When Sylvester, the Polish cyclist we met on Christmas Day in
Batumi, was explaining that conditions were difficult here for local
people in Georgia, coping with the cold midwinter, I remember thinking,
surely it’s not as difficult as cycling round the world? What a weird
comparison and abstract concept. People in places with extreme weather
conditions, are obviously tough, live and learn to deal with it.
Cycling round the world means something different to any person who
cares to think of the concept. These 4 words represent, for someone who
has already cycled round the world (or travelled a long distance by
bike), a body of memories, a once experienced truth of a moment, part
of a process. Memories, skewed and evolved over time, the mind puts
it’s own spin on things, censoring some things, making it’s own story
which makes some kind of sense, or is maybe useful to life.
On another note, cycling round the world, is definitely a difficult
thing to do. We have barely scratched the surface of our adventure,
this cycling lifestyle is starting to become my life. Tom and I are
getting used to it. We are toughening up to the elements, and hopefully
opening ourselves to, and dealing with events that come our way. I know
there is something deeply satisfying about it, this life, and future
prospects for us. We are amassing a body of extraordinary experiences,
memories, documents, colours, pictures, sounds which blend into each
everyday adventure, meeting people and seeing new places (for example,
today we hitch-hiked to the house of a Georgian cyclist adventurer
called Jumbar Lezhava, who has travelled to 237 countries, and spent 9
years travelling by bike and holds 7 world records for push ups- and
he’s 68). Yesterday we met a Georgian painter, Rezo Adamia, in his
studio, just round the corner from where we are staying. Each day is as
full as I want to make it, and I am happy to keep investigating and
trying to learn and develop myself. The other day coming into Georgia
where so much is completely new to me, I had a strange feeling, that I
can only compare to that of being a child again (from some distant hazy
memory).
The Georgian people love a good sing-song and a dance. They have
traditional songs which all Georgian people know the words to and each
song has a particular dance to accompany it. On a number of occasions I
have witnessed a Georgian ‘feast’ in a restaurant consisting of copious
amounts of hot fatty food, washed down with lashings of fresh wine
(with long-winded toasting, of course), and the music starts. Last
night, for example, I witnessed a dance where the lady parades up and
down with her arms outstretched in a graceful fashion. The man then
comes in, arms swinging like crazed windmills, slamming one foot
forward and then stepping out, twisting his torso at the same time,
repeating on the other side, moving around his partner. It appeared
that the objective was for the man to get as close as possible with the
violent but well-timed movement without causing severe injury to his
partner. All-in-all it was a thoroughly excited, energetic and rousing
performance. It puts English-ritzy-nightclub
arbituary-jigging-about-after-a-few-pints totally to shame.
Its -18 at night here in Tbilisi. The pavements and roadsides are
covered with inches thick of lethal glass ice. Men dressed in heavy
leather coats with flat caps, or thick fur lined caps with flaps
covering the ears. Women dressed in fur coats and high heels navigate
the treacherous urban conditions with impressive ease. The undertones
of poverty and difficult social conditions are never far away. On
leaving a cafe and walking down the pavement we were approached by a
group of begging children with dirty hands outstretched, one manically
rasps ‘money’ at me. Its disturbing and it evokes mixed emotions. I
look up and see a 60 ft tall picture of a glamour model draped over a
new European style high street development.
Last week we visited the WWF Caucasus office in Tbilisi. We
interviewed Nugzar, the Conservation Director there. We learnt about
the new national parks in Georgia, set up since the collapse of the
USSR. We learnt about how the WWF integrates the local populations into
the conservation process through visiting and talking directly to local
people and stakeholders, involving and educating them on use of local
natural resources. Many people in Georgia are still reliant on direct
access to natural resources such as firewood. With the work of the WWF,
protected areas in Georgia have risen from 2.4% in 1990, to 7.0% in
2008. We asked Nugzar about how they are observing climate change in
Georgia. One phenomena is a reduction in the size of glaciers
reflecting global trends. The Greater Caucasus has 2050 glaciers. One
glacier, Kirtisho, has retreated by 247m between 1960-2001, another,
Glacier Tbilisa, by 360m. Glacial melt affects the availability of
fresh water for local residents, and plants and animals which rely on
it. In the longer term it can affect the level of oceans. Glacial
retreat is a good indicator of global warming. Read more here.
We are leaving tommorrow to cycle to Yerevan, the capital of
Armenia. It’s going to involve cycling over some big mountains and the
conditions are really cold at the moment, abnormally cold. It’s a new
experience for both of us, cycling in such temperatures, but we’re
prepared and I’m looking forward to getting back on the road again.
