{"id":1512,"date":"2026-10-30T06:09:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T06:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reporteronbike.com\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2026-10-30T06:09:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T06:09:37","slug":"month-8-the-den-and-the-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reporteronbike.com\/en\/month-8-the-den-and-the-buzz\/","title":{"rendered":"Month 8 \u2013 The Den and the Buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

(28.11.25 \u2013 27.12.25)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have a destination, but it\u2019s a place with no coordinates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The kilometres slip beneath us for hours and hours on end. For days, which sometimes repeat themselves and pass in silence, almost as if they don\u2019t want to disturb us. For weeks, which we soon lose count of. For months, which seem endless until, all of a sudden, we find our tent frozen solid, while the sunburn on our skin has yet to heal. If we could count them, how many minutes would we spend without ever speaking? How much time would pass without looking into someone\u2019s eyes, without feeling the breath of someone we are close to?<\/span>
\n<\/span>The sound of the chain, the cars passing alongside us, the music. Everything repeats itself so often that sometimes it all becomes one indistinct sound, drowned out by our own voice, which starts talking, talking, talking. Without ever opening our mouths. One or two hours to take the tent down, one or two hours to put it back up, cook, make the bed. Silence that speaks. The sound of the pedals, the click of the gears, the hiss of the brakes. A car horn, which once brought us straight back into the world, but has become less and less effective. Our arm rises automatically, waving in greeting; it has become a conditioned reflex. At every crossroads, we find ourselves wondering how much longer we will keep riding straight down this road, alone. Anything can happen in the next town, just as it can around the next bend. It happens all the time, and yet it never happens. Can the constant repetition of difference itself become a form of routine? Perhaps this life is a little like working on a painting, focusing on an extraordinary wealth of detail, carefully attending to each tiny point, day after day, looking at it from very close up. It seems as though very little is changing: only the things nearby, the ones we recognise. Then suddenly the phone rings, we need the bathroom, we get hungry: we stop for a moment. And when we step back, we suddenly realise that there are millions of details, and that the painting has already grown enormous.<\/span>
\n<\/span>We start again. The tent, the road, lunch, the sunset, hours spent waiting for sleep in the dark. Thoughts fill our heads the way stars fill the sky in the desert. The deeper we venture, the more stars appear. And the more our eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, the more details we learn to make out.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Sometimes I find myself surprised by people I meet who can talk for hours. My attention span collapses before long, and my mind drifts off into space. I wonder whether they are the ones who talk too much, or whether I am the one who is no longer capable of holding a conversation for more than a little while. It is paradoxical that before setting off I was afraid I wouldn\u2019t meet enough people, whereas now, not even ten months later, I often find myself wanting to be completely alone, even when I\u2019m in company.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The only certainty is that there are no certainties. That the plan we have for next week won\u2019t work out; that what we are, and what we believe ourselves to be, has already ceased to exist by the very moment we recognise it. That just when we feel strong, we are ready to trip over the little brick we put in our own path; that when we fear we are drowning, all we really have is a terrible thirst.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Among long-term travellers, it feels as though we are all related. Distant cousins we have never met, but whom we know we have. We sniff each other out, draw closer, circle around one another. Sometimes we remain cousins, sometimes we become siblings, and sometimes we fall in love. We share the same burden, which is also the engine of our happiness. We endure this endlessness, never knowing whether the time is truly right: whether it is time to stay or to go, time to come together or to say goodbye. Who knows whether life is easier with two people, or three. We all belong to the same family, yet we are so profoundly different, even beneath the second layer of skin. No, not even that: beneath the first. Each of us has such a strong personal mission that I find myself wondering: could we ever make it work together? For more than an hour? More than a week? More than a month? For life?<\/span>
\n<\/span>On our own, at least, we know whether the knee beneath our trousers is bleeding after a fall, how much pain there is and how much joy. But perhaps every now and then we get lost behind a branch laden with dry leaves, and a hand to shake it could reveal a road with fewer potholes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. Could we ever?<\/span>
\n<\/span>But then again, does it really matter?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

_____________<\/span><\/p>\n

When was the last time I got this drunk?<\/span>
\n<\/span>Tbilisi is sometimes known as a little Berlin. An alternative world, often dressed in black, moves through the night, swaying and sweating to techno beats, losing track of time as dawn breaks and the following afternoons arrive. Sometimes it dreams of never having to resurface. Its main landmark is Bassiani, a club that over the years has become a symbol not only of Georgia\u2019s underground scene and electronic music, but also of the younger generations\u2019 political rebellion. A space where LGBTQ+ movements can find a voice and refuge in a deeply conservative national context. And while the club welcomes those in search of freedom, outside, on the streets of Tbilisi, the anger of people who have been protesting against the government for months continues to grow.<\/span>
\n<\/span>To understand what is happening in Georgia, we need to go back a few months. In autumn 2024, the government announced that it would suspend the country\u2019s path towards joining the European Union until 2028. The decision came after months of tension, a law that put pressure on foreign-funded organisations, and elections contested by the opposition. For many Georgians, this is not merely a diplomatic issue, but the feeling that a future the country has been pursuing for years is being taken away from them.<\/span>
\n<\/span>On the evening of 28 November 2024, thousands of people poured into the area in front of Parliament. Tear gas, water cannons and arrests followed. For days, then weeks, the city kept returning to the streets. Fireworks exploded against police lines, European flags mingled with Georgian ones, and Rustaveli Avenue became the stage for a confrontation that went far beyond politics.<\/span>
\n<\/span>A year later, the protests failed to change the government\u2019s course. The repression has continued, the laws have become more restrictive, and the arrests have gone on. Walking along Rustaveli Avenue, you can still see the tents set up in front of Parliament, and a few journalists continue filming and documenting the passing days. The protests have not ended, but when the streets fill up, I take another route. At the moment, putting myself in the middle of a situation like this just to \u201chave a look\u201d would not be a wise idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beers in a bar, shots before a concert, cocktails in a nightclub. On my first night out in months, though, I never make it to Bassiani. When the night catches fire\u2014or rather, when the morning begins, and the club fills up\u2014my budget can\u2019t stretch to the forty-euro entrance fee. At eight in the morning, reluctantly, I have to retreat, still not sated with the intoxication and the endless, half-forgotten conversations. I\u2019m forced to face those arriving at the hostel just as their day is beginning, brimming with conversations far more lively than mine.<\/span>
\n<\/span>For now, Tbilisi remains a city of the night in my eyes. During the day, I go out almost exclusively to look for clothes to help me face the winter. When darkness falls, I emerge from my den in search of social spaces, music and new faces. What forces me to pack my bags earlier than I would like, however, is my wallet, whose list of possibilities does not include \u201cgoing out clubbing\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among those detained during the protests over the past year are two of the main people running the cultural centre in Zugdidi, a town in the west of the country, where I had long had an arrangement to spend a few weeks volunteering. An email full of frustration tells me they can no longer host me and wishes me luck in finding another way forward. Quite a surprise, considering this was my plan for getting through the winter without wandering along snow-covered roads.<\/span>
\n<\/span>So I decide to head west, back in the ring, trading punches with the wind and dodging dogs that chase me by the dozen almost every day. I pass through quite villages adorned with the familiar hot-water pipes that the Soviet Union used to install on the outside of buildings, past collapsed bridges, abandoned industrial areas and crumbling buildings, until I reach Kutaisi, Georgia\u2019s third-largest city after Tbilisi and Batumi. Once the capital of the Kingdom of Colchis, the land of the mythical Golden Fleece, today it is a more run-down, Soviet-style city, a gateway to the great mountains of the west. My visit is brief, just long enough to gather my strength before pressing on to Martvili, a village a little farther west where I harbour my last hope of finding a free roof over my head for the winter.<\/span>
\n<\/span>At Karma Hostel, however, I\u2019m turned down as a volunteer. Winter brings few guests, and everyone currently staying there is already volunteering. I can only remain as a paying guest.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The news comes as something of a relief. No bed in exchange for a few shifts, but in return, the freedom to roam, to follow my own desires and choose my direction each day. Weather permitting, of course\u2014rain, snow and frost willing. For a whole week, the sky promises rain, so I let myself melt into the sofa, spending hours writing in silence before surrendering in the evenings to the rhythms of a communal, domestic life. Board games, one film after another, the occasional trip to the market, then back to the den, competing with the dogs and cats for the most comfortable few inches of space.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Karma Hostel is a little communal gem, half-lost in the Georgian countryside, right at the foot of the great mountains. It is quite well known among long-term travellers. In summer, the \u201cfamily\u201d\u2014residents, volunteers and guests\u2014easily reaches forty people. In winter, it becomes a smaller sheepfold, where time drifts by wrapped in fog, yet illuminated by a warm light. When I arrive, there are three residents: Vitalina, a Belarusian woman who is very direct and, at first glance, not particularly sociable. She has been here for over a year and has no qualms about admitting that she has had enough of communal living. Lucas, her German partner, has eleven piercings and an extremely punk look, but is just as calm, kind and welcoming. David, a Pole, spends his days in bed, held down by depression, only to unleash his creativity in the kitchen, where he regularly prepares mountains of delicious food, letting others see the sweet side of his character, too.<\/span>
\n<\/span>And then there are the volunteers. I run into Jenny again, the cyclist from Northern Ireland with whom I shared a hostel in Tbilisi. A whirlwind of thoughts and doubts, lights mingling with shadows, plans constantly changing; a Viking physique that conveys an immense desire for freedom and rebellion. \u201cI have a destination that has no coordinates. It isn\u2019t a physical place.\u201d And so, as soon as she discovers that there will be no volunteering position for her either, she decides to tie up her bike and spend the winter in Turkey. No, Bulgaria. Which, in the end, becomes Bosnia. After all, she is going to China\u2014or perhaps nowhere at all\u2014and whatever the country is called or wherever it lies on the map hardly matters: you do whatever feels right today. Hector and Leti. He is Spanish, she is Hungarian. They met here some time ago, and since then they have started travelling together by bicycle. The map has brought them back here, but they are about to leave for Europe, dreaming of a future together, perhaps in Spain, perhaps somewhere they haven\u2019t figured out yet. Kyle, meanwhile, comes from South Africa, and this is the first time he has left his country in more than thirty years. For ten years, he was trapped in heroin and methamphetamine addiction. He has no money, but he has decided that it is time to let the courage to explore new directions prevail. Blue eyes framed by dreadlocks, a face marked by years of abuse, and the energy of someone rediscovering life, eager to laugh, meet people and surrender to something he ignored for years. He has little more than his inseparable skateboard, and prefers to sleep in the treehouse, wrapped in winter, rather than stay in the large dormitory with everyone else. Finally, there is Jonathan, with long black hair and an Andean-looking face. Three years ago, he left Ecuador with his companion Benji, an ageing, small-to-medium-sized dog, and has been travelling the world ever since, dreaming of making it all the way back home. His goal is to make the most of the final years of his beloved friend\u2019s life, with a promise to bring him home to Ibarra before the end. He expects it will take another four years.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The queen of the house, however, the only one who lives here permanently, is Madonna. A large, old dog who watches over the household, fiercely protective of her sofa, one watchful eye peering out from beneath the blanket someone always puts over her. She snorts to attract attention and makes life difficult for any other animal that turns up at the door. But if anyone happens to need to sleep cuddled up with a dog, she is available.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seven days after my arrival, the sun opens a window in the clouds, so I decide to set off and explore the mountains, promising\u2014mostly to myself\u2014to return within a week. I don\u2019t want to spend Christmas and New Year\u2019s Eve alone.<\/span>
\n<\/span>From the very first kilometres, Georgia had shown me a different face from that of neighbouring Muslim Turkey. A difference that reveals itself every day, even in the simplest things. Happy families of pigs roll around freely in ditches, watching me curiously from the roadside. The locals, meanwhile, never miss an opportunity to stop me and offer me their homemade wine or chacha\u2014a kind of grappa\u2014greeting me with flushed, beaming smiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mestia lies in the heart of Svaneti, a mountainous region wedged between some of the highest peaks in the Caucasus. For centuries, these valleys remained isolated from the rest of the world, protected by mountains that became impassable walls in winter. Reaching Mestia in December is a real challenge.<\/span>
\n<\/span>After the first day among the hills, I begin to venture deeper into the high-mountain valley. Beyond the first pass, the walls around me grow narrower and narrower, plunging the whole world into a sharp, cutting blue. The road is covered in snow, branches are encased in ice, and my breath mingles with the mist. I spend lunchtime huddled in a corner, shivering, unable to rest. My resolve begins to waver, and in Khaishi, the last village before the big climb, the word \u201chotel\u201d sets off the most comfortable of thoughts. \u201cWhat if I sleep here and hitchhike tomorrow?\u201d But I don\u2019t give in. Seventy kilometres to go, and it is almost dark. I buy a few provisions and am immediately surrounded by a pack of begging dogs. Under their imploring, soon-to-be-resigned gazes, I start climbing again until the fading light forces me to stop. I pitch my tent beside a bulldozer, in the only spot where the road doesn\u2019t plunge down towards the river. I cook something hot and prepare for battle. It is too cold to do anything: read, write, look at my phone, which won\u2019t even charge because it is so frozen. All I can do is put on some music and stare at the dark ceiling of the tent for the hours separating me from sleep.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The temperature drops to minus eleven. Everything around me freezes. When I wake up, the hardest part is moving the things I left outside, now rigidly frozen to the ground. Folding the tent is yet another ordeal; it, too, is covered in a layer of stubborn ice. I push on. The road is almost entirely uphill, and I know I can hardly afford to stop. I spread my lunch across dozens of very short breaks, fuelled by large homemade biscuits that an old woman gave me along the road because she didn\u2019t have any change to give me.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I dodge rocks that have fallen from the walls, gouging dents and hollows into the asphalt and making its surface rough and pitted, like the acne-scarred skin of a face. I often refuse to think about what else might come crashing down from those cliffs. To my surprise, I manage to get through the sections of road covered by winter with reasonable ease, until the sun disappears behind the snow-covered peaks, making the blue of the frozen waterfalls shimmer. Eighteen kilometres to go, and the temperature is already several degrees below zero. I am trying to keep my balance on yet another snow-covered stretch when some young men standing by the roadside invite me to stop for a moment. The pit stop lasts just over five minutes, barely enough time for them to make me down two full glasses of vodka and a juice. \u201cA toast to a man with a brave heart! Now you can say that the people of Svaneti have kind hearts! Drink up, you need to warm yourself!\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Just a few minutes earlier, I had drunk an energy drink, and so this nightclub cocktail sends me hurtling through the final stretch, singing to the medieval towers, the enormous dogs and the half-frozen cows staring at me wide-eyed. They accompany me all the way to one of the most longed-for beds of my entire life. Heating.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The Svans, the local people, built stone towers several storeys high, with narrow slits for windows and massive walls, family fortresses and refuges against the raids and feuds that once swept through the valleys. They still rise among the houses today, dark and stubborn, as if nobody had ever bothered to tell these mountains that the Middle Ages are over. I look at them from my heated room, still steaming after a scalding-hot shower. The road is deserted, and the usual stray dogs are the only ones venturing out into fourteen degrees below zero. I watch them fighting, perhaps simply as an excuse to move around a little and find some warmth.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I can afford two nights in Mestia. One day to rest and look around a little. The forecast predicts heavy snowfall over the following days, and I need to get out of the valley before it is too late. I venture through the snow along the track leading to the start of several trails, normally used to reach the Chaladi Glacier without too much difficulty. After a few tentative attempts, I raise the white flag and settle for enjoying the sunshine and the landscape. Shortly afterwards, two Indian tourists approach me. They want to reach the glacier and seem quite determined. He is wearing trainers; she has on little leather shoes with heels and pointed toes. The trail climbs steeply through the forest, and it is all rocks, snow and ice. \u201cDo you happen to know if there\u2019s another way up to the glacier?\u201d \u201cSure. Look, behind that pine tree there\u2019s a lift.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The road through the centre of Mestia is one solid sheet of ice, and so, as I set off, I take my first flight of the journey. My mind is set to \u201crun\u201d: snow is on its way, and I dream of spending the night as far down the valley as possible. And one question keeps repeating itself in my head: \u201cHow much can a helmet take? How big a rock can it protect me from?\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>And so I ride fast. Back into the silence, through my thoughts and along the asphalt. The valley is deserted, just as it was on the way up. The occasional car passes me by, indifferent. To my surprise, in the most isolated and unexpected places, the only company I find is litters of puppies I hadn\u2019t seen on the way up. A mother and several little ones, eager for a little comfort, a few cuddles and a piece of stale bread. What are they doing out here? They follow me in a friendly way, running alongside me for as long as they have the strength.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I realise I have been away from Karma Hostel for six days, and that during all this time the only conversation I have had was with the young men who offered me vodka. Five minutes. Everything else has been limited to exchanges lasting a few seconds. I also realise that I am talking to animals more and more. Proper conversations by now, in which I invent their answers and opinions. It happens so often that I hardly notice it anymore. The real point, though, is that my mind keeps talking, talking, talking. It never shuts up for a moment. It churns through thoughts all day long, taking them apart, processing them, turning them over and over. I realise how desperately I miss moments of lightness, when I can switch my brain off, laugh and stop thinking. I decide that it would be nice to meet a pretty girl at Karma Hostel.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Karma Hostel, besides paying for a bed, I can choose whether or not to pay for meals. Breakfast, lunch, dinner: everything comes at a price. Most of the time, given my limited budget, I cook for myself, allowing myself just one day of paid meals: Christmas Day. On the evening of the 24th, I decide to skip dinner, making a big mistake. Jonathan is cooking Ecuadorian food, with all sorts of dishes that look delicious. Everyone eats together. I stay on the sofa, watching with the dogs. By that point, if I want to eat, I have to cook for myself, but whatever I make will be worse, given my complete lack of desire or motivation to go into the little guest kitchen. Besides, I would be joining the table after everyone had already finished. I decide that going hungry is more dignified than eating a shitty dinner.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Whenever the residents count the people in the house, they always forget to count me as a guest. At the same time, I\u2019m not a volunteer either. From the sofa, I watch my companions wag their tails. Perhaps I have become one of them.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The next day, though, I make up for it. From early morning, I\u2019m at the stove, helping David prepare lunch, rolling out dough with a rolling pin, just as determined to shape Polish dumplings as I am to eat enough of them to burst.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The kitchen is spacious, and we often lend each other a hand with the preparations. My wish in the mountains has come true. The pretty girl has arrived. Her name is Elisa, and she comes from El Salvador. The only problem is that more than one of us has a crush on her. And the other problem\u2014or perhaps, fortunately\u2014is that she already has a boyfriend somewhere farther west, in some other country. Until now, my emotional armour has held up perfectly well, but being surrounded by couples in love, during a rainy winter far from home, is beginning to crack it.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Meanwhile, Kyle has found his own nest with Rosali, a Dutch girl who arrived recently. I\u2019m genuinely happy for him, but I can\u2019t quite manage to feel the same way when I think about someone else, someone who stirs something in me, too. And so cooking becomes a kind of flirtatious dance, in which everyone plays fair and cheerfully, while still carrying their own doubts and fears. Fortunately, nobody can win, and perhaps that is beautiful in itself, especially because someone would otherwise have had to \u201close\u201d, and nobody needed that.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Christmas, meanwhile, had already begun gently that morning: Kyle had left a little bag of chocolates beside each of our pillows.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The Images<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 \u2013 On the way to Mestia, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Tbilisi, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

3 \u2013 Martvili, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

4 \u2013 Tbilisi, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

5 \u2013 Tbilisi, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

6 \u2013 Gori, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

7 \u2013 Jvari, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

8 \u2013 Karma Hostel, Martvili, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

9 \u2013 Karma Hostel, Martvili, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

10 \u2013 Karma Hostel, Martvili, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

11 \u2013 On the way to Mestia, Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(28.11.25 \u2013 27.12.25) \u201cI have a destination, but it\u2019s a place with no coordinates.\u201d The kilometres slip beneath us for hours and hours on end. For days, which sometimes repeat themselves and pass in silence, almost as if they don\u2019t want to disturb us. For weeks, which we soon lose count of. 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