Trials & Tribulations When Bikepacking in Georgia
Daisies in front of the much-photographed peaks above Mestia, Svaneti, Georgia
The bee in this picture makes me laugh. I didn't take the picture deliberately with the bee in it and it isn't perfectly in focus. However, I love how the bee is making a beeline for the mountains, just like me.
We have been hiking in the mountains the last five days, happily computer free, and are about to go and build parts of the Transcaucasian Trail for the next week. Therefore, rather than any philosophical meanderings, I will give you a short piece of text I wrote for my online flash fiction writing class which is more on the prosaic end of the spectrum.
_______________________________
“Tuileta?” I say.
“Not today, no water,” the Georgian waiter says.
“Chris, we need to get going, there’s no toilet.”
“Didn’t you poo this morning?” Chris says. “I did.”
“Aren’t you clever. I didn’t and I need to go now!”
“Is your stomach okay?”
“Fine. I just need to poo and Georgia isn’t overrun with public toilets. We have to get to the edge of town. Can you stop fiddling with your front bag?”
“I’m not fiddling with my bag, I’m packing it."
“Whatever. Can you do it faster?”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”
*
“You can poo up there,” Chris says.
“Not there, it’s in plain view of the cars.”
“They won’t see you.”
“How can they not? I’ll be able to see them.”
“That’s not how it works.” Chris says. “People in cars aren’t looking into the trees to spy someone pooing.”
“What about the snakes? There was a fat one squashed on the road this morning.”
“What about them?” Chris says. “I suggest you get on with it. Take your toilet paper and hand sanitiser and don’t fall down the bank. Watch out for the nettles and thistles. I can still feel my nettle stings from yesterday.”
*
“All better now?” Chris says. “No snakes, no nettles?”
“Yes, much better,” I say. “I could see the cars, though.”
“At least none of them tooted."
_______________________________
Here's an article about the removal and subsequent restoration of a man pooing in a Dutch painting from 1643 which was owned by the British Queen Victoria. According to the article, "Dutch artists often include people or animals answering the call of nature partly as a joke and partly to remind viewers of that crucial word 'nature', the inspiration for their art. Queen Victoria thought the Dutch pictures in her collection were painted in a 'low style'; two years after her death perhaps a royal advisor felt similarly."
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