June 12th: Tbilisi to Erzerum

June 12th: Tbilisi to Erzerum
Tbilisi in the morning

We didn’t get much sleep last night. I had a late dinner at Shaurma Club that upset my stomach so I opted to skip breakfast. We were sad to leave Georgia also but the countryside we drove through was quite beautiful. I found this balcony railing decorated like lace in a mountain pass.

The border crossing was easier and shorter than the one we had yesterday thankfully. Martha, a friendly border agent even helped me pick out a nice Georgian wine from the duty free shop. I wasn’t about to walk out of the land of the first vineyards without atleast one semi-sweet red. We crossed into eastern Turkey and drove along beautiful rolling hills up to 2200m of elevation and then down into a valley cut by a stream of clear water.

From the base of the valley we started our regularity up along a cliffside back to the rolling hills, probably a 500m climb. We thought it went just okay but we were surprised how well we did when the results released tonight. After switching between driving and navigating all day we found the passenger seatbelt was no longer latching. We tinkered with it but decided against meddling too much since we were close to our hotel. Alican has been telling me about inflation in Türkiye and how expensive things have become, but I didn’t believe him until I checked the bill for a beer I got at the hotel bar and found I had spent $14 CAD on it! We decided one was enough and called it a night.