Macs with Packs: Svaneti - Ancient Towers and Stunning Mountains

Hello again!

We finally turned off that long, truck-lined highway and headed towards our next destination - the Svaneti region. This region is similar to Tusheti in that it's a remote area dotted with ancient defensive towers. This area was so remote for so long though that invaders never occupied it. The towers were mostly used for defence against each other as fights between families were common in the past.

Today the road to Mestia. the main town, is paved all the way although it's still a bit tricky in places.

We arrived in Mestia and were amazed at how big it was. Apparently the government put money into developing infrastructure here. Mestia looked like a ski resort (which is what they're trying to turn it into) with its wooden buildings and chair lift. It was still quite a small town but it was full of tourists.

We had trouble finding a place to stay here in advance so the guy from our hotel at Tbilisi booked us something. It was dearer than we would usually pay but we ended up at a brand new hotel with hardly anyone else there. We had our choice of rooms and it was really nice although it got quite hot. The English-speaking daughter of the family that owned it seemed to be our host and often she seemed to sit around waiting for us to return at the end of the day and she was there to prepare our breakfast in the morning.

We were in an older part of town and it was fun making our way home each night in the dark trying to avoid all the cow shit on the cobblestoned laneways plus the occasional pig. As always, the dogs were really friendly and would sometimes walk home with us.

The older part of town was amazing - ancient stone houses with carved wooden balconies overlooked narrow laneways. Animals wandered freely along the lanes. Cows were milked by hand each morning in several places near us.

We visited a museum inside an old house one day and learned how the extended families all lived in one room with the animals in winter. The carved arches in the photo below were where the animals were kept (they put their heads through the arches to eat) and the people slept above them to keep warm.

We then went into the nearby tower house. It was harder and scarier than I expected to climb the 5 levels to the top. The old wooden ladders were very rickety and steep.

Towers like this one that we climbed up are generally around 1,000 years old.

There were ancient towers all around us. They looked wonderful lit up at night with a crescent moon rising!

Most of the newer buildings in the town were in keeping with the style of the older ones but there was one horrendously modern, ugly building - it was the police station! Apparently there was an uproar when it was built so they modified it a bit but there were clearly no heritage considerations taken into account.

Despite its recent development, Mestia was lovely. We ate at great places like the barbeque place under shady trees which, according to John, had the best beer. We saw a gorgeous sunset over the mountains on our first night.

A river cut right through the town. Like so many rivers around here it was a grey colour and was strong and rough.

Like almost everywhere else in Georgia, cows just wandered freely all over the place. There was a big storm one night with amazing thunder that echoed around the mountains. We had to laugh when we saw this cow taking shelter in a new garage!

One of the local traditional foods is mashed potato with cheese. In fact everything seems to come with cheese!

We saw posters for a movie that is set in nearby Ushguli. In 2017 the movie won awards at various film festivals so we went along to watch. We were directed downstairs to a rough room that was lined with carpet and set up with deck chairs. It smelled musty and was a strange place but it was fine. The movie was really quite interesting. It featured local actors from Ushguli, particularly a lady and her son, Mose (both his real name and his character's name). If you can find it online the movie's called Dede and is well worth a look if you're interested in Georgia and this area. (More on this in the next post).

We also saw posters for a traditional polyphonic singing group so we booked tickets to that. While we waited to go in, we noticed that lots of the other people that were waiting seemed to be locals which we thought was strange as we assumed this was a local singing group putting on shows for the tourists. How wrong we were! The group turned out to be from Tbilisi and were touring the area. There was obviously a local singing group that were thrilled about this tour and they turned up in force - kids and all. We thought the kids would get bored but, apart from a few whispers and bumps on the back of our seats, they were well-behaved.

The group was fantastic! One guy introduced the songs and he often explained things in English. There were traditional songs from many regions of Georgia. Some were beautiful, some were sad and some were weird, especially a back-and-forth yodelling one - see below. It was a great show.

But of course you know what we were really here for - the mountains!

We caught the chair lift and a cable car up a mountain one day. The ride was wonderful. We soared so peacefully above the pine forest with the views getting more and more spectacular as we went higher.

We walked from the top to a viewpoint at a phone repeater station. It was hot but lovely.

There were more amazing flowers!

There was a restaurant at the top of the cable car with spectacular 360 degree views but you had to put up with the crappy techno music.

We got a good view of Mestia on the way down. Even from this distance you can see things like a bright blue roof on a new building that shouldn't be allowed in such a historic town. That blue roof happened to be right next to our hotel.

Another walk started in the town and went up the hill behind us for a long way. We decided to drive up the hill to a certain spot and walk from there. Oh my goodness - the track was so rough! Again, I was on the lookout for places where the road was washed away and there were sudden edge drop-offs. John avoided the worst of the potholes and big rocks as best as he could. The 'road' was steep and just as we got to our destination the engine started to boil. We later checked the radiator water level and it was fine so it just must have been really hard work for the poor Jeep. This is another road we won't tell the rental guy about......

This is as far as the Jeep got but what a car park!

Anyway, the walk was good with more amazing views.

Unfortunately, those big flies were horrendous again. We found this bull and we laughed about him being in the bull paddock as he was in thousands of acres but check out the flies! And each one of them bites!

It was a steep climb in places but the views were worth it.

Our destination was a small lake where horses and cattle came to drink.

And yes, there were more wildflowers!

Coming back down that rough road we had to pass vehicles a couple of times and it was really tricky but we made it. I was glad when we were back on level ground.

Our last walk was to a waterfall. The views just getting there were amazing!

These walking signs are everywhere in the walking areas. We drove the first part of this walk to knock a few kms off which was a good idea.

Just after we started we turned a bend in the track and saw the really strange sight of a cat being led on a lead on the walking track! The cat was afraid of us so the owners picked it up and - wait for it - carried it the entire rest of the way up the hill to the waterfall in a special cat backpack! I have no idea why.