Kutaisi, Vardzia and Goodbye Georgia!

Once we made the decision to leave Ushguli early (see the last post), we decided to go to Kutaisi. Kutaisi's a small city about the size of Ballarat with a few interesting things to see and it was on the way to our next destination. It was the perfect option to fill in a couple of days between other bookings.

We booked a place online and had no trouble driving into the centre of the city to our hotel. We loved the heart-shaped traffic lights here!

The hotel turned out to be wonderful! It was in a really grand old building and only had a few rooms. Our ceilings must have been 5 metres high and had ornate cornices. The bed was comfy - and it had clean white sheets! To top it off, the young manager was delightful. After the last place, we felt like we'd landed in heaven!

We rested up that afternoon then tackled the sights the next morning. We headed out in the car but there were roadworks happening and we couldn't go the way we wanted. We did a detour then found ourselves at the end of a one-way road with the exit blocked by the roadworks. We were stuck! We had no alternative but to turn around and drive the wrong way back up the road. Several other people did the same but traffic soon came towards us and just like that we were in a traffic jam. Luckily a couple of locals took things into their own hands as there was certainly no police in charge of this. They had blocked off a number of major roads yet provided no detours or guidance. Our new best mate, a guy in a red cap, managed to convince the people ahead of us to back up and we weren't stuck for that long. 

First stop was 40 kms back up the road we drove down the previous day but we were too tired to see things then. Our maps app, maps.me, led us through towns and at one stage led us along a short road where I suddenly saw a sign that looked like a Do Not Enter sign. It was too late as we were already nearly at the end of the road and I thought I must have been wrong as it was a wide road. Just as we pulled out at the other end, a police car happened to be there. (Where was he when we needed help with the traffic jam?) John stopped to give way and the police car stopped as well. Suddenly the policemen inside started yelling through a loudspeaker. Were they yelling at us? We had no idea. The police car was still stopped and traffic was building up behind it so we had to do something. John waved, and drove through as if the policeman was giving way to us. We watched in the rear view mirror but no police car was chasing us - well not immediately anyway. The car soon came tearing up behind us with it lights flashing. We'd already worked out that whenever emergency vehicles travel they have their lights flashing even if there isn't an emergency so we were still unsure if he was after us but another blast of yelling from the loudspeaker convinced us to pull over. The cop car pulled up at John's window (why would he get off the road? People will go around!) and the passenger-side cop rattled something off to us in Georgian. We figured he was probably telling us in no uncertain terms that we just went the wrong way up a wrong-way road but we just looked blankly at them and John asked politely, "Do you speak English?" They understood and shook their heads. Cool! We got caught by some of the few cops who don't speak English! They had a quick discussion among themselves then the cop reluctantly waved us on our way. Phew!

We had read about a suspended track over a gorge near here and had seen pictures of an amazing glass-bottomed footpath that teetered over a precipice. To get there we elected to walk the 30 minutes from the ticket office to the gorge rather than drive as the exercise would do us good. The walk turned out to be beautiful but it was steep downhill after this easy start through a gorgeous forest.

We then reached the gorge and realised it wasn't the one we had seen pictures of! It was ok but nothing exceptional. That'll teach us to do our research a bit better next time!

By now it was really hot and there was no way I was going to tackle that steep slog back to the car in the heat. Clearly lots of people thought the same because many taxis in the form of cars and vans waited for people to drive them back up to the car park. John walked and I took a car. I thought the price was a bit expensive until I saw the road. It was just as bad the worst of the roads we had been on elsewhere, minus the drop-offs at the edge of the road. Mitsubishi Delicas ruled the road here again but somehow I ended up in an old Subaru Forester. It did a mighty job of tackling the rocks, potholes and steep sections. At one stage we had to pass a car coming the other way and there was seriously no room. Somehow the vehicles managed to climb up the sides of the road but they were on such a lean that their rooves were almost touching as they passed. It was amazing!

Next stop was a waterfall but it was a bit underwhelming.

Lastly was the Prometheus Caves that friends had told us about. We had to join a tour which was in Georgian, English and Russian. Our nice tour leader was justifiably grumpy at people who talked through the presentation or tried to get let in before anyone else. Some people didn't really follow along once we got inside and they could have been doing anything but it was an interesting place. It was huge!

At the end we were put on boats and finished the last part by gliding through the cave on the water. We had to wait ages for the boat though so the appeal had been largely lost by the time we got on one.

A nearby town had been renowned in Soviet times as being a wonderful spa town. People came down by train from Russia in droves to this glamourous location. Now, a number of grand buildings stand empty, rusting relics of a bygone era. You can just wander through them but we only found a couple of them. Our old, dusty jeep looks right at home in this grand but overgrown entrance.

Paint peeled off the old walls in such a cool way!

Again John found an interesting road on a map and, after two lovely night in Kutaisi, we reluctantly dragged ourselves away from our wonderful hotel and headed south. The road was better than we expected it to be but we realised why when when we unexpectedly found a grand spa resort town in the middle of nowhere. It's amazing what a bit of marketing about mineral water can do.

The road turned to dirt at the end of the town and remained like that until we hit civilisation again. We drove through beautiful forests where moss seemed to drip from pine trees.

We crossed over a pass where the views of small farms and large hills were spectacular.

By now we were so far south that we weren't far from the Turkish border. Not far before our destination was the restored Khertvisi Fortress built in the 10th to 14th centuries. It was pretty impressive.

It was really hot and John headed back to find some shade. I found another section that we hadn't seen and explored it on my own. I climbed up the steps on the right in the photo below. On my way back down I stepped onto that metal grating on the right of the photo and my foot slipped right through it. I tipped forward and the weight of the pack on my back carried me further forward while my foot stayed anchored between the metal slats. I went down like a sack of spuds but managed to extract my foot shortly afterwards. It was already bruising. This wasn't good. John was out of earshot and nobody else was around so I took my time until I could safely walk with the daypack.

We got to our absolutely lovely hotel (our only two options here were very basic or upmarket so we took upmarket for a change) and got some ice for my foot. It swelled and bruised but wasn't too painful.

The reason we had come this far was to see Vardzia, an ancient cave city and monastery complex carved into the side of a nearby cliff. Bizarrely, even though it was really hot, the complex didn't open til 10am. We took our chances and got there early. There were a few others waiting too and they let us in 10 or 15 minutes early which was great. We were the first visitors for the day and it wasn't crowded at all even though it's one of Georgia's 'biggest' sites.

All the safety railings detracted from the natural look of the place but they were essential as it was all pretty steep and exposed.

There was a church that opened just as we got there. The paintings were beautiful and apparently depicted the Queen that built this place.

A lovely man was in charge of a holy well where spring water runs fresh into a pool. Pilgrims come here to drink the water and the man insisted that we take some bottles with us. It was cool and delicious.

There were quite a few tunnels. Some were long and, without electric lighting, would have been very spooky in their day. We mostly had to stoop over to get through them.

Rooms had different purposes. This was a wine cellar and you can still see parts of old qvevris (clay wine urns) embedded in the ground.

In 1551, the Georgians were defeated by the Persians in a battle here and the Persians burned everything including old manuscripts. Many rooms are still scorched.

The last tunnel was very steep!

We were out well before the busloads arrived so we had a nice lunch in the shade beside the river. Wonderful!

We returned to our hotel and had a brief swim in the pool there. The water was surprisingly cold! We then focussed on keeping my swollen foot up. It was about this time that John's toe problem started coming back. Hmm, this wasn't good for two walkers!

We left the next morning and headed back to Tbilisi - again. The land we drove through was dry but a fertile valley ran through it and hay season was in full swing. We found it really interesting. Most plots were fairly small. Hay was cut by scythe, whipper-snipper or commercial slasher. It was then raked by pitchfork or a commercial rake behind a tractor. Once dry, the hay was either pitchforked into small, loose haystacks or baled into small bales. We saw no big round bales.

When machinery was used, it was all very old. Tractors and trucks all seemed to be from the 50's and 60's. There were no elevators used to load the hay bales. To lift the bales up to the top of the trucks, two people put a pitchfork at each end of a bale. They then hoisted the bale way above their heads where someone on the top of the truck reached down and grabbed it and stacked it. Now that's hard going!

That's a person lying down on this truck load of hay. I reckon he deserves a lie-down!

The tractors were ancient and everything was so labour-intensive.

Any usable vehicle got called in to cart hay.

Shepherds and their dogs guarded stock along the roads.

Surprisingly, we came to a town where many power poles were adorned with stork nests. This was weird as we didn't see any storks anywhere else in all our travels in Georgia.

So we made it back to Tbilisi and returned our car in one piece. We had one last night revisiting our favourite places and saying goodbye to this wonderful country. It was time to head to Armenia!

As this is our last Georgian post, there are a few things I'd like to record for my own benefit.

The language was a real challenge to us. It's not a language that shares a lot with other languages. Luckily, many people speak English as it's taught in schools. In our whole time there we only learned a few words and, as they were such weird words for us, we had fun trying to come up with ways to remember them:

Mardeloba - (Thank you) - This word started off our "funny ways to remember foreign words" campaign. We came up with "Mark's a lover". We then found that wasn't accurate enough so we changed it to "Mark's all over". Sorry Mark, but we laughed every time!

Gumajoba - (Hello) - This started the run of ruder ideas!

Another funny thing was the way Georgians asked us to repeat ourselves (which was often given that they don't come across too many Aussie accents). Instead of saying "pardon?" they'd say "what?" very bluntly. It was kind of affronting but we knew they didn't mean to be rude at all.

For a country that was largely rural, and so hot, we were continually amazed at how late Georgians go to bed and get up. The day was half gone by the time they got started and they kicked on, kids included, until all hours of the night. They are very family-orientated and often travel in large family groups. This means they make even more noise at 2am. They have no regard for other people at night at all. They don't mean to be disrespectful - it's just not something they think about. Clearly they can sleep through anything.

Cows and other livestock roam the streets everywhere. Every village seems to have communal land around it that anyone can graze. We saw very few animals confined in paddocks. I only saw one horse refuse to get caught while its frustrated owner clambered up a hill trying to catch it.

Street dogs were a highlight. They were incredibly friendly. They were well fed (we don't know who by) so they wanted nothing more than a pat and a walk. They were wonderful! I'm sure their friendly dispositions were a direct reflection of the kind humans that they lived amongst. Surely the Georgians must treat them really well for them to be like this.

Traditions were strong - endless speeches at formal events, polyphonic singing and pride in their history. They generally weren't wealthy people - we'd class it as a second-world country. Lots of people smoke, even the younger ones.

Drivers were generally pretty wild. At first it was a bit of a shock when cars would overtake others forcing everyone to move over. It was common for 3 or 4 cars to end up across a 2-lane road when overtaking but we got used to it and John soon relished the challenge. Look out when he starts driving again in Oz! I just hope he doesn't do it while talking on the phone and smoking at the same time like they do!

Whenever people would ask where we're from and we answered "Australia" they would say "Ooohhhh, so far"! They don't meet many Aussies here. People were generally keen to chat. They were very pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia and very proud of their own country.

The food was great - it's probably one of the healthiest cuisines we've encountered. Vegies are often fresh out of the garden and fruits and nuts grow on trees everywhere. Strangely, we didn't see many birds so they don't have to protect fruit with nets. We weren't a fan of their orange, organic wines - they were way too funky for us. John liked their chacha (a grappa-like spirit) though.

If our visit has inspired you to visit Georgia, our advice is to do it soon! So many things are changing. New roads are opening up mountainous areas that were difficult to travel to before. We've seen towns that have sprouted up from small villages in only the last decade. As much as we want it to remain as it is, we can't blame people for wanting supermarkets, public transport and mobile phone towers.

What a stunningly beautiful and interesting country.

Catch you later.

Heather and John