Saturday
Up at 5:30, so that we can get ready, get to the marshrutka stand, and get good seats for the 7am marshrutka. At 7:15, after sitting on the marshrutka for an hour, we finally get underway. The marshrutka wasn’t full, so there was lots of stopping, to let people on and off. The trip to Zugdidi was an uneventful 3 hours.
In Zugdidi, we got dropped off right at the stop for marshrutkas to Mestia. When we got on, we discovered three other tlg volunteers. They were from a later group and are placed in and around Rustavi. They shared their travel adventures, but we are so over the novelty of travel in Georgia, that we couldn’t get excited for them.
On the marshrutka, there were two seats open on the first bench behind the driver and 3 in the back. Of course, Boston and I wanted to sit closer to the front (hello motion sickness) so we sat on the middle bench. Well, the guy told us we had to move to the back. We were like, "no" and then he started tapping his watch, like "we’re not going until you move and you’re holding everyone up." Not having sufficient Georgian to argue, we decided it wasn’t worth it and moved, so that a woman (who had just walked up) could take our seats.
We finally got underway and the drive through the mountains is breathtaking, for more than one reason. First, going through a tunnel, the driver stopped under a crack where water was running, to wash the car. The roads were not in great shape, so we spent a lot of time swerving around potholes and driving on the wrong side. This is also the reason that it took us 5 hours to go 112 km.
Also, lack of health and safety standards are evident in the fact that for 95% of the road, there are no guardrails. There were times when Boston (sitting beside a window) could not see the road and could only see the drop off of the cliff. It was terrifying. And that’s without the driver being drunk, as often happens.
There is one stop on the way, where food and wine was readily available. The other TLGers were very into joining the men for soup and toasts. Boston and I watched them and rolled our eyes. We remembered when we had that much enthusiasm for new experiences while travelling. We just huddled in the room far from the door with a space heater and ate some of our own roadtrip food. We also didn’t drink, because drinking = peeing and peeing = squat toilets, with no toilet paper or hand washing facilities.
We all piled back into the marshrutka and got under way. Upon arrival in Mestia, we stopped on a corner and our driver went to get a woman (we found out later that she runs a hostel). I told them we were staying with Linguist (called because he speaks, like, 10 languages) and she directed me to his house. So, bags in hand, we started off down the street, while I called Linguist and told him we had arrived. After a wrong turn, we met up and he took us into his house.
Linguist’s host family were lovely. His host mom was still making up our beds when we got there, and his two little host sisters were running around "helping". Linguist showed us around the house, while his hm finished up. Then we all had tea. After tea we went for an evening walk through the city and went to a tower.
The Svan people (as in people who live in Svaneti) have traditionally built these defensive towers (called Svan towers). Each family had their own, and they date back centuries. For once the lack of health and safety standards worked in my favour, because we were allowed to enter and fully explore a tower, just the three of us. The tower, called Margiani Tower, is attached to an old Svan house, which has been preserved as a museum and Linguist knows the woman who runs it. So he got the key from her and we had a personal tour of both.
Margiani tower is about 6 stories tall. There are windows on the lower stories where you could actually walk right out into open air. There is also access to the roof. We climbed the rickety ladders all the way up and then I climbed out onto the roof to take in the nighttime view of Mestia. Boston doesn’t do too well with heights, so she decided to skip the roof, but Linguist came out. I had been fine up there alone, but as soon as someone was between me and safety, I started to get nervous. So we only stayed up for a few more minutes before navigating our way back to the ground. We worked out a system where I went first and Boston passed her bag down, before following me and Linguist brought up the rear.
When we reached the ground, we headed over to the museum. There is no electricity in the house, since it’s authentic. So we used flashlights to wander around and Boston took a billion pictures (my batteries had died). I climbed up to the "sleeping area" and then Boston and I both climbed into where the animals would have slept. After that photo op, we went around the outside to the basement, pausing on the way to take a look over the edge of the cliff.
The basement was used for storage, so there were all sorts of neat cubby holes along the walls. It was probably completely unremarkable by daylight, but at night, by flashlight, it was creepy and awesome. There is also a door (added only for museum goers) that leads into the dungeon. Traditionally, the only entrance is a hole from above and the Svan people would lower their enemies down and leave them to die. So, of course, we had another photo op in what was probably the sleeping area. It was fabulous.
After the museum, we headed over to Practically Georgian’s (she has adapted really well) house to visit. Her host mom presented us with meat pie, which no one ate because we were all still full from the "tea" at Linguist’s house. The warmth was making me and Boston sleepy (since we’d been up since 5:30), so after planning for a hike in the morning, we headed back to Linguist’s house and had an early night.
Sunday
In spite of the fact that Linguist wanted to get an early start on the hike, Boston and I both slept in and when we did finally get up, we took our time getting ready. After a leisurely breakfast, and part of an episode of Glee, we got underway. We stopped at the store for supplies, and then met Practically Georgian on our way out of town. While we walked, Linguist explained that we would be coming very close to the Russian border (it’s on the other side of the mountain passes). Boston and I were both interested in going, but apparently, they shoot first and ask questions never, so for safety’s sake we stayed far away.
Saturday night, when we’d been planning this hike, Boston and I made sure that Linguist was well aware of our skill and endurance levels (which are both 0) and he told us we’d be going on the "easy" hike to the glacier. Well, the hike itself wasn’t that difficult, but it was long. About 9 hours after leaving home in the morning, we finally got back. Granted, Boston and I probably extended the hike by about an hour, just by stopping for pictures every 5 minutes.
The first leg of the hike was about 5 km of road. You had to walk that just to get to the base of the mountain. There were a bunch of large puddles and little creeks criss-crossing the road. These were not an obstacle on our way out, but coming back in the dark was significantly more difficult. Especially since Boston and I were both in a lot of pain.
Once we reached the mountain, the path was not too steep. It meandered it’s way up through the trees. Being late autumn, though, the path was covered with leaves and damp rocks, making the going a little treacherous. Eventually we came out in a valley, where we could see the glacier, but there was a field of giant rocks and boulders between it and us. So we went bouldering. I think that was my favourite part of the hike; scrambling over and around huge rocks is fun.
In the middle of the boulder field, we paused to take some Christmas-y pictures. Practically Georgian found a tiny evergreen that looked a lot like the Christmas tree from "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown". We spent a long time taking pictures of the tree, and us with the tree and it was hilarious. Moving on from the tree, we came to the glacier itself.
We had followed a river right to the glacier, and where the water was coming from, there was a hollow inside the glacier itself. It was amazing. Everyone else jumped across the small channel to go right inside, but fearing my lack of coordination would land me in the water, I didn’t. I got lots of pictures from outside, though and it was really cool.
By this point, it was getting late and Boston and I were already tired. Including a stop for lunch, we’d been hiking for about 5 and a half hours, and the sun was starting to go down. We all wanted to get back quickly. As we were making our way back over the boulders, my knees were getting more and more painful. I slowed down significantly, and found myself bringing up the rear. It was all I could do to keep moving. When we got back into the trees, I often lost sight of the others in the twists and turns of the path. We’d all been talking and laughing on the way out, but on the way back, I could barely string two words together.
Just before we got to the base of the mountain, Linguist and Practically Georgian wanted to stop and visit with the Georgian border guards. Linguist knew a couple and Practically Georgian’s neighbour was working and we were hopeful of a ride home. Of course, neither of them knew the exact way to get to the border guards hut, so we scrambled around through the trees (Boston and I were lass than enthusiastic by this point, but the prospect of a ride pushed us on) until we found it. Then we found out that the guy working wasn’t one of the ones that Linguist knows and Practically Georgian’s neighbour was working at another hut. So we went back to the main path and carried on down the mountain.
By the time we reached the road, it was almost dark. And full dark comes quickly in the mountains. Luckily, our cell phones have flashlights, and I used mine to watch for loose stones and potholes in the road. Unfortunately, all of those puddles and creeks that were no trouble in the daylight were incredibly troublesome in the dark, especially when my legs were shaking from fatigue. I made it through most of them and then slipped off of a rock on the second last one and soaked my right foot. So now I was sore, cold, tired and wet.
Finally, on the main road, some guys stopped and offered us a ride to town, which we gratefully accepted. Back at the house, Linguist’s host mom had food ready for us and we ate like we were starving. We visited for a while, and Linguist’s host sisters mauled Boston and I (but mostly Boston). They’re 3 and 6 and the youngest decided to play a fun game of "let’s pile things on top of Boston’s head". When being a living doll got old, we called it an early night, due to extreme pain and exhaustion.
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