Abanotubani smells before you see it. Sulfur, faint and mineral, curling up from vents in the cobblestone before you've even found the door. The domes sit low and round like something baked rather than built, brick going soft orange in the morning light.
Inside, the water is hotter than seems reasonable. A woman scrubs my back without asking, the way it's done here, no small talk required. Steam fogs the tiled ceiling. Somewhere a pipe groans. I sit until my thoughts go quiet, which takes longer than I'd like to admit.
Outside again, wrapped in a sheet, the air is almost cold against wet skin. Tbilisi at 11:10 is already moving, someone selling churchkhela from a cart, a stray dog asleep in a patch of sun, but I stand there a minute longer than necessary. Skin pink, hair damp, the camera untouched in the bag because some mornings you just witness them.
My avó used to talk about baths like this, cures for everything from heartbreak to bad luck. I didn't believe her then. I still don't, not really. But I walk back to the guesthouse lighter than I arrived, and that has to count for something.
