Tbilisi

Looking back it is as if the only reason we went to Tbilisi was to eat hachapuri, or, as one fellow traveler put it: "Can you eat too much hachapuri?" No, I assured her. Hachapuri is a savory pastry filled with cheese and you can buy it from a roadside stall or order it in a restaurant, you can have it for breakfast, or for lunch, or for dinner, or sometimes for more than one meal in one day. Luckily, there is a Georgian restaurant in Ljubljana, conveniently located just a few minutes walk from where I work and they have hachapuri on their lunch menu so I was able to gradually wean myself off the hachapuri addiction after I returned home.

In Tbilisi we checked out the fortress (yes, it is on top of a hill and yes, I dragged Marko up there for the views but in my defense I didn’t drag him up the other hill with a TV tower and a Ferris wheel). We also strolled in the botanical garden but we decided to skip the museums. Compared to Baku, Tbilisi seems as if it still has a long way to go to become a modern city as there are so many buildings, especially in the old part of the city, that are literally falling apart. Our Lonely Planet guidebook that was published 3 years ago states that Georgia is supposed to be much more developed than Azerbaijan. Well, from what we could tell, since the 3 years from the Lonely planet publish date, Baku was completely cleaned up, the infrastructure (electricity, water, mobile telephone coverage) in even the most remote parts of Azerbaijan has been taken care of. On the other hand Tbilisi is either still a mess or at least mostly under construction. And the roads in remote parts of Georgia... well, if you can call them that.

One of our day trips from Tbilisi was to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin, where we went to see the museum devoted to his life. The information was only in Georgian and Russian so it is not very useful for tourists who do not speak these languages. We can read Cyrillic and so were able to decipher some of the Russian signs at least to get a general idea of what was displayed. It seems the information given is somewhat limited, the impression is that Georgians are not sure whether they should be proud that they claim the birthplace of such a famous man or they should try to suppress those things from his life that they are not proud of. Near Gori is a site with caves from pre-historical dwellings. Another one of those places that is nice to look at while all the tourist facilities including a museum are under construction.

And finally, we made a day trip to Davit Gareja, a monastery that is scattered in caves all over a hill. This was truly impressive, I have never seen anything like it. To see all the caves it was necessary to hike uphill for an hour but it was well worth it.

Our last day in Tbilisi was spent hanging around our hotel and reading. Our flight home was at an inhumanly hour of 4 AM so we just left for the airport in the evening and hung around there as there was no point staying in a hotel room for a couple hours of sleep. One final stop in Istanbul on our way home, a quick trip to the city which was quite deserted early on a Sunday morning, and our trip was over.

Due to limited time we didn’t get a chance to see the Black sea side of Georgia. Or the Caucasus side of Azerbaijan. One thing I can say for sure is that now I have a better understanding of the political situation in that part of the world. The various peoples (Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan, ...) have nothing in common with each other and it is understandable why they broke free of the Soviet Union as they have nothing in common with Russia either. They each have different cultures, different languages, different religions so it is no wonder they are at each other's throats. 

Caucasus

It took us most of the next day using various means of transport to get to Kazbegi, a town in the Caucasus mountains. We stayed at a homestay with a very nice couple. We did catch glimpses of children and a grandmother but it seemed they were all instructed to stay away from us tourists. They served us a delicious although not extravagant dinner consisting of a vegetable soup, a salad and a typicial Georgian dish, grilled eggplant with walnut sauce. After a good night’s sleep we got up early to go hiking but before that it was breakfast time. I nearly broke down laughing when our hostess brought chicken stew for breakfast. Thinking back to our first morning in Baku when I was sure that we had chicken because we couldn’t explain that we wanted breakfast, I now wondered whether the guy in Baku did understand breakfast after all as chicken is what they typically eat for breakfast? I probably will never know. Anyway, we had a whole day of hiking ahead of us so I just ate the chicken and the rice that came with it.

The hiking route that I chose first passed a church on top of a hill. After traveling in Georgia for some time one notices that there are churches everywhere and the people seem very religious as they cross themselves whenever, wherever they see a church or a cross. There were occasional tourists like us hiking up there but since it was a Sunday there were hordes of local people going up there for religious service. Some of them carried food with them, mostly loaves of bread in plastic grocery bags. I guess it wasn't their lunch but rather something to do with the service.

After reaching the church we continued on the trail that led to a ridge from where we could see the Gergeti glacier and that was our final destination at 2940m altitude. The trail continues on to a hut from where it would be possible to climb mount Kazbek (5047m) but we were not equipped for high altitude climbing and anyway I tend to like to stay away from snow and ice. We had beautiful views of the Caucasus and eventually returned on the trail back to the village. 

We met a couple of tourists on our way down who were still going up and they asked us how much longer to go and what is there to see up there and is it worth it. Marko answered them with a very cryptic “Well, you can see a glacier”. Now, knowing Marko, I will venture into providing some subtitles for that statement. In translation it could mean “Well, if you are the kind of person who enjoys huffing and puffing uphill for hours just so that you get somewhere from where you can see a pile of snow then you will probably like it up there. But if you are like me then don’t bother, I only went because my wife who is a hiking maniac dragged me up there.” I have no further comment.

The next day I managed to persuade Marko to go on a shorter hike but only after I absolutely promised that we wouldn’t go see any more glaciers. I chose a shorter hike that led to a view of the multi-peaked mountain Chaukhi (with a little snow visible – but that doesn’t really count as a glacier, does it?). Anyway, the clouds covered the multi-peaks so there were no views but it was just a nice hike up a valley with some jumping over streams and it was beautiful.

For the rest of the day we hung around our homestay reading. I finally got around to reading a novel I bought in Baku, Ali and Nino. It gives an interesting perspective on a mixed marriage between a Muslim Azerbaijani man and a Christian Georgian woman. Appropriate reading for our trip, to get some more impressions of the local culture.

Our trip was winding down and our last destination was Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia. We planned to stay there for several days and take day trips to some other sights in the vicinity. So the next morning we packed our stuff to go to the minibus but our host offered to drive us along with another English tourist to Tbilisi.

On to Georgia

The next morning we said good bye to Azerbaijan and headed for Georgia. One taxi to the bus station, one minibus to Balakan, another minibus to Zaqatala and one taxi to the border crossing. As the taxi neared the border we saw a huge monument proclaiming Azerbaijan and as we approached closer we saw that it is under construction. The next time we come that way there will be a grand border crossing, but for now we had to settle for an old dirt road, full of waiting cars and trucks. Since we were on foot we walked ahead and were let through the gate. There were other local people also crossing on foot and many of them stood waiting to get their passports stamped. The border official motioned us ahead of the queue, it seems that tourists get preferential treatment. He stamped our passports and we were on our way. The border itself is a river so we had to cross a bridge but at that time of the year the riverbed was completely dry. 

On the Georgian side the border official took our passports and went into his office to type something on his computer. Slovenian citizens don’t need a visa to enter Georgia, but it took some time for him to figure that out. When he finally did, he stamped our passports, no questions asked, and we stepped into Georgia. A new country, with a new language and on top of that, new writing. While we could at least read signs in Azerbaijan it was going to be tougher in Georgia. All the signs were in the Georgian alphabet and only occasionally was there a sign in Russian Cyrillic.We took a taxi to the nearest town of Lagodekhi. We wanted to spend the night at a nature reserve just outside of Lagodekhi, but once again we were stuck with a taxi driver who didn’t understand “nature reserve” and needless to say we had no idea how to say it in Russian. So we just asked him to take us to a hotel, the only one in Lagodekhi. It was one of those monstrous hotels from the Soviet era, deteriorating and up to that point in our travels we managed to avoid them. I never figured out why these hotels operate at all, it is obvious that no one does any maintenance whatsoever and they have very few guests. I nosed around a little and I believe that only 3 rooms were taken the night we were there, including ours. The lady at the reception had other business in addition to giving out the rooms in the hotel, it looked like she was selling lottery tickets or something so she was probably not too busy with the reception work.

Our room had seen better times and I am sure it was a very nice hotel when it was first built. But now none of the drains worked and we didn’t dare touch the air conditioner, it was one of those old models that was mounted on top of the balcony door and it looked very tired. In fact, the whole balcony was crumbling and I very carefully avoided leaning on the balcony railing just in case it fell down. On the other hand there were fresh sheets and towels in the room and there was soap and toilet paper in the bathroom. OK, the toilet paper was there probably since the Soviet times, the paper was stiff and grayish and I thought it better to leave it alone and rather use my own.

The region around Lagodekhi is famous for a number of old churches and monasteries and we hired a taxi to give us a tour. It was a hot day once again and we were tired so we just looked at the places with mild interest. But the driver was determined to show us every single one of them and he drove us around until dark. I was quite disappointed because all the places we saw were under construction as it seems the whole country is being renovated. It was difficult to see anything under the scaffolding, between the bulldozers, and some of the construction that was going on was quite noisy. It was new to me that women must wear skirts in churches, but not to worry, tourists were handed wraparound skirts to put on so we could go inside. No photography inside though.

We were tired of the heat and dust and we made plans to head into the mountainous region of the Caucasus for a few days where it should be cooler. When Marko saw mention of a glacier he was eager to get there. Had he known what it took to get to the glacier he might not have been so enthusiastic.