On the road out of Tbilisi, we stopped for lunch at an abandoned castle. This would be a theme of our trip...
...we arrived in Batumi, still in Georgia, on the Black Sea coast. A resort destination with promenades, fountains, cafes, and warm warm weather...
...Asa on the very pebbly black sea shore. In his words, "dat's not a lake"...
...Asa at the turkcell store, where we bought sim cards. The hat was a freebie--Asa was called "yellow baby" in Turkey. We almost didn't get across the border into Turkey: problems getting our cars across without the right papers. Deus ex machina: the captain in charge of the border crossing innocently asks, "why do you want to come here?" "Oh, we wish to visit the ancient and beautiful city of Kars, to taste of its honey and cheese..." [waving hand at minor officials who have heretofore been extremely bureacratic] "Kars is beautiful, yes, you will go to Kars" "Yay! Thank you!"....
...After getting into Turkey, we drove uphill. In a few hours, we went from sea level to 2600 meters. This is another castle that we stopped at for lunch...in a river valley...
...we stayed in this hotel in Shavshat. It's beautiful, cold, with delicious food, breakfast, mountainous meadows that are out of some storyland...we spent our evenings playing cards...
...believe it or not, these mountainous highlands have tea plantations on the slopes...we drove up thiis...
...and, upon reaching the "top" all of a sudden the land got very, very, very flat. The Kars plateau...
...cheese and honey are Kars specialties. Relatively cheap, delicious. Asa in heaven...
...our hotel in Kars. Above us is Kars castle, fought over by Russians, Ottomans, Mongols, oh my!...our hotel had a turkish bath and sauna underneath...
...On the plain of Ani, the ancient Armenian capital...look for the post on Ani, I'll tell you all about it...
...on the last night, it was Ataturk's anniversary. Lots of fireworks, or as Asa says, "firehorses, boom!! boom!!"...
...note the large piles of bricks of cow dung. Note the lack of trees. Now, how do you suppose people stay warm all winter? Yup, you guessed it...Pity the poor kid at right; his job was clearly to make and stack the bricks...
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