Rainy Night in Georgia (Brook Benton)

Hello again! We drove back from Sighnaghi in our rental car. About half way back the temperature suddenly dropped about 5 degrees. A cool change had come in! Tbilisi was so much more pleasant at this temperature. We had time for a quick lunch. It was so yummy!

We had arranged for a car to pick us up and take us to our next destination as getting there wasn't so easy. It was a two hour drive and I spent most of it hanging onto the door handle in fear as our driver accelerated into red lights and slower cars, overtook on corners and made and received phone calls while holding his phone. He was actually no different from any other Georgian driver but it's a frightening experience!

Our destination was the Pankisi Valley, a series of five villages that were settled by Chechens hundreds of years ago. They call themselves Kists. They are Sunni Muslims and for a while had an unjustified bad reputation. In an effort to change this perception the local women got together and set up guest houses and personal tours so they could share their lifestyle with others. The leader of this group (and a lawyer), a woman called Nazy, set up Nazy's Guest House and this was our destination.

Knowing the place had shared bathrooms, we expected a low standard of accommodation but our room was great! The bed was heaven after the last place.

We went for a walk on our first day and explored some of the local villages. We crossed a wooden bridge with many planks missing.

We followed our noses and wandered through the villages. Everything was very rural - cows walked the streets, fruit trees grew in abundance and even ducks waddled along the road.

Rickety wooden barns were cool.....

...... and small haystacks perched behind crooked hand-made fences.

We found another bridge so we could cross back over the river. It looked brand new, had pedestrian walkways on both sides and was clean and wide like a highway, yet a really rough dirt road lead up to it and another lead off it. It seems to us that they got funding only for the bridge and nothing else.

Because the people are Muslims, houses are usually screened by high fences for privacy. Most houses were really large, to hold the whole extended family. They're surrounded by gardens and farmland.

Nazy and her family cook meals for the guests and it was hard to wait until the 8pm dinner when we were usually in bed by 9! We met interesting guests here - a lovely American family with very well-travelled kids, a Czech student doing a month's internship teaching English to local tour guides (let's just call her the Czech chick!) and an American woman around our age who had been living there for over a year. The food here was all good and different to other Georgian food.

That night we fell into our wonderful comfortable bed with the windows thrown open to catch the cool air as the rooms was still warm from the previous heat. Some time during the night I was vaguely aware of thunder but I fell straight back to sleep and slept through a storm. The next morning was wonderfully cool for our walking tour with Lalita, a local guide.

We packed our raincoats and headed out - after a 9am breakfast! This country operates so late with meals! An hour into the walk, the temperatures started to rise and soon it was hot again. Noooo!

First stop was a really old Christian church. There are no Christians here now so the church is maintained by the Muslims! I had to cover my head with a scarf to go in.

Next was the oldest of the Kist cemeteries. When they migrated here from Chechnya in the early-mid 19th century, they buried people the same as they used to in the mountains in Chechnya - they laid the bodies on the ground and covered them with stones. This cemetery is now partly overgrown and the ancient stones among the greenery were so atmospheric.

Next was the first of the old towers that are a feature of a large part of Georgia. We barely saw it though as we had a deadline to meet. We raced, huffing and puffing up a long hill to see this, had a quick look, then raced back down again.

The reason that we were in a hurry was because the special religious ceremony that the local ladies perform every Friday at noon was about to start. Thanks to Nazy and the community wanting to share their religion and lives with others, we were allowed to watch. This is largely why we came to this valley. We arrived late but it hadn't started as they were waiting for someone. The women tourists had to wear scarves and I was amazed that men were allowed to watch too. After waiting for another 20 minutes they gave up waiting for others and started anyway.

One lady led a series of chants and others sung in harmony although it was in that weird off-key sound that we often hear in Muslim music. After a while they started walking in a circle, getting a bit faster as they went. I had read that it was a bit like the whirling dervishes in Turkey but whoever wrote that must have had a vivid imagination. Anyway it was all very interesting and it's the first time I've witnessed any Muslim service.

We only stayed here a couple of days and in hindsight should have stayed a bit longer as I discovered there's an amazing forest of yew trees nearby that you can walk in but we had already booked places ahead so we had to leave. It was a really interesting couple of days!

Til next time!
Heather and John