Moral of the story:
When it’s a random day and past 2 pm and you and your man are wondering, ‘Shall we go workout at the park again or do something else?’ always pick ‘something else’. You never know what might happen 😉
Madloba Batumi <3