Caves, stealing from monks and spring water in Georgia

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Day 11 Georgia. Tuesday 20th Sep

Caves, stealing from monks and spring water in Georgia



Back to normality today and a 7am alarm. I forgot to mention yesterday how crazy things were on our holiday day in that we didn’t even set an alarm! Imagine being on holiday and not setting an alarm….crazy right?

Today we set off to meet at a metro station where some really good progress had been made on the area outside. Someone waving an orange flag directed us to the office again but there was no free tea or coffee today. After the obligatory group photo we did get given a free bottle of water. Oh and the trip is again booked with Get Your Guide. They whatsapped me last night to ask us to swap our last two trips around so today we are heading for Vardzia, Borjomi and Rabati. Our fellow guests are from Germany, Russia, Israel and Birmingham so we have increased the nationalities again. And again, three people are solo travellers. I don’t think I’ve been to a country with so many people travelling alone.

Our guide is Zuka and he has been really good so far, informative and friendly. This trip is the longest on offer and should last 14 hours. The minibus (no off-roading today!) has only seven guests on so plenty of room. As we won’t be back until about 11pm I shall be blogging as we go along. Try and keep up.

First stop was a service station where it was 1 lari (about 30p) to pee. Clean toilets but I wish I could have pushed out a poo for that price. I treated myself to some tomatoes from the supermarket while Claire had a Kitkat. The items in the bakery were only marked up in Georgian so Claire couldn’t tell which were vegetarian. I didn’t fancy a lobiani as I’ve had a few already and you can’t always live on Georgian Greggs!

Note: The worst recorded taxi driver rip-off in Georgia was as follows. A guy arrives in Tiblisi and offers a taxi driver $300US to take him to Batumi which is over 300km away and by the sea. The taxi driver drives round a reservoir just outside Tiblisi for a bit then drops him off by a part that looks like a beach. I don’t feel so bad about yesterday now!

Next stop was a recreated village type thing where everything had been rebuilt. So there was a synagogue, a mosque and a fortress all made to look like they’d been there for centuries. Not sure they pulled it off but it was certainly an interesting stop off. The name of it literally translates as Newcastle although I’m not sure if it was On Tyne or Under Lyme.

Lunch was next thankfully as I was getting a bit peckish. It was really good too but the Israely guy outdid me in the amount eaten….crazy I know! He was thin as a rake too but I guess I used to be the same until my metabolism turned on me. One day matey, one day.

And on we went to one of my favourite places in Georgia-Vardzia. Vardzia is another cave city but more extensive than Uplishtikhe. High up of course but a minibus took us part of the way for just 2 lari. Our bus was there first, another group (of Russians I think) came along next. The minibus turns up, all the other group start pushing to the front. I managed to elbow a couple and point out how rude tney were but I’m not sure they understood. I’m still not pleased.

There was still a way to go after we were dropped off, all uphill of course with some steps to enjoy too. The complex used to house up to 20,000 soldiers and was hidden from view by rocks so it couldn’t be seen from the road (or track as it probably was back then). The outer rocks have since fallen down so lots of the entrances are now visible from below.

Inside there is a labyrinth of tunnels, all very low of course so Claire was in her element. The steps inside were often quite tall with low ceilings so we think the people had long legs and short bodies. It was quite fascinating seeing all the different rooms and the fact that they had a reservoir in there as well as ventilation. I’m not sure how it would have been with 19999 others but it was good today. A bit hard on the old back and knees in places but well worth it.

The spring water at Vardzia was really nice with no sulphur taste so everyone filled up their bottles. On the way down the Russian couple in our group were taking some grapes from the monastery vineyard. I forgot to mention that two monks still live in part of the cave complex so they have a cave church (that doesn’t smell of wee) as well as some caves that they live in.

Anyway, back to the Russians who even took pictures of each other stealing…. I decided to grab a couple of grapes for Claire and I and a whole bunch came away in my hand. Oops! I didn’t get Claire to photograph me doing it but I guess I have just written about it for it to be later posted on the internet. Oops again. The grapes were actually quite sour but I felt obliged to eat them all rather than waste them.

We then had a quick stop off to take pictures of a fortress across a valley. The lighting wasn’t quite right but Claire refused to move the sun. So much for her saying she’d do anything for me! Again the views have been amazing and hopefully you can see that from my attached pictures.

By the time we got to Borjomi it was dark so I think we were all thinking the stop would be a bit rubbish. Especially when they charged us 5 lari to go

It was a lot cooler here though so that was nice but still in the low 20s. Inside the park there were some lit-up paths and a couple of taps dispensing free mineral water. We tried it with trepidation as the one the other day had been pretty rank but it just tasted like something you take to settle your stomach. Which is actually something it does, so that’s handy. It tasted nicer than wine though so that’s okay.

The park was closing which seemed a bit strange, as it was only around 8pm-in Tiblisi it would be just getting going. There were a few small rides and apparently a theme park at the top of the hill. Thankfully we didn’t have to climb up there….particularly as it looked closed too.

We walked back through the town and I bought some sweet bread with dried grapes in it, and very nice it was too. We are now driving very slowly to the toilet. Even at this time of night, traffic moves laboriously slowly on the bendy roads as there are so many huge trucks and very little opportunity to overtake…..unless you’re a nutcase of course….

Thank goodness there was some dual carriageway! We arrived back just after 11pm and at our guesthose at 23:40; we have a trip booked for the morning. It was originally booked for Thursday, after we swapped, but now they asked us to do it tomorrow instead. Fun times!

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