Long-travel Day

Location: Innsbruck -> Munich -> Tbilisi -> Mestia

Train from Innsbruck to Munich, flight from Munich to Tbilisi, taxi to the hostel.

It was chaos leaving the airport. Everyone tries to get you into their taxi. I was told to book with bolt, and uber-esque app.

The drivers ask you where you are going, and when you say you are going to book with bolt, they say “yes, yes I have bolt!”.

I persisted, saying, “No, I’m booking with the app. If you get my fare, then I’ll go with you.”

Apparently the taxi drivers charge 2-3x what bolt does. After I made clear I was going to use the Bolt app, the swarm of taxi drivers moved on to another target.

I arrived at the hostel around 06.00 or 06.30, the Hotel Fabrika. It’s a big old warehouse (hence the name Fabrika). The front door is open, but no one is at the desk.

I wander through the large and interestingly decorated main room, past sofas and tables and chairs, looking for a bathroom. I find it, and it’s locked. This is unfortunate.

Thankfully, someone appears at the front desk. I know I have a room in the hotel, so I talk with the lady to try to get my key. She can’t figure what room I’m in, so I ask her to let me into the bathroom in the “lobby” (it feels more like some sort of hip cafe, with old books and news papers in the large open bookshelves, etc).

I end up sleeping on a couch in the lobby for two hours until everyone comes down to breakfast. It was not a long night (I can’t sleep on planes), but that’s what I got. I wake up as a group enters the lobby with all their gear and are bustling around. I eventually introduce myself to the people seemingly in charge, get introduced to the rest of the group, eat breakfast, and then load our stuff into the vans outside.

We had originally booked a plane ride to get to Mestia, which would have taken a couple hours. The plane companies canceled last minute (we expect because they received better offers from the Freeride World Tour, which was setting up in Mestia for a competition the following week), and had to scramble to organize one massive van to take us all.

The trip takes 8 hours. Within 30min we stopped to pick up another passenger who’s not associated with our group. Shortly after we stop on the highway so the driver can buy wine in a plastic RC cola bottle. Our next stop was at 4:30pm, for lunch. It was a very long ride. We sort of talked, but I was drifting in and out.

We arrive at the hotel in Mestia. We check in, drop our stuff, and I go our for food and beer alone. I asked if anyone wanted to get food in the town, but no one felt like going out. This would be a recurring theme for the trip.