Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Into the mountains

I love mountains. There's something about the sight of a peak soaring above my head that makes my heart sing.

Georgia is ringed by mountains, with the whole of its northern border a line of high peaks that at this time of year are snowcapped. We knew we wanted to try and visit the mountainous areas, but weren't sure if the weather was going to let us get there. Enquiries at the not terribly helpful tourist information office in Tbilisi suggested we'd be all right, so we duly added mountains to the itinerary.

Kazbegi

The first mountain stop was Kazbegi, officially known as Stepantsminda. Above the village there's one of the most famous churches in Georgia, the Holy Trinity Church perched on a cliff edge - the sort of sight used in tourist information to attract you to Georgia. In fact it was one of the things which had attracted us to Georgia and we were really looking forward to Kazbegi. In the event it probably surpassed expectations.


The trip there was easy - a simple marshrutka, or minibus ride, from Tbilisi which took about three hours including an unexplained stop in a traffic queue at the top of a beautiful mountain pass. The scenery was spectacular.

As soon as we got off the marshrutka in Stepantsminda we could see the church high above us, and we had a great view of it from the terrace of our homestay. Our host Gela was utterly delightful - he spoke only Russian and Georgian, and preferred Georgian - but with the help of Google Translate and Gela's son over the phone we managed to have a perfectly good conversation. This was helped by Gela insisting on us toasting our arrival with chacha, the local vodka or whisky which is made with grapes - like grappa in Italy or pisco in Peru. After initially telling us we must have three shots we ended up with five, so by the time he left us (to drive to church!) we were a bit giggly.

The next morning dawned clear and bright and watching the sun rise over the church opposite was a magical experience. Gela bundled us all into his minivan and drove us up the road to the smaller church on the village side of the valley, where we arrived just as one of the monks was ringing the bell for prayers. Inside the tiny church, painted in bright beautiful frescoes, we listened as the monks chanted and lit candles which Gela got for us. Georgia is a very religious country, especially by British standards, and everyone has enormous respect for their Orthodox branch of Christianity. Julie and I are now quite used to donning a scarf and sometimes a sort of wrap-around skirt in order to go into a church.

The village main street is full of men - including Gela - who spend their days driving Mitsubishi Delicas up the hill to the church. Even if you've literally just come down someone will stop you and say "church?" But we wanted to walk, and followed the Lonely Planet's basic instructions to get there. We crossed the river, walked up through the smaller village of Gergeti, turned left at a T-junction, and followed the path up past a ruined tower and round the hillside to the top. It was a fairly steep climb but the scenery was lovely and I think we all felt better for having walked it!


We spent a good two or three hours up there wandering around, taking endless pictures of the church and the high peak of Mount Kazbeg. The church itself was fairly simple, but lovely anyway, but it was the views from it and the views of it from various vantage points around which really made the place special.

In the evening we stuffed ourselves with Georgian food cooked by Gela's wife Lela, who had been in Tbilisi when we arrived. The following day we wandered along the valley floor, accompanied by a very pregnant friendly dog who we named Tamar after a famous Georgian queen. Dogs tend to pick up tourists round here, wanting food or company or both.



Svaneti

After Kazbegi the next stop was the Svaneti region. You have to go back to Tbilisi and travel west to get to Svaneti, as while they're pretty close as the crow flies the disputed region of South Ossetia lies in between and you can't go through that. We took an overnight train from Tbilisi to Zugdidi and then another marshrutka to Mestia, the main touristy town in Svaneti.


The Svaneti people are known for their very distinctive architecture. Back in the Middle Ages they built high defensive towers to protect themselves against invaders and all the villages have a huge number of these towers still standing. They're pretty impressive and on our arrival in Mestia we set out to find one of the local museums where you're supposed to be able to visit a tower. The museum was closed, but we bumped into a bloke from Milton Keynes called Trevor (as you do) who was working in one of the guesthouses, who showed us the way to a tower you could climb. We scrambled up several rickety ladders to the top and stuck our heads out of the roof; Trevor said when it's not covered in snow you can sit on the roof but we all decided it was too slippy and snowy to risk!

On Monday it snowed, heavily and constantly. The flakes were enormous and the town quickly became a picture postcard. We ventured out around lunchtime to find something to eat and do some grocery shopping, which included a giant 3L plastic bottle of red wine for less than £6, but otherwise stayed in the warmth of our guesthouse and looked at the snow falling.

By Tuesday morning the snow was lying heavy on the ground, but nevertheless we'd found a driver to take us up the valley to Ushguli. This is a UNESCO heritage site, a half-abandoned village which is the highest continuously-inhabited place in Europe at over 2,000m above sea-level. Vakho, our guesthouse owner's brother, owns a decent 4x4 and there was space not only for the three of us but also a Korean girl and Japanese guy who'd travelled to Mestia on the same marshrutka as us. They made good company on an eventful day.

The 4x4 was making easy work of the snow, which was thick but packed hard under the previous night's dusting. There were cheesy tunes on the radio and it was all going well until we approached a corner on a switchback, saw another vehicle coming up fast, and Vakho didn't quite have time to brake. Crunch! The other 4x4 hit ours and we stopped. We'd come off worst with significant damage to the front of our Mitsubishi, prompting Vakho to comment wryly to our Japanese companion: "Japanese Mitsubishi. Russian tank." But the car still ran and so we carried on to Ushguli.


The road was pretty hairy at times, with the last section the most nerve-wracking - a track hugging the cliff with a sheer drop to the river below, covered with snow and quite windy. When we finally arrived in Ushguli, safe and sound, the place seeemed deserted, but Vakho found us a café where we watched the owner make fresh khachapuri and khubdari (the local Svan meat-filled bread pie) and gorged on hot carby goodness.


After lunch we ventured out into the cold and visited the local museum, which had a collection of beautiful ancient icons housed in one of the towers. Outside it was bitter, but with the sun starting to come out there was much less snow on the way back to Mestia. It was a good day, despite the accident, although we felt bad for Vakho who'd incurred more cost than he'd earned from the day's work.

We left Svaneti on Wednesday with the mountains clearing and all of us vowing to come back - probably in the summer, when there's supposed to be a lot of good walking in this part of the world.

 

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