Mestia, Georgia (map)
In this blog: travel nightmares, a walk to the hills, an adventure to a glacier, and a strange hilltop festival
It was a terrifying journey but thankfully the last of it's kind I'd encounter on this trip, as the driver of the share taxi went flat out along the main two-lane road across Georgia, despite driving a right-hand drive car on the right side of the road, making overtaking pretty difficult and dangerous. A car had gone into the back of an artic truck and another car into that back of the first, so we slowed to a crawl and passed around it before getting back to full speed again, our driver unshaken by the sight of mangled metal. I smiled again when we passed an abandoned petrol station full of cows, stood motionless as if queuing up for fuel. The air-con was broken and the journey sweaty, so it was with relief when we reached the city of Kutaisi. I'd planned to stay there a day, but spotting that it was a bit of a concrete mess I changed my plans instantly, deciding to head to the mountains again instead. Whilst the roads have been pretty bumpy and the driving too fast, Georgia has probably been the easiest country on my trip to get around as minibuses run everywhere, all the time, and finding a minibus on to the town of Zugdidi was no exception.
Zugdidi
Getting there late afternoon, things got a little less straightforward. Stupidly, I decided to walk the mile or so to the hostel in my guidebook which it transpired no longer existed, but discovered only after a lot of walking around the suburbs in 32 degree humid heat, knocking on wrong doors and asking people in the street. After an hour of this I was pretty peeved so flagged down a taxi. The driver didn't have a clue what I was on about but drove me to the centre anyway, then let me use his phone and kindly refused to take any money for the journey. I changed plans and wandered to the train station where I hoped I might get a bus onto the town of Mestia, and a minibus driver who spoke no English first shook his head to indicate no, he wasn't going there, then a few minutes later changed his mind and waved me on-board. We slowly drove around nearby small streets for a while whilst he dropped off things, spoke to people and joked around, before ten minutes later dropping me off just around the corner. We were supposed to have driver for three hours so I now had no idea what was going on, before he pointed to his mate outside the van and said 'guesthouse' before asking for £2 fare - enough for a 3 hours journey here normally. It was obvious he was a chancer so I shook my head and walked off annoyed. It was also now obvious I would have to stay in Zugdidi for the night, with no other options for guest houses around I reluctantly took a look at his mate's place. Walking into what looked like an empty monastery complex, then passing a lone chicken stood half way up the stairs, it turned out to be less of a guesthouse and more just a house with a spare room, but tired and with few other options it would have to do, even if it was a bit weird.
I spent what was left of the sunny evening wandering around a nice park, past a castle, then through the large, grassy town square where I ate and wrote for a while. Even by night Zugdidi was still humid and sweaty, and with no fan available I had to leave the bedroom window wide open to avoid drowning in my own sweat, whilst oddly this guy and his brother sat outside on the balcony chatting then watching TV with the lights off 'til gone 3am. The bed springs were so knackered that when I sat on the mattress, it seemed to almost touch the floor, and the bedroom door had neither a handle or a lock either, so I leant a jam jar against it to wake me if someone entered. I had a terrible nights sleep as you might expect.
At 7am the next day I hopped on a minibus and got out of there, heading into the Caucasus mountains again, this time in the west of Georgia in the area known as Svaneti. The scenery was beautiful as we climbed a windy road into the hills whilst following a wild, glacier-fed river below. We stopped at a cafe halfway where with no breakfast available we had to make do with an ice cream, whilst some of the Georgian passengers had a beer... at 10am. I got chatting to David and Claire - an English couple on the bus who were heading the same way, and decided to go to the same homestay as them when we reached Mestia since it sounded good. The owner, a lovely lady in her fifties called Roza was as kind, friendly and helpful as you could ever expect, one of those rare people where nothing whatsoever is too much trouble.
Mestia
David and Claire were both very pleasant and chatty, a Lawyer and a speech therapist, and on their invitation I decided to join them for the day. Whilst I've met a few other English people on this trip it was strange to spend such a long time with my natives, and since the trip was almost over, almost a re-acquaintance with the world I know as they talked of home. We went for a lazy lunch in the main square of Mestia, a nice grassy area full of trees. The town centre was surrounded by buildings that the government had recently put up in an attempt to turn Mestia into a holiday hub for the country, a noble gesture except it now looked like a naff version of an alpine ski resort - not the first time I'd seen poor new development in Georgia. We decided to go on a half day walk up to a cross that we could see high on the hills above, a lovely jaunt through the town then up through steep woods, passing grazing cows, and picking wild strawberries from beside the path. The views at the top were tremendous, a full 360 degree panorama of snow capped mountains, all of them higher than anything in the Alps and I'm fairly sure I spotted Mt Elbrus - the highest mountain in Europe which stood just over the border in Russia. I sat down in the afternoon sun for a rest whilst they made their way back down, and to my surprise fell asleep for 45 minutes - I blame the night before!
That night Claire and David introduced me to Giovanni and Alesandra; an Italian couple who they'd met elsewhere the day before. They were so smiley and so Italian, with their long hair and stylish clothes, and turned out to be an actor and director respectively - he's starred in movies, on stage and in TV series including BBC's 'Rome', broadcast a few years ago - you can see his IMDB profile here. Despite success, they were very modest people; friendly and curious and only talking about their fascinating lives when we asked. It was only mildly surprising then that despite having homes in Sicily, Rome and Milan, they were travelling around Georgia on public transport and that their car at home was a Fiat. We had a couple of beers sat outside a terrace bar in town, before walking a mile or so to a restaurant they'd been recommended where we were given menus and took our seats, carefully picking what we wanted and ordering. The waitress first came back to say certain items weren't available then after all this, ten minutes later she returned again saying 'sorry, the kitchen is actually shut'. How would you not realise your own kitchen is shut?!
To the glacier
The next morning I was invited to join the guys on a horse ride to the foot of a nearby glacier. I hate horses so thought about it for about a second before deciding to hire an iron horse instead - a mountain bike. Unfortunately though, after an hour of walking around the town I found that the only two places that supposedly hired bikes no longer did. As a second-best, despite being a little stiff from the previous days walking I decided to head out on foot for the day anyway, heading to Chalaadi Glacier. I could only get hold of a large scale map which told me almost nothing, but had a rough idea where to go so took a chance - how could you possibly miss a glacier I thought?
Unfortunately, the answer was quite easily. Early on I took a path on the left side of the valley - the side the glacier was on - when in fact I should have walked on the right and herein in things got extremely tricky because of it, the five or six hour walk turning into eight and a half. For the first two or three miles things were straightforward, just a nice flat gravel road. The path then narrowed considerably and I had the choice of heading uphill or into the grounds of a seemingly abandoned house. The uphill route led nowhere so I started heading for the house before I heard a bark and a large vicious-looking brown dog starting to move towards me, collarless and owner-less, and seemingly protecting a herd of nearby cows, before a few moments later an Alsatian-type dog appeared in the background, also barking. I'd read that most dogs in the mountains were trained to kill wolves, and with no owners around I don't mind admitting I was a little scared at that moment, on my own with nothing but a rock in my hand.
Fortunately, walking away seemed to do the trick but left me with no clear onwards route. I went into a field, rock hopped across a stream, got lost in some meadows nearby for twenty minutes before scrambling down a bank to the original path I'd come on where I branched off to walk along the riverbank. I considered turning back but felt disheartened by the thought of coming all that way for nothing so continued. The path was merely a cow track and started getting worse, sometimes turning into a bog, and sometimes disappeared meaning I had to beat my own way through the bushes. After another hour, to my relief a clear path appeared when I reached a forest, along with litter on the ground telling me people had been there, so I guessed it may head towards the glacier. Eventually though it faded to nothing and I felt proper stuck. The forest had little undergrowth so I decided to make my own path and followed the contour around, eventually spotted a couple of tourist vans parked on the other side of the valley. The white-water river was way too big and fast to wade across so I headed up the valley my own way, walking over piles and piles of rocks left there by the glacier before it retreated years before. Walking was tough going as I clambered over rocks and pushed small trees out the way, but eventually to my relief the glacier came into view and despite going the wrong way initially, my navigating thereafter had led me to the right place. It was well worth all the effort - the sight of the huge snaking mass of ice looked stunning. The final section involved walking through long grass with jagged rocks underneath, followed by clambering across and down a steep scree slope neither of which were easy, but I eventually made it to the underground river which flowed out from underneath the bottom end of the glacier itself.
I was still on the wrong side of the valley though, so carefully made my way up one side of it, and a hundred metres behind its crumbling ice and rock edge, crossed quickly over and down the other side before breathing a sigh of relief. After a wooded descent, most of the walk back was on a flat dirt road which was a pleasure after the journey I'd taken there, and just before dusk I made it back to Mestia, even turning down a lift from a local along the way (I couldn't cheat could I). Totally knackered, I opted to have dinner at the guesthouse where I sat with two Spanish 'alpinists' as they call themselves who I'd been sharing a room with and soon learnt my exploits were nothing compared to their stories of climbing cliffs without ropes and sleeping the night in a tent on the glacier. One of them had even attempted to climb K2 before - the second highest mountain in the world, so they were pretty experienced and full of fascinating tales.
The following day I'd planned to take it easy, which was just as well the way my legs were feeling. David and Claire were doing the same, so a morning of reading in the lovely garden followed a long lazy breakfast chatting with them. It was great to just kick back with no plans or expectations for the day, the first one I'd had in ages in fact and the day soon disappeared in a daze of music, reading, eating and napping.
Hill Festival
The end of my whole trip was nigh and I now had just one full day left in Mestia. It was a slightly strange feeling to know that the lifestyle I'd become so accustomed to over the past year was soon due to come to an end, but just like a man with a comb over, I was still in denial so postponed any thoughts and replaced them with another trip out. Over the previous day I'd met three girls in the guesthouse who were travelling together; Fiona, Natalie and Benedicte - Australian, German, and French - a combination of nationalities so ripe you might think a joke might be coming, but sorry, I can't think of one. This trio had been talking about visiting a traditional music festival a few miles away they'd heard about, an annual event which we could get no further information on other than it's location. I love a good festival and we were all curious about what it might entail, so I decided to join them for the day to see.
Our fine host Roza had booked space in a minibus for us and we headed off at 9am that day, the bus climbing from one mountainous valley to the next and the nice concrete road soon turning into a potholed gravel mess, whilst the driver's son drove us all mad by constantly skipping from one song to the next on the stereo. We'd only travelled thirty miles, but it took a pretty bouncy and uncomfortable two hours to reach the tiny hamlet of Kala. The four of us all had visions in mind of reaching a field full of stalls, stages, musicians, local food, and entertainers, but what we found could not be much different.
Heaps of cars and jeeps were parked up along the track for quite some way, and people were making their way up a steep path through the woods to a small church, set on top of a hill high above us. We were both bemused and confused following the crowd up the slippery and awkward path, passing very old and very young along the way. Eventually we reached the church, built on top of a rocky outcrop and surrounded by a wall. There was a huge queue of people waiting to go in, but for what we still weren't sure. Georgians it seems are terrible queuers and loads of people were jumping the line, or simply climbing the steep old stone bank and wall to get in. It was total chaos, and we realised this wasn't really the organised event we were expecting. Eventually inside this walled courtyard we breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around.
There were characters galore in the crowd, and some of them wore clothes often so out of fashion I thought I'd been transported to the forties. Young men were taking part in a rock-picking-up competition, lifting a huge lump of granite that must have been nearly 100kg. Various people were lighting candles and sticking them to the wall inside the church, and a guy occasionally played a guitar-like instrument. Nearby, chunks of meat were being boiled in a 45 gallon steel drum heated by burning logs, and it turned out that to save them carrying the meat to the top, they simply walked live sheep and goats to the top and killed them there and then. An old guy plied French Benedicte with a shot of chacha that they were drinking - a type of clear Brandy unique to Georgia distilled from grapes, and she made the sourest face you'd ever seen, whilst beside us a group of men sung traditional songs in an acapella style when they felt like it.
It was all very peculiar, obviously not a music festival in the truest sense of the word but more a rebellious a celebration of some sort. After a while we sat back on a wall and watched everyone enjoying themselves, when a Georgian girl in her mid-twenties came along, speaking to us in both fluent English and German - a doctor who'd made the long journey from the capital for this annual event which she explained was to commemorate a saint. In fact it turned out many people travelled across the country for it, and another guy had even driven for four days from Holland to be there! I have no idea why.
Back in the valley the four of us had a few hours to burn until the bus left, so took a hike up through some overgrown meadows to an old defensive tower and abandoned house that we'd spotted, leaving us stung by stinging nettles and out of breath. nearing the bottom a woman started talking to us, explaining that whilst she lived away now, the buildings we'd visited were left to her by her parents, and to our surprise was pleased we'd made the effort to see them. Her son then came along and plied us all with the more aforementioned chacha to drink, a custom at these festivals we were learning, which left us all a bit dazed for the rest of the afternoon. Lovely people.
Last night
After another walk around the village to pass time we headed back to Mestia, a good time to be inside as it hammered down with rain. It was my last night proper, and back at the homestay Roza cooked up a cracking home cooked meal consisting of fresh khachapuri bread, rice salad, home made chips, and aubergine & walnut salad. The girls and I headed into town for some beers in a local bar, watching some traditional local dancing, and chatting to three local chaps who again pressed us to join them in drinking chacha, this time out of a hip flask from behind the table. One of the had his keys on the table and I asked if he was planning to drive home, to which he answered 'yes, it's a hundred metres away so I'm only having five beers' to which I smiled politely at him, whilst looking at the girls in bemusement. It was a fun night and a perfect near-end to the trip.
In this blog: travel nightmares, a walk to the hills, an adventure to a glacier, and a strange hilltop festival
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| Walking in the cross above Mestia |
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| 9th to 12th century defensive towers in Mestia town |
It was a terrifying journey but thankfully the last of it's kind I'd encounter on this trip, as the driver of the share taxi went flat out along the main two-lane road across Georgia, despite driving a right-hand drive car on the right side of the road, making overtaking pretty difficult and dangerous. A car had gone into the back of an artic truck and another car into that back of the first, so we slowed to a crawl and passed around it before getting back to full speed again, our driver unshaken by the sight of mangled metal. I smiled again when we passed an abandoned petrol station full of cows, stood motionless as if queuing up for fuel. The air-con was broken and the journey sweaty, so it was with relief when we reached the city of Kutaisi. I'd planned to stay there a day, but spotting that it was a bit of a concrete mess I changed my plans instantly, deciding to head to the mountains again instead. Whilst the roads have been pretty bumpy and the driving too fast, Georgia has probably been the easiest country on my trip to get around as minibuses run everywhere, all the time, and finding a minibus on to the town of Zugdidi was no exception.
Zugdidi
Getting there late afternoon, things got a little less straightforward. Stupidly, I decided to walk the mile or so to the hostel in my guidebook which it transpired no longer existed, but discovered only after a lot of walking around the suburbs in 32 degree humid heat, knocking on wrong doors and asking people in the street. After an hour of this I was pretty peeved so flagged down a taxi. The driver didn't have a clue what I was on about but drove me to the centre anyway, then let me use his phone and kindly refused to take any money for the journey. I changed plans and wandered to the train station where I hoped I might get a bus onto the town of Mestia, and a minibus driver who spoke no English first shook his head to indicate no, he wasn't going there, then a few minutes later changed his mind and waved me on-board. We slowly drove around nearby small streets for a while whilst he dropped off things, spoke to people and joked around, before ten minutes later dropping me off just around the corner. We were supposed to have driver for three hours so I now had no idea what was going on, before he pointed to his mate outside the van and said 'guesthouse' before asking for £2 fare - enough for a 3 hours journey here normally. It was obvious he was a chancer so I shook my head and walked off annoyed. It was also now obvious I would have to stay in Zugdidi for the night, with no other options for guest houses around I reluctantly took a look at his mate's place. Walking into what looked like an empty monastery complex, then passing a lone chicken stood half way up the stairs, it turned out to be less of a guesthouse and more just a house with a spare room, but tired and with few other options it would have to do, even if it was a bit weird.
I spent what was left of the sunny evening wandering around a nice park, past a castle, then through the large, grassy town square where I ate and wrote for a while. Even by night Zugdidi was still humid and sweaty, and with no fan available I had to leave the bedroom window wide open to avoid drowning in my own sweat, whilst oddly this guy and his brother sat outside on the balcony chatting then watching TV with the lights off 'til gone 3am. The bed springs were so knackered that when I sat on the mattress, it seemed to almost touch the floor, and the bedroom door had neither a handle or a lock either, so I leant a jam jar against it to wake me if someone entered. I had a terrible nights sleep as you might expect.
At 7am the next day I hopped on a minibus and got out of there, heading into the Caucasus mountains again, this time in the west of Georgia in the area known as Svaneti. The scenery was beautiful as we climbed a windy road into the hills whilst following a wild, glacier-fed river below. We stopped at a cafe halfway where with no breakfast available we had to make do with an ice cream, whilst some of the Georgian passengers had a beer... at 10am. I got chatting to David and Claire - an English couple on the bus who were heading the same way, and decided to go to the same homestay as them when we reached Mestia since it sounded good. The owner, a lovely lady in her fifties called Roza was as kind, friendly and helpful as you could ever expect, one of those rare people where nothing whatsoever is too much trouble.
Mestia
David and Claire were both very pleasant and chatty, a Lawyer and a speech therapist, and on their invitation I decided to join them for the day. Whilst I've met a few other English people on this trip it was strange to spend such a long time with my natives, and since the trip was almost over, almost a re-acquaintance with the world I know as they talked of home. We went for a lazy lunch in the main square of Mestia, a nice grassy area full of trees. The town centre was surrounded by buildings that the government had recently put up in an attempt to turn Mestia into a holiday hub for the country, a noble gesture except it now looked like a naff version of an alpine ski resort - not the first time I'd seen poor new development in Georgia. We decided to go on a half day walk up to a cross that we could see high on the hills above, a lovely jaunt through the town then up through steep woods, passing grazing cows, and picking wild strawberries from beside the path. The views at the top were tremendous, a full 360 degree panorama of snow capped mountains, all of them higher than anything in the Alps and I'm fairly sure I spotted Mt Elbrus - the highest mountain in Europe which stood just over the border in Russia. I sat down in the afternoon sun for a rest whilst they made their way back down, and to my surprise fell asleep for 45 minutes - I blame the night before!
That night Claire and David introduced me to Giovanni and Alesandra; an Italian couple who they'd met elsewhere the day before. They were so smiley and so Italian, with their long hair and stylish clothes, and turned out to be an actor and director respectively - he's starred in movies, on stage and in TV series including BBC's 'Rome', broadcast a few years ago - you can see his IMDB profile here. Despite success, they were very modest people; friendly and curious and only talking about their fascinating lives when we asked. It was only mildly surprising then that despite having homes in Sicily, Rome and Milan, they were travelling around Georgia on public transport and that their car at home was a Fiat. We had a couple of beers sat outside a terrace bar in town, before walking a mile or so to a restaurant they'd been recommended where we were given menus and took our seats, carefully picking what we wanted and ordering. The waitress first came back to say certain items weren't available then after all this, ten minutes later she returned again saying 'sorry, the kitchen is actually shut'. How would you not realise your own kitchen is shut?!
To the glacier
The next morning I was invited to join the guys on a horse ride to the foot of a nearby glacier. I hate horses so thought about it for about a second before deciding to hire an iron horse instead - a mountain bike. Unfortunately though, after an hour of walking around the town I found that the only two places that supposedly hired bikes no longer did. As a second-best, despite being a little stiff from the previous days walking I decided to head out on foot for the day anyway, heading to Chalaadi Glacier. I could only get hold of a large scale map which told me almost nothing, but had a rough idea where to go so took a chance - how could you possibly miss a glacier I thought?
Unfortunately, the answer was quite easily. Early on I took a path on the left side of the valley - the side the glacier was on - when in fact I should have walked on the right and herein in things got extremely tricky because of it, the five or six hour walk turning into eight and a half. For the first two or three miles things were straightforward, just a nice flat gravel road. The path then narrowed considerably and I had the choice of heading uphill or into the grounds of a seemingly abandoned house. The uphill route led nowhere so I started heading for the house before I heard a bark and a large vicious-looking brown dog starting to move towards me, collarless and owner-less, and seemingly protecting a herd of nearby cows, before a few moments later an Alsatian-type dog appeared in the background, also barking. I'd read that most dogs in the mountains were trained to kill wolves, and with no owners around I don't mind admitting I was a little scared at that moment, on my own with nothing but a rock in my hand.
Fortunately, walking away seemed to do the trick but left me with no clear onwards route. I went into a field, rock hopped across a stream, got lost in some meadows nearby for twenty minutes before scrambling down a bank to the original path I'd come on where I branched off to walk along the riverbank. I considered turning back but felt disheartened by the thought of coming all that way for nothing so continued. The path was merely a cow track and started getting worse, sometimes turning into a bog, and sometimes disappeared meaning I had to beat my own way through the bushes. After another hour, to my relief a clear path appeared when I reached a forest, along with litter on the ground telling me people had been there, so I guessed it may head towards the glacier. Eventually though it faded to nothing and I felt proper stuck. The forest had little undergrowth so I decided to make my own path and followed the contour around, eventually spotted a couple of tourist vans parked on the other side of the valley. The white-water river was way too big and fast to wade across so I headed up the valley my own way, walking over piles and piles of rocks left there by the glacier before it retreated years before. Walking was tough going as I clambered over rocks and pushed small trees out the way, but eventually to my relief the glacier came into view and despite going the wrong way initially, my navigating thereafter had led me to the right place. It was well worth all the effort - the sight of the huge snaking mass of ice looked stunning. The final section involved walking through long grass with jagged rocks underneath, followed by clambering across and down a steep scree slope neither of which were easy, but I eventually made it to the underground river which flowed out from underneath the bottom end of the glacier itself.
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| Sight of the glacier after a very long walk |
I was still on the wrong side of the valley though, so carefully made my way up one side of it, and a hundred metres behind its crumbling ice and rock edge, crossed quickly over and down the other side before breathing a sigh of relief. After a wooded descent, most of the walk back was on a flat dirt road which was a pleasure after the journey I'd taken there, and just before dusk I made it back to Mestia, even turning down a lift from a local along the way (I couldn't cheat could I). Totally knackered, I opted to have dinner at the guesthouse where I sat with two Spanish 'alpinists' as they call themselves who I'd been sharing a room with and soon learnt my exploits were nothing compared to their stories of climbing cliffs without ropes and sleeping the night in a tent on the glacier. One of them had even attempted to climb K2 before - the second highest mountain in the world, so they were pretty experienced and full of fascinating tales.
The following day I'd planned to take it easy, which was just as well the way my legs were feeling. David and Claire were doing the same, so a morning of reading in the lovely garden followed a long lazy breakfast chatting with them. It was great to just kick back with no plans or expectations for the day, the first one I'd had in ages in fact and the day soon disappeared in a daze of music, reading, eating and napping.
Hill Festival
The end of my whole trip was nigh and I now had just one full day left in Mestia. It was a slightly strange feeling to know that the lifestyle I'd become so accustomed to over the past year was soon due to come to an end, but just like a man with a comb over, I was still in denial so postponed any thoughts and replaced them with another trip out. Over the previous day I'd met three girls in the guesthouse who were travelling together; Fiona, Natalie and Benedicte - Australian, German, and French - a combination of nationalities so ripe you might think a joke might be coming, but sorry, I can't think of one. This trio had been talking about visiting a traditional music festival a few miles away they'd heard about, an annual event which we could get no further information on other than it's location. I love a good festival and we were all curious about what it might entail, so I decided to join them for the day to see.
Our fine host Roza had booked space in a minibus for us and we headed off at 9am that day, the bus climbing from one mountainous valley to the next and the nice concrete road soon turning into a potholed gravel mess, whilst the driver's son drove us all mad by constantly skipping from one song to the next on the stereo. We'd only travelled thirty miles, but it took a pretty bouncy and uncomfortable two hours to reach the tiny hamlet of Kala. The four of us all had visions in mind of reaching a field full of stalls, stages, musicians, local food, and entertainers, but what we found could not be much different.
Heaps of cars and jeeps were parked up along the track for quite some way, and people were making their way up a steep path through the woods to a small church, set on top of a hill high above us. We were both bemused and confused following the crowd up the slippery and awkward path, passing very old and very young along the way. Eventually we reached the church, built on top of a rocky outcrop and surrounded by a wall. There was a huge queue of people waiting to go in, but for what we still weren't sure. Georgians it seems are terrible queuers and loads of people were jumping the line, or simply climbing the steep old stone bank and wall to get in. It was total chaos, and we realised this wasn't really the organised event we were expecting. Eventually inside this walled courtyard we breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around.
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| Rock lifting at the festival |
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| Out for the day with French Benedicte, German Natalie and Aussie Fiona |
There were characters galore in the crowd, and some of them wore clothes often so out of fashion I thought I'd been transported to the forties. Young men were taking part in a rock-picking-up competition, lifting a huge lump of granite that must have been nearly 100kg. Various people were lighting candles and sticking them to the wall inside the church, and a guy occasionally played a guitar-like instrument. Nearby, chunks of meat were being boiled in a 45 gallon steel drum heated by burning logs, and it turned out that to save them carrying the meat to the top, they simply walked live sheep and goats to the top and killed them there and then. An old guy plied French Benedicte with a shot of chacha that they were drinking - a type of clear Brandy unique to Georgia distilled from grapes, and she made the sourest face you'd ever seen, whilst beside us a group of men sung traditional songs in an acapella style when they felt like it.
It was all very peculiar, obviously not a music festival in the truest sense of the word but more a rebellious a celebration of some sort. After a while we sat back on a wall and watched everyone enjoying themselves, when a Georgian girl in her mid-twenties came along, speaking to us in both fluent English and German - a doctor who'd made the long journey from the capital for this annual event which she explained was to commemorate a saint. In fact it turned out many people travelled across the country for it, and another guy had even driven for four days from Holland to be there! I have no idea why.
Back in the valley the four of us had a few hours to burn until the bus left, so took a hike up through some overgrown meadows to an old defensive tower and abandoned house that we'd spotted, leaving us stung by stinging nettles and out of breath. nearing the bottom a woman started talking to us, explaining that whilst she lived away now, the buildings we'd visited were left to her by her parents, and to our surprise was pleased we'd made the effort to see them. Her son then came along and plied us all with the more aforementioned chacha to drink, a custom at these festivals we were learning, which left us all a bit dazed for the rest of the afternoon. Lovely people.
Last night
After another walk around the village to pass time we headed back to Mestia, a good time to be inside as it hammered down with rain. It was my last night proper, and back at the homestay Roza cooked up a cracking home cooked meal consisting of fresh khachapuri bread, rice salad, home made chips, and aubergine & walnut salad. The girls and I headed into town for some beers in a local bar, watching some traditional local dancing, and chatting to three local chaps who again pressed us to join them in drinking chacha, this time out of a hip flask from behind the table. One of the had his keys on the table and I asked if he was planning to drive home, to which he answered 'yes, it's a hundred metres away so I'm only having five beers' to which I smiled politely at him, whilst looking at the girls in bemusement. It was a fun night and a perfect near-end to the trip.
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| Festival |
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| Last night of the trip |
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| Just a few of the many defensive towers in the Svaneti area |
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| Harvest time |
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| Claire, myself, David, Natalie, Fiona and Benedicte out for a beer |
