Georgia is a big favourite with overlanders, particularly those that like a bit of rough, when reaching remote destinations, inaccessible passes or vertiginous narrow roads beset by landslides. Heaving rocks off the road is hard work and an acquired taste. Georgia offers many of these options to the more intrepid traveller. There is even a Facebook website devoted to ‘assisting’ you in navigating these routes. The bigger and heavier the ‘rig’, the more challenging some of these remoter runs become. We tend to read about these adventures of daring do and then choose something less risky. Those of you that have read some of our Pamir blogs, where we became a bit too blasé with our Landcruiser will know why!

Then there is our sort of Overlander. Our approach is mainly to visit places that are reasonably accessible, where our 4x4 helps to keep us out of difficulty and to be more confident in spots that might otherwise be tricky. In our case, we are always amazed to find small local cars and little minibuses using some of these challenging roads, when we had wondered if we could actually manage them at all with all our gear! In a recent example, when sweating heavily past a landslide on our way to Mestia, which had reduced the width of an already narrow road, and had totally demolished the road surface, we met an articulated HGV coming the other way! (Only one mind). We were gobsmacked. We wondered how much they are paid to take those risks!

Typical road section and tunnels - not a poor section

The last area we were due to explore, was Svaneti and this took us to some of the remoter parts of Georgia, where there are less cars and certainly less articulated lorries. On the other hand, unaccompanied livestock sightings on the roads were common place and in this part of Georgia there were huge quantities of pigs roaming around and some goats.

The general approach here was to own a plot of land big enough for a family to grow fruit trees, vegetables and flowers, and in winter to bring in the livestock during the very long snowy season. A woman (who spoke good English) explained this when we camped in her garden to use her laundry. She described leaving Tbilisi for her husband’s remote Svaneti village in the mountains, because with a bit of land owned by his elderly parents they were able to build a new house. They could then own pigs, goats and cows which grazed on common land for free. They could grow food on their own land, (water was plentiful), rent out rooms in the summer and have a better quality of life for their children than in town, where you relied on low wages and with no scope to diversify with no land. The schools were good in the Countryside and they would return to Tbilisi when the oldest child was University age. It made sense and was so bucolic.

Enguri Dam supplying 40% of Georgia’s electricity

We also discovered later, that residents in this part of Georgia get free electricity - I should not have worried about using her tumble dryer for so long! The massive Enguri dam, (fifth highest curved concrete dam in the world), generates 40% of the Georgia’s electricity.

Those living in neighbouring Abkhazia (break away region of Georgia, cosy with Russian federation) and the Svaneti region of Georgia both receive free electricity from this hydro-electric plant which geographically spans both territories. The dam is in Georgia; and the hydro-electric generators are in Abkhazia. So many eggs for Georgia in one electricity basket, so close to the Russian border.

I have to admit that our first attempt to reach the Svaneti area was aborted due to mechanical problems with the Sprinter. On the way, we were due to visit en route, the Rkoni Monastery (remote and very steep approach) but the plan was vetoed as being too muscular for our Sprinter. Instead Jim found a less well known little Church (Ertatsminda - 13th Century) a bit off the beaten track. See photos below.

However, even before we arrived off the beaten track, the main road was being reconstructed for quite a long distance and there was no road surface. We had a slow, bumpy and dusty morning and were glad to turn off onto a cart track to reach Jim’s destination in a tiny village high up on a hill.

The plan was then to return to the motorway and speed off to Borjomi and continue our itinerary from there. However, on this day, the Sprinter had ideas of its own and something was not quite right. Being a Sunday we were not going to find help and it felt like the loss of power was probably still the old Ad Blue problem. We decided to return to Tbilisi and present ourselves back to the Mercedes garage. It was a very tedious retracing of steps, largely on the one Georgian motorway, but at times struggling to go faster than 40 kph rather than our normal speed. The aspiration was to avoid a breakdown truck and to sneak into the Mercedes parking area with help from friendly security. This worked quite well and a few hours later we slunk into the parking lot through a flatter ramp as the car could not manage the normal, steep ramp! The guys were good enough to let us sleep under their watchful eye in the Mercedes parking lot that night in return for a set of our keys. And we spent a few hours in an air conditioned shopping mall until we could reasonably go to bed in the Sprinter. So not all travel experiences are full of excitements.

The following day we woke up in the Mercedes garage, the car starter battery went flat, the mechanics managed to break one of our wing mirrors but at least we were in good hands and they diagnosed the technical problem as being one large Jubilee clip under the bonnet that had worked loose the previous day. They sent us on our way with only a small chunk out of our wing mirror and no charge for diagnosing and fixing the small but devastating fault. The culprit was not our old adversary the Ad Blue, but an excess of uneven road surfaces!

We sped off to catch up on our Itinerary, really leaving Tbilisi for the last time. The plan was to visit Borjomi, a spa resort, where Jim had reserved a room in a charming old hotel located at the entrance to the gorge leading up to the famed natural water source. The town itself, at over 800 metres altitude, was cooler than Tbilisi and had been founded by the Romans. It also became a popular spa town in the 19th Century and was visited by Kings, Dukes and Consuls, looking to escape the summer heat in Russia. (It was part of Russia pre-Soviet Union).

Sonia and Jim - Golden Tulip Courtyard fountain

This was to be a rare treat and it is true that showers and air conditionning for one night were welcome. But what was really special about the Golden Tulip (now Chinese owned) was that it was a historic building. Jim explained to me that the hotel had been a summer spa residence for the Iranian Embassy in Russia, built in 1892 by the Consul of Iran in Russia. Originally called Firouze, its architectural style and design was Iranian. Its ornate decorations with mirror glass, its central courtyard with fountain, grass and optional pool and sauna were designed for a different era. I am not sure I liked it, but at the same time you had to marvel at the intricacy of the decorations and the restoration that had left the initial concept largely intact. Describing it as a four or five star expérience though was a stretch! Not many 4 or 5 star hotels have cleaning materials stored in a public through way, have a washing machine waiting for collection under the stairs, or have doors opening into small rooms where security sleep at night. But if staying in Borjomi in a hotel, then it would definitely be up there as an experience. Did I recommend a stay in Borjomi? I wouldn’t go quite that far, even though the neighbouring gorge was a natural wonder in its own right.

What was awful was the down at heel, funfair style, family attractions in place that ruined the natural experience of the entrance to the Gorge and the wide concrete path snaking its way through beautiful forestry. Entering through a turnstile, you had to run the gauntlet of a rusting attractions before you could escape into the uncluttered forest areas. I read that some commercial Georgian company had invested millions in this gorge recently. Maybe they are responsible for the newish horrendous concrete road cutting through the middle?

One of the things we had not realised until visiting Borjomi was that one of the chief exports from Georgia is their bottled water. I think that their main customers were Russia and Ukraine. Georgia has now halted exports of Mineral Water to Russia and as a result, Borjomi bottled water manufacturing has now largely ground to a halt. For a poor country, this decision will be painful and workers employed in the sector are demanding compensation. A solution does not seem to be immanent, but Georgia is distancing itself from Russia’s aggression in the Ukraine and siding with the EU and its allies. My previous blog described the huge number of EU flags aloft in Georgia.

Unfortunately we arrived in Borjomi quite late in the afternoon and Jim and I had a rare misunderstanding. He was intent on finding a hotel with a table built by Peter the Great, somewhere in town and I wanted to reach the water source. These things appeared to be 3 kilometres, on foot in opposite directions! We did not have the time and I did not have the energy for both and as a result I managed to entirely miss the whole point of Borjomi and saw neither. Sadly, Jim found that the table built by Peter the Great located in a renovated spa hotel formerly favoured by the Soviet elite, was now locked up and only dimly known to hotel reception. There was nothing for it but for him to prop up the bar for a bit before returning to the Golden Tulip for a small supper.

Stuff happens. It reminds me of when I was much younger (17 years of age) and had travelled alone by Greyhound bus to within 50 miles of the Grand Canyon. I looked at the small cost of the bus fare and the entrance charge and thought it was more than I wanted to spend and missed the canyon altogether. An error of different magnitude, but a similar travel weary mindset 50 years later!

On leaving Borjomi, we retraced our steps back to Kutaisi and visited two more Churches or Monasteries in quick succession. The first, the Gelati Monastery, another Unesco World Heritage monument, is well loved in Georgia for being the ascribed resting place of King David ‘the builder’. David IV (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king of United Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.

He is alleged to have asked for his tomb to be placed at the main entrance to the complex so that common people would walk him. Some say this was self-effacing, whilst others say it was a bit egotistical.

The second church we visited was Motsameta Monastery which is perched over the side of a cliff and was accessible by descending down a beautiful wooded path overlooking a deep ravine. Our photos of the Monastery are below. The door panels depict the two priests who were martyred at this spot.

The name of the Church, translates as the "Place of the Martyrs", David and Constantine, who organized a rebellion against the occupying Arabs in the 8th century.[2]

When the rebellion failed, they were captured and then they were promised forgiveness in exchange for converting to Islam. Neither accepted the offer, and they were later tortured and killed, and their bodies thrown into the ravine.

I cannot usually cope with more than two Churches in a day, however beautiful, and when we left that afternoon, what caught my eye was a free overnight camping spot within reasonable driving distance, up at height and close to another gorge. There were warnings about the steep climb up, but I was feeling pretty confident about our upward capabilities! However, when we approached, ‘up’ did not seem to stop and when I thought the van might stall and leave us hanging perilously, it seemed to find yet another level of pull and dragged us up and round the most incredibly steep and tight bends, without more than slight hesitation. What do you do if you get a refusal? Backing down these tight steep hairpin bends would be no joke! Luckily it did not arise.

The visit to the Kinchkha waterfall was a bit disappointing as the entrance to the viewing platform was closed due to concerns about rock falls. We did however enjoy wandering around over rock pools listening to very noisy happy frogs and chatting to yet more young Russians, who had left because of hostilities and were now resident in neighbouring Armenia.

I must confess that my heart was in my mouth thinking about our descent the following morning. (I hate heights). I need not have worried. I just drove down and thought about other things and all was well!

Our final objective in Georgia was to reach Mestia, a very remote village, deep into the Svaneti region of Georgia. After a long hard drive, we entered the village and searched for a place to camp, preferably with a washing machine. (It has to be a consideration once in a while!) Whilst I waited for Jim to make enquiries, a teenage boy on horseback, trotted past our Sprinter in the middle of the road at ease with no saddle. He then suddenly wheeled the horse around, urging it to tear through the streets at breakneck speed, through traffic and excited dogs. It reminded me of the nomad games in Kyrgistan. It was raw. It was wild. And he had no fear. Svan people in their isolated snowbound villages, high up in the mountains are Georgians, but fiercely retain their own traditions, language and culture.

Typical Svan houses - although not all wooden

As was often the case, the Itinerary had been planned by Jim and I did not always understand the main point of any particular destination. My job was largely to drive and usually to be blown away by the locations he had unearthed. The same was the case with Mestia, located high up in a valley, surrounded by the most stunning snow capped Caucasus mountains and transected by the Mestiachala River that carries huge quantities of melting snows down the valley at a hell of a lick. In Mestia it combines with another fast flowing river, the Melkhura and the volumes of water are immense.

It was only as we approached Mestia, that I realised why we were here in particular. Emerging from the small villages were many almost identical massive ancient stone towers. I believe that in this area, that there had been many hundreds of these towers and that in and around Ushguli (further up the valley), over 200 remain intact. So unique are they, that some villages (Ushguli) have obtained World Heritage status in recognition of their historical value. In Mestia itself there are many of these towers and at night they are floodlit and make quite an impression scattered throughout the village. Click on the red links above to understand their purpose!

Messy Mestia is not one of the towns in Svaneti with World Heritage status, despite having these towers. My guess is, it is because local planners have made a complete dog’s breakfast of new developments in the heart of town that were meant to appeal to visitors. New chalet style buildings with commercial space underneath built in 2012, were never finished and the town square is lined with sheets of corrugated metal enclosing, never to be finished, dated modern buildings. So bad has it become, that businesses that may have flourished in the square are abandoning commercial space overlooking the square, to open up behind!

What Mestia does have going for it, is the great outdoors. It is a fab area for hiking. (It also has a tiny airport which can deposit tourists into the mountains without the strenuous drive).

Jim had plans for us to walk for a few hours up towards the Chalaadi Glacier. Access to the path involved crossing a rather dilapidated footbridge across the deep and fast flowing river. With gaps in the boards and whole sections not level but leaning to one side, it was never going to be my favorite start to a walk. It was a bit like the Pamirs. You have to decide whether to abandon plans out of fear and caution, or whether to summon up the courage and cross. Well the story would end at this point if I had stayed behind!

Chaaladi Glacier Mestia river footbridge

Once across, it was a 500 metre climb and should have taken a couple of hours. Whilst we did not get lost, as we followed the river up the path towards the rapidly melting glacier, we did not find the best route and spent about an hour picking our way across large jagged boulders that had been spewed out of the receding glacier (terminal moraines for those who remember their geography lessons) when a more straightforward route skirted below!

The walk up to the Chalaadi glacier and down was fab and we had chosen another blue sky day for our exertions. And however long we took to get up and down, the sandwiches we ate before we turned around tasted better than if we never had gone.

On this walk we met more young Russian refugees. This couple lived in Liverpool with their baby. Tom was a window cleaner and he had left Russia a few years ago, because he said he was persecuted for being a Jehovah’s witness!

We returned on the path down through the woods besides the rushing stream, back over the death defying bridge, to our waiting home on wheels and pulled away down the off road track and began our descent, knowing that we had seen many sides of Georgia and had learnt that it was a small but very beautiful country, fiercely Christian and proud of its many world class historic buildings, yet also in the towns supporting the arts, youth culture, drama, music etc. Certainly we were made to feel welcome and the interest in becoming part of the EU extends to being genuinely interested in Europeans.

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Jun 5 Georgia 4 - Mestia via Gelati Monastery and Borjomi

Jun 8 Buying the Mercedes Sprinter

Jun 4 Georgia 3 - to Mtskheta and Sighnaghi