Georgian Mountains – Stepantsminda
Dits had arranged the car rental to be dropped off at our apartment at 9am so we were up nice and early to pack up and be ready. We waited curbside for about 10 minutes before the car arrived. When we went to pay, we had a problem – he wanted $600 when we were expecting half the amount. Turns out it was the car rental that Deryn had cancelled a month earlier. The guy took it very well. We then had to grab a Bolt to the car rental place that was expecting us at 10 (and whom Deryn thought was dropping off the rental). When we got to the address, we could not find the rental. We got a different location every time we put the address into Google Maps. Very odd. Finally, we got hold of someone from the rental who sent us a gps link – the rental was literally 100m around a corner. We went and grabbed some breakfast from the café chain Paul’s before heading off at 10am. Interestingly the car was nearly empty – much like all the scooters in Sri Lanka that we rented. We filled up (similar to Aus) and off we went.
The roads were OK although the drivers were very aggressive in their passing. We drove to the outskirts of Tbilisi before stopping at a Carrefour to grab some essentials. Then it was into the worlds. We stopped at Ananuri Fortress which was a bit of a tourist trap – a Saturday outing for the locals me thinks. The fortress was OK but a bit too busy to enjoy so it was back on the road. The road we were travelling on is called the Georgian Russian Highway, the only road link between Russia and Georgia. We were warned that the traffic could be really bad and that the roads were full of potholes. So far it hadn’t been that bad. There were a lot of restaurants on the side of the roads – certainly a lot more than petrol stations. We stopped at a lovely café overlooking a river for a feed. Some beans and the local favourite of mushroom Khinkali. Quite delicious. While sitting on the deck, a convoy of massive trucks passed us heading in our direction. Damn.
Damn indeed. We were now locked into a nightmare. It took us nearly 2.5 hours to travel the 65km to Stepantsminda. The convoy of trucks was endless – thankfully only coming in 1 direction. This wasn’t coincidental – trucks are only allowed to travel one way during set times to prevent gridlock at the many hairpin turns. The state of the road was unbelievable – potholes big enough to destroy any car unfortunate to drive into it. I have no idea how they are going to repair or upgrade the road. Then there were the overtaking locals in cars who had the view that they had the right of way over anyone including oncoming traffic. I was driving so would duck behind an overtaking car and hope like hell that we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way. Some of the tunnels – used only winter – looked even more damaged than the summer roads. Passing through the ski resort of Gudauri was interesting. Loads of new hotels etc so it looked like it would have been busy in winter. How the hell did people get there thought?? The hairpins bends were a nightmare for the big trucks. We finally made it to Stepantsminda, exhausted. We pledged to do the return journey early to avoid the trucks.
Stepantsminda was a cute alpine village at 1800m. There was a mix of run-down buildings and new builds. The highest peak was Mount Kazbek (5033m) and Mount Shani (4,451m) so there was plenty of snow around which made it a chilly 6 deg in the village. Our AirBnb was a cute little place – once again looked better inside than out. We unpacked and then set off for a wonder around the village. The peace of the village was destroyed by the endless stream of trucks. The Gergeti Trinity Church silhouetted by the setting sun looked amazing and something that we looked forward climbing to tomorrow – weather permitted. We had a lovely meal at the most popular restaurant in the village – Samani.
Thankfully the weather was fine when we go up at 630. The early starts are the benefit of our early nights. We grabbed a quick brekkie at home – not before I burnt all the hair of my left arm trying to light the gas heating stove. We walked through the village of Gergeti to get the the start of the hike. There was 2 ways up – we decided to take the steep way up and the less so down. First stop was the Gergeti Tower (2100m) halfway up. The views were stunning including spotting what looked like Griffon vultures ring the thermals. We met a group of Japanese ladies on the path – have noticed a lot of younger Japanese tourists; and to a lesser extent older Chinese tourists, in Georgia.
The views from the Church (2250m) were amazing. The church itself was beautiful. Inside a monk was chanting – virtually all the churches we have visited have monk chanting continuously. Must be hard work. The journey down was less impressive than the walk up – we should have gone down the same way – but we were escorted by a couple of local dogs. The dogs in Georgia are mostly wild, or cared for by the community, tagged with yellow tags and also castrated / neutered. They are all big dogs and look pretty healthy.
We headed home for a snooze and then it was back to Samani for several hours to play som cribbage and have an early dinner. We decided to see what the weather was like in the am to see if it was worth doing the hike to Juta as if it was raining there was no point. When we woke at 6am it was miserable to that made the decision easy. Off to Kutaisi. We left at 730 am to clear pothole ridden roads. Fingers crossed it remained that way!!
