Eight Thousand Euros I Don't Have

October 27, 2022

Colchis Fountain in Kutaisi, Georgia, with golden animal figures and jets of water before an old building — Two weeks near Kutaisi, and Tibet will have to wait until April.

Day one hundred and sixty-five, Georgia. Two weeks in Tskaltubo now, near Kutaisi. It has been clear for a while that I won't reach Tibet before the winter. The snow is about to close the Himalayan passes and it doesn't melt again until April.

So I have time. Time to work out how to finance the Carnet de Passage — the passport for the car and trailer that Pakistan and India want. The table says I must put down a deposit of eight thousand euros.

I don't have eight thousand euros.

On top of that, the German economy is going down and the commissions aren't coming. I am in the same position as a great many people.

So I have to reinvent how I earn. There is a plan. I am working on my storytelling, and on the craft of writing copy that takes hold of somebody's attention. Every genre has its own rules for why a text works, and those rules can be learned.

That way I can do the thing I love — telling stories — and win clients by winning clients for them.

That is the outward road. The inward one goes into the quiet, and it is the one I am less able to plan.

I love the ruins here in Tskaltubo.

Gable of an old building with a round window and statues behind trees, black and white, near Kutaisi — The figures on the gable keep watch over a building the trees are slowly catching up with.

Derelict bathhouse in Tskaltubo with a round opening in the ceiling above empty pools, black and white — Two weeks in Tskaltubo, and the ruins have become my favourite places.

Bathhouse Spring 6 with columns and reliefs lit in blue at night in Tskaltubo, Georgia — Some buildings in Tskaltubo are well kept and glow blue at night.