Trabzon to Artvin

The morning was a productive one. We got our Georgian visa at the Georgian consulate in Trabzon. A simple process- no forms, no pictures- just hand over your money and you get your visa. A quick stop at the bank (since our Citibank ATM still wouldn’t work) and we were off to Artvin.

We made a quick detour to the “Yayla” country- where the Hemsin people live. It was very alpine and we stopped in a small town, Camlihensin, for their local specialty- muhlama (a cheese soup doused in butter.) A few bites were all we needed.

The Black Sea coast has several minority groups, the Laz and the Hemsin. The Laz are a Caucasian people that speak a language akin to Georgian. They have a reputation for fierceness and were the bulk of Ataturk’s bodyguards. While the Laz live on the coast and migrate to the hills for the summer, the Hemsin live in the hills.

Then we were off for our drive to Artvin. It got a pretty bad write-up in all the guidebooks, but it was the only place to stay on our way east. It’s the home of a huge summer festival (we missed it by a few days) of bull wrestling, drinking and dancing. The town had the feel of an old Colorado mining town, filled with burly men with nothing much to do. We stopped for a bottle of wine and met the local owner who, with a lot of charades, told us about the dam being built outside the town and about the road closing times. Good info since we were planning an early morning start the next day.