Batumshi!

(Warning, this is very laden with pictures)

This past weekend I was given a choice – trek up to the remote mountain town of Mestia and go hiking around glaciers, picturesque mountains, and continue the general theme I’ve been experiencing of “cold”, or visit the sunny seaside of Batumi for a last hurrah of warmth before winter fully sets in.

Gee. I wonder which I picked.

Picking up a night train in Tbilisi, we spent the next eight hours in transit going across the countryside in the black of night. Remarkably, the train has been the most on time form of transportation I’ve used here. We left right at 10:35pm, and pulled into Batumi at 6:40am, which was our scheduled arrival. The train itself harkens back to the Soviet days, and my spot was an upper shelf bunkbed off the main aisle. Everyone was given a bag of [presumably] clean sheets, as well as a bed roll and ridiculously lumpy pillow. I decided to risk the possible lice infestation I’ve been so afraid of getting here, and curled up on my bedroll and tried to sleep out the duration of the trip. Surprisingly, it worked, and I only woke up every time it felt like we had hit a cow or something, which happened a few more times than it probably should have.

Arriving in Batumi in the predawn hour was pretty awesome. Being the largest port on the Georgian Black Sea, Batumi’s harbor was filled with huge freight boats from various coastal countries waiting to be unloaded with the numerous imported goods found on the shelves of all Georgian stores. The water was all glasslike, and was my favorite shade of blue - it reminded me a lot of Lake Superior on very still mornings. We went on a hunt in the Old Town to find our hostel and put our bags down, and I couldn’t help but be amazed at the aesthetics of the neighborhood.

Batumi is touted as one of Georgia’s premier tourist destinations, and millions of dollars have been dumped in to this city to make it a desirable location to visit. The shoreline is dotted with impressive skyscrapers, holding even more impressive names like Sheraton or Radisson. There’s a building next to the sea that has a ferris wheel built into it, and one that looks like it would be right at home in Hong Kong with it’s reflective blue windows and ultra modern architecture. Further down the boardwalk, there are enormous apartment complexes with incredibly detailed facades, beautiful views, and large windows for the occupants to look out upon. Even all through Old Town numerous buildings are under construction with the promise of fancy hotels and more luxury apartments.

Only it’s all a farce. Batumi is beautiful, and it looks like it’s a fully functional city that’s booming with money, but upon closer examination it is suffering the same fate as Sighnagi – most of these buildings are completely vacant. The structure with the ferris wheel on it’s upper levels is empty, as is the large blue modern building, and even the amazing looking apartment buildings next to the McDonald’s from the future aren’t inhabited save for some homeless guys taking a piss as you walk by.

It’s a sad state of affairs if you think about it, because incredibly wealthy people are in Batumi. Loads of casino’s dot the blocks of the town, and the governmental buildings are some of the nicest I’ve seen so far. There’s construction left and right, so money is obviously coming into the city, but it’s not being put back in ways that would legitimately rebuild it. And it’s not like these buildings look incomplete. From the outside, they are completely done, but were, for some reason, abandoned recently. I’m not really sure what made their progress halt, but it seems like a gigantic waste of resources.

However, none of this means I didn’t fall completely in love with the place.

The neighborhood we were staying in is dotted with cafes, small restaurants, and adorable houses with grape and ivy covered balconies. The streets were cobblestone and had their own contingent of uber friendly stray dogs patrolling them. There were many times that it felt I was back in Southern California, actually. Right down the road from the hostel was the Black Sea, which is lined with essentially one long park, full of statues, more café’s, and benches to sit on. The beach itself isn’t your typical sand filled crescent. It’s reminiscent of many Lake Superior beaches with its completely rounded and smooth stones. Thankfully, the city of Batumi has free lounge chairs you can use.

The best part of the Black Sea, though, is the fauna. This particular weekend there was a very large jellyfish bloom along the coast, and the cnidarians were all over in the water, and even accidentally on shore. Jellyfish are some of my favorite animals, so add onto that my sheer happiness when we saw some dolphins swimming along the coast, and this place is basically all of my favorite things in one – looks and acts like Lake Superior, and has awesome sea critters. Fun fact: the dolphins in the Black Sea are a subspecies of Bottlenose dolphin found throughout the world, but these guys have been separated from the rest of the population for so long that they’re actually genetically distinct now. How freaking cool is that?

Batumi is Jobags approved!

I really did not want to come back East at the end of the weekend. It was so nice to be able to break away from the group for a few hours and pull up a chair next to the water and just be alone and draw. Telavi is bigger than the village, sure, but it still is small enough where me sitting alone in a park drawing would be gossiped about. But Batumi is so big, and full of tourists from all over the world, that some random chick sitting alone at sunset would be one of the more mundane sights of the day. 

And now, for pictures!

First view of Batumi's port!

A statue in the park playing a euphonium? Right across from a fairy statue? It's like this place is specifically tailored to all of my super dorky obsessions!

Another statue on the boardwalk. This time of happy dolphin faces!

One of the statues on the board walk. There was a whole series of these see through guys with hearts. Pretty cool!

Massive koi at the Batumi Aquarium. They were the least depressing part of that place.

The streets around our hostel looked like this. Stupidly pretty. Also sort of reminiscent of SoCal, no?

One of the dogs that liked to lurk around the street. They're all beautiful like this guy. Well, the ones that are mange free, at least...

Most of the buildings have these crazy decorations. Each window is completely unique, and all of the facades around the tops of buildings have some kind of bearded guy staring judgmentally down on you. It's as if my father is disapprovingly watching my every move.

Hilarious sign at the train station. Because I'm 5 and think this is funny.

My most favorite thing on this planet - Adjaran khatchapuri. Yes, that rectangle is all butter. I usually hate food shots like this, but seriously it is so good that I had to partake in the food porn.

Batumi from the cable car! Please forgive the ridiculous amounts of iPhone filter - I didn't think I'd be showing this one to anyone else, so I gratuitously edited the shit out of it.

Aforementioned abandoned building with a ridiculous ferris wheel in it. Cause that's what every building needs, right?

A cabbie that looks like it rolled right out of Sherlock!

The infamous chacha fountain! Every day, for 10 minutes at night, it dispenses that drunken diesel fuel known as chacha. A random Canadian we picked up from the hostel almost got into a fight with some locals here, however, so we decided to not go back and partake in the chacha.

Beached jellyfish!

The Black Sea really could double as Lake Superior, and vice versa.

The Black Sea couldn't decide if it wanted to be blue or grey, so it split down the middle.

It was a pretty awesome sunset, the evening I had alone on the beach.

What's a dorky Jo trip without a dorky iPhone panorama?