Take another little Tbilis of my heart now, Baby

It’s not easy to get back from the mountains. Deciding against the marshrutka and then train from Zugdidi, we thought it would be best to take a marshrutka directly back to the capital. We arrived at the ‘bus station’ about twenty minutes before we were due to leave, and were promptly shoved into the back seats of a minibus that must have been older than us. Being somewhat cramped, we asked if we could sit closer to the front, however were told by the driver that those seats were reserved. “I pick people up on the way.”

True to his word, as we began the long, slow descent from the mountains, the driver stopped off at ostensibly indescribable junctions, where families of up to five people squeezed into what became an increasingly small space. Once there were twenty-five people on board, including six children between the ages of six months and eight years old, our journey became slightly more direct. We soon realised how lucky we were to be sitting at the back, as the momentum from curving round the contours of the road sent two large bags sailing from the overhead storage, onto the (thankfully adult) passengers beneath.

The journey was long and dull, but three of the larger, burlier, surlier local men passed the time by cooing to the small baby in front of us, passing him round to squeeze his chubby cheeks, and gabble nonsense. The baby seemed somewhat bemused by this arrangement, but was happy enough to be made a fuss of, clutching his pudgy hands at their gristly beards. To me and Danny, the unlikely friendships being formed were rather comical, but the men seemed completely at ease in their paternal roles.

We had booked on to a local bus, rather than a touristy version, therefore whenever we stopped, we relied on the language skills of a well-groomed young man in sunglasses to tell us how long we had for a break. The dusty road eventually turned into tarmac, and mountain villages became small commercial outlets. In ten and a half hours, we were back. We dragged ourselves to our swish Airbnb near the river, and took comfort in the knowledge that we were finally staying in the same place for more than one night.

We woke up early the next morning, keen to throw ourselves in to the city we were just becoming familiar with. What we didn’t know, was that cafes here don’t tend to open until 11:00. We whiled away time by wandering through a deserted Rike Park, admiring the space-age sculpture of the Music Theatre and Exhibition Centre.

We then crossed the undulating Peace Bridge, before sauntering through the soporific streets of the Old Town. Eventually we found some coffee and sat in a park, watching an old man sweeping up leaves with a twig broom.

We nibbled on the requisite Khachapuri, before heading over to the Dry Bridge Market – a flea market selling all manner of Soviet memorabilia, garish paintings and sheathed daggers that you could imagine. We then headed through the Park of 9th April to the National Gallery. The modern cubic building provided welcome respite from the steadily increasing heat. We took our time wandering through the galleries, which were surprisingly devoid of other people. The works of Georgia’s greatest artists showed life in Tbilisi’s Old Town a century earlier, along with jovial feast scenes and views of patchwork countryside. Our favourite pieces were in the temporary exhibition space – Gigo Gabashvili‘s scenes of the bazaar at Samarkand told countless stories of what life may have been like on the Silk Road.

We walked up towards the north of the city, and found ourselves in the slick shopping district. We took a narrow alley which opened up into a shady courtyard and browsed the shelves of a bookshop, before heading up towards the Elene Akhvlediani House-Museum. Finding it closed, we grabbed an ice cream and made our way back to the apartment, to escape the worst of the day’s heat. When the sun finally sank we made our way back over to the Old Town for some Khinkali.

The following day, we put our tourist hats firmly on our heads, and joined a tour to some of the key sights around Tbilisi. We hopped into a minibus, and were soon joined by another Brit, a man from Qatar, and three Russians. Our first stop was the cave city of Uplistsikhe. The eerie caverns were worn smooth by centuries of weather. We expected ewoks to hop out of the otherworldly portals at any moment. After scrambling around the Hall of Queen Tamar, the Apothecary and the Theatre, we decided that the blustery wind was making the smooth rock too treacherous, so we descended through the tunnel and had some lunch.

Our next stop was the town of Gori, a place that would be easily missable were it not the birthplace of one of the most murderous humans of the 20th century. Stalin was born here in 1878, and in his honour (?) there now stands a palatial ‘museum’, with innumerable busts and photos of his unmistakable face. The images show Stalin in conversation with Lenin, addressing adoring crowds, and benevolently holding young girls who are thrusting bunches of flowers at him. The theme is one of celebration, which sits very uncomfortably with the truth of the events that he orchestrated.

Our next stop was Jvari church – an ancient monument perched on a hill above the confluence of the Aragvi and Mtkvari rivers. The cool stone walls were hung with the idiosyncratic idols of Georgian worship; saints with long, sombre faces and wide, doleful eyes. In the centre of the church there stands an ornately carved cross, the focal point of the dark chamber. During our visit, a young Georgian boy was being baptised. He rubbed his cold arms and his teeth chattered, as the bearded priest chanted the liturgy in a full, soul-baring tone. The warm melody floated up the stone walls, curling towards the heavens.

Our final stop was the small town of Mtskheta. Our driver reluctantly dropped us outside of a carpark that he didn’t want to pay for, and said we had ten minutes before we needed to head back to Tbilisi. We duitfully scarpered out, and made our way through the tacky bazaar to Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, a cavernous hall dense with musky incense and spluttering beeswax candles. We took a quick peak inside before heading back to the minivan. After thirty minutes or so, we started to wonder where the Russian contingent had got to – they were rather late. After an hour, we wondered if they’d gone to get some food. Jamie, a no-nonsense member of the armed forces strode back into the complex to find them, and emerged a while later explaining that there had been some confusion over 18:00 versus 8:00pm. Eventually the remainder of our group appeared, our driver expressed his frustration in an amusing explosion of Russian consonants, and we careened towards the capital as the sun set. To mark our last evening in Georgia, we caught the cable car to the top of the hill, the lights of the city twinkling silently below us. We breathed in the night, and said goodbye to this beautiful, captivating, unintelligible city.

Travelling in Georgia has been an awe-inspiring and frustrating experience. Some elements have been very straightforward, like using the metro, and being vegetarian. However some parts of our trip have been painfully difficult, particularly around transport and language. Tbilisi is small, but has a wealth of parks, squares and courtyards where you can watch the world. These were the best places for us to get a sense of what life is like here. There’s a calmness and slowness that doesn’t allow speed or efficiency. And over the course of our stay here we found that it’s much more comfortable to assume this pace, rather than fight against it.

Mestia to Ushguli – River Valley Meadow Mountain

At 06:00 our rickety train pulled into Zugdidi, just as a milky sunrise was seeping across the sky. We boarded a marshrutka, waited for the driver to decide to leave, then trundled up to the mountains. We hugged the curves of steep pine-lined valleys and marvelled at the cloudy turquoise waters of the Enurion Reservoir. Every now and then we’d hit a wall of low fog, which dissipated in an instant, like it had never existed. After a while we stopped at a cafe, ostensibly for refreshment. However, it soon became clear that there was a problem with the minibus, when our driver, along with three other portly, balding gentleman stuck their heads under the bonnet. After about two hours, they emerged, and we were back on the road, our driver having sourced a new filter to prevent his oil from leaking. No information on the cause of the hold up was provided at the time – we deduced the circumstances as they became evident.At 12:00 we finally arrived at Mestia, sorted our things, and commenced our four-day hike. We took a quiet road out of the town, and soon were flanked by green pastures, and herds of cattle ambling along the dusty road. The sun beat down on us, mocking us from the safety of its zenith. We climbed higher and higher, sweating in the fierce heat, until the Svan towers (koshi) of Mestia became matchsticks, and the only sound was the roar of the river in the valley. Imperious mountains spread in a panorama across the horizon. Snow-capped fingers reached up to the sky, sleeves of pines rolling down wrists of craggy rock. We traced the line of the valley, often crossing mountain springs that morphed from rivulets to rapids. Slowly, small villages came into view, each punctured with the ubiquitous towers that are peculiar to this region.After five hours, we reached Zhabeshi and our wonderful guesthouse, where we were greeted with a shower, a full table, and a bed (our first in two days!) We shared stories with our fellow travellers, sipped a beer, and couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction.We woke up the next morning to the sound of a magazine of raindrop bullets firing against the corrugated iron roofs of the outbuildings. We peeked outside and to our dismay, there was no end in sight. The possibility of rain during the hike hadn’t even entered my consciousness, so breakfast was a bemused affair of occasionally opening the window to see if it had stopped. Fortunately by 8:00 the sky was clearing, so we set off with our new companions for the next day of the hike.The first two hours were spent scrambling up flint scree at a sharp incline. Our faces and shirts were drenched with sweat, and no one had enough breath to talk. Near the top of the ridge, we found a fresh water spring. The water was cold, we splashed it on our faces and felt instantly revived. We reached a ski lift (which for some reason was operational), and followed a track which took us to a ‘market’. We stopped for a coffee, and some bread which was filled with either rice or potato, before carrying on our way.At this point we had a crucial decision to make – to either take the lower, clearly sign-posted, straightforward route to Adishi which would take about an hour, or to take the longer, higher, wilder, path. We went for the second option. Within minutes we were surrounded by a sea of wildflowers; pink and blue stars scattered among wispy grasses and crowned thistles. Marbled butterflies swung on trapezes through the undergrowth, and gargantuan crickets hopped across our path with a brazen air. We could have been part of the Fellowship of the Ring. All the while, the mountains opened before us, stretching out into new configurations, forming new horizons.We did undertake a small, overly-adventurous detour, but soon gave up trying to hack a path through the undergrowth. Eventually, we found ourselves descending a steep ridge, and at the last moment, the village of Adishi came into sight.Danny and I said our goodbyes to our new crew, and settled into our guesthouse, which leaned precariously against a koshi, with a tree growing stubbornly out of the top. Our day had been long, but the hike had been beyond anything I could have imagined.On our third day we had breakfast on our balcony overlooking the mountains. As we nibbled on our staple khachapuri (cheese bread), we discussed the day’s hike with a French couple. The key consideration was how to cross the tempestuous Adishchala river. We set off at 8:45 at a good speed, and covered the first five kilometres in no time. Then we met our foe – a gushing torrent of white spray, thundering through the valley. Some brave and foolish souls tried to make it across by foot, however after seeing one girl stumble and nearly get carried away, had it not been for the selfless hero who saved her, we decided to take the alternative. The alternative was a horse. We paid 20 lari each, and heaved ourselves up on to the placid, forlorn creatures. Danny went first, the handler casually throwing him the reigns and sending him through the current. Half way across the horse stopped. She stumbled, losing her balance, toppling under the weight of Danny and our rucksack. My heart was pounding in my chest, louder than the river. In a split-second, she righted herself, and I breathed. Danny made it across.Next it was my turn. My poor horse was reluctant to step into the glacial waters (I couldn’t blame her), but after some heavy-handed encouragement from her handler, she stepped in. Steadily, she made her way through the rapids, as I coaxed her and tried to send her feelings of warmth and confidence. In a few seconds it was all over, we’d made it across and lived to tell the tale.We squelched up a gentle muddy slope lined with wildflowers, which suddenly opened up into a vista of a sprawling glacier. We heard the throaty rumble of ice as it fell down the rock face, and saw tumbling waterfalls melting into the river. We reached the summit of the ridge, and a whole new valley opened up for us. We followed the river through green hills, scattering petals of butterflies as we stepped through the waterlogged path. We soon came to Khalde, where we stopped for the night, watching the darkness fall as we sipped camomile tea.Our final day of hiking started at a fast pace. We wound down the valley to Iprali, then once again decided on the high road to reach Ushguli. We were met with an unexpected ascent, however once we reached the top we were walking through dappled groves and humming meadows. All too soon the trail descended to meet the dusty road, and we traipsed the last few kilometres of our 50k trek to Ushguli. We sipped a victory can of Coke, before nabbing a taxi which took us back to Mestia in an hour and a half. We crashed into our guesthouse, sunburnt and scratched, bitten and blistered, but utterly content.

You want Tbilis of me?

I’ve never taken a flight straight after work before, but being efficient, that’s how we decided to start our holiday. We took a train from London Bridge which zoomed us to Gatwick, had a some disappointing noodles at Wagamama, and then at 22:50 boarded the last flight of the day.Georgia is not a standard destination, but some time last autumn we were inspired by Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road documentary, and decided that if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for us. Serendipity has been nudging various meetings on to our path – Danny had an Uber driver at the weekend who happened to be from Georgia, and received some very good advice about not trying any ‘funny business’ with wives in the mountains. As we shuffled through security, Danny also got talking to a guard who raved about Tblisi’s excellent cuisine and vaulting cable car. He makes friends wherever he goes.I spent the four hour flight contorting myself into various balls to try and get some sleep. Danny merciless popped in his earplugs, pulled down his eyemask, and sprinted into the land of slumber, not even stirring when the steward tried to foist a ‘night meal'(?!) of sausages and mash on to us. I respectfully declined on our joint behalf.Jagged peaks appeared through the cloud as we began our descent, a ragged tear in the cotton-wool carpet. Tbilisi spread beneath us, copses of uniform concrete flatblocks were hemmed in by silent rolling hills.We negotiated a discounted taxi (reducing the original offer by half), and made our way to the station. We trustingly stowed away our bags at Left Luggage, before taking a rumbling metro through cavernous concrete tunnels, ascending a perpetual escalator, and emerging into the old town of Tbilisi. We stopped for breakfast at a cafe on a tree-lined cobbled street, where we gorged on variations of cheese in and on bread (I can see this becoming a staple over the next few days).We then wandered down to Freedom Park where we met Eka, an enthusiastic Tbilisite who was extremely proud to show off her city through a free walking tour. Over the next three and a half hours we skirted the ruins of the city walls, oggled at vine-laden balconies, and criss-crossed the winding streets of the old Muslim Quarter. Having taken in a glut of information on Georgia’s history of occupation and invasion, the idiosyncrasies of its alphabet and language, and the ancient lineage of its wine-making, we decided we needed a bit of a rest.

A light fug of sulphurous air drapes the domed bathhouses of the old city. Danny and I found an almost-reputable-looking establishment, paid the equivalent of about £11.50, and had the private use of a thermal bath for an hour. A steady dripping sound pinballed off the rough stone, and echoed in the dim chamber. We felt the toxins melting away as we soaked in the warm bath, alternating with cold water (issuing from a red tap) to regulate our temperature. We emerged feeling clean (this was our only opportunity for a shower today) and relaxed, ready to embark on our next leg.After a leisurely glass of Georgian wine by the river, and a stodgy meal of khinkali (dumplings) and lobio (beany bread), we stocked up on about two kilograms of fruit (which came to the sum of 13 pence), and returned to the station. I had been organised, and pre-booked a night train online to Zugdidi. What I had not done, was take a note of our bunk numbers. After about 45 minutes of flapping (my anxiety being lovingly contained by Danny), we were permitted to board the train due to our names being on the passenger list. Faint with relief and exhaustion, I crashed into my bunk, grateful to be able to lay horizontally for the night.Our first 24 hours in Georgia have been a whirlwind, but luckily the eclectic beauty of Tbilisi, the novelty of the culture, and our sense of adventure have been enough to keep us going. If all of our days here stretch like this one, we’ll be here for a few lifetimes.