Let the hike begin!

4/6/22

We arrived in Svaneti and the bus stopped to allow us to get out and take some photos. Then we continued on to Mestia where the bus terminated. On route, I realised our guest house was before Mestia and when I asked the bus to stop, the driver said ‘no stop, no stop’, because he thought I wanted to stop just for photos. I told him ‘no, finish’ and he let us off! We walked down a narrow lane to our guesthouse with barking dogs and a cow with her calf completely blocking the way. Eventually the cow moved after the calf ran off and we were able to get through to face the barking dogs waiting inside the garden of the guest house. They barked a lot and ran at us in a maybe friendly maybe not way to the point that the owner three stones at them! I wasn’t sure how we would leave the house again!! We had a dinner of hot chocolate and chocolate cake and went to bed.

5/6/22

Mestia to Adishi

Today was going to be a longggg day. We had decided to do two days of hike over one day so we were doing 21km with plenty of climb which would take up to ten hours. Luckily, we didn’t have to worry about light since it was summer! We set off after a good guest house breakfast around 08.30. We reached Mestia around 09.30 which was a cute but mainly closed town, since it was not peak season yet. We walked through the town and along through some woods past a ski lift. The views were already pretty!! We rejoined the road for a bit, crossed a strongggg river which was running over the road, and while it was shallow, it sprayed all the way up to our knees when we crossed since it was so strong! We were glad to have taken our shoes off for the occasion!! Later we saw two biiiig bulls rigged up to pull a tree along!!

We past a church before we reached our lunch village. We went to Maia’s, the recommended guest house and asked for lunch. Lunch was soup, bread, and salad, though everything seemed to be shop bought not made. Afterwards we had a coffee before paying up. We had not asked the price before since Georgia is a very safe place and not generally a place for scams, however she had charged us double what we paid for the glorious lunch at the riverside (and when I looked later, the same cost as two of her guest rooms – cheeky bugger!). We paid without a fight and left (£10 poorer!). There was a friendly dog in the guest house who the lady said could come on our walk if we wanted. I didn’t mind but when we opened the gate, the dog ran out and that was that. We had a dog now. Paulo named him Luca and off we went up the hill with various street dogs following us/Luca. Once we got up the hill high enough, the other dogs went back to the village. We past a line of goats, including baby ones which were very cute, and we stopped to look down over the valley. I filled my water bottle in a nearby stream with leeches on the rocks – eeeeep!

We made a few stops on the way to admire the view, including a stop overlooking Russia’S Mt Elbrus and a closed for summer ski resort, but eventually, we made it to Adishi, where we would spend the night. We walked down the valley and noticed many stone towers in the village. Apparently, they were for making sure they had no Russian invaders!! There was a man waiting for us at the edge of the village who had clearly seen us coming down the mountain. He offered us his guest house and we accepted having already negotiated the price. They welcomed us and even Luca the dog onto their veranda and we drank black tea with fresh mint while they prepared us dinner. After I had showered, dinner was ready. We had kachapuri made fresh with homemade cheese they had made with milk from their cows and soup with noodles, Georgian bread, tomato and cucumber salad and spiced beef kebab. At some point in dinner, a different man within the family had gone out to find Luca right outside the door and had shooed him away. After dinner, we had another tea before I headed to bed. We both tried to look for Luca but to no avail. He had not eaten and we were worried about him!! We had saved some kachapuri for him so hopefully, he would show up!

6/6/22

Adishi to Iprari

Today was the peak day of the trip, the highlight of the trek – not that we knew since we hadn’t really researched it too much, we thought it was going to be a chilled low level river walk. How wrong we were!!

After breakfast, we were getting ready to leave when our host asked if we were carrying on to Ushguli, which we were. He said he could organise a horse for us to cross the river on since it was too high and far too strong to cross on foot. I had heard something about crossing a melting glacier at the right time else it was impossible and figured this was it. The melting glacier must feed the river. We agreed to the horses, thanked him and told him we will pay the money to the man with the horse. As we left the guest house, we were trying to look for Luca again. We found him at the very edge of the village, waiting for us under cover of a barn. He howled and jumped on both of us when he saw us. He was so tall and strong when he was on his hind legs, nearly toppled over with my rucksack on! We were relieved to see him. We fed him kachapuri and off we went.

We walked along the main river, but also over many streams until we saw a meadow of wild flowers with insaaaaane mountains in the back as well as rough snow. It looked soooo beautiful. Next to the meadow was the gushing river with the horses waiting. There were already some other hikers there trying to find a way across the river without the horse as they didn’t want to pay the £12.50 for two people for a two minute crossing. We weren’t messing about with a raging river and crossed on horseback right away. Poor Luca was beside himself, barking at us on the horses as he didn’t know how to cross the river. We were worried for him. As Paulo came across on horseback and we were both on the opposite side, Luca started running across the river before getting swept up in its strong current. The river was trying to drown him, and yet he kept ion with his mission to cross half swim/running, half drowning. We were very relieved when Luca arrived to us, a wet, stinky dog on the other side! What a victory!! Eventually the hikers followed on horseback. We stopped to chat with an Israeli couple who were drinking coffee riverside – they had their own coffee stove with them – and then we continued on, upwards. I drank some water and noticed that a leech s mincing around inside my water bottle – how delightful! We reached an insaaane viewpoint of the rough snowy area between mountains which was apparently Adishi Glacier, as the Israelis later told us when they came up. They had binoculars and let us look at the glacier and its waterfalls up close with them. Then we carried on.

As we continued up the mountain, it started getting snowy, first in patches and then whole streaks. It got to a point that the path became narrow with icy snow underfoot and a steep drop on the right hand side. Since it had come on suddenly, we were not prepared. It appeared to go on sometime and I was not happy about it. Initially, I thought it was unsafe and we shouldn’t do it. The damn dog kept sitting down in the middle of the icy path and he wouldn’t budge which meant I had to try and climb over him with my biiig rucksack into unknown icy territories. It was at this point that I thought I couldn’t carry on, but Paulo encouraged me. After that, I got in the zone – if Luca could do the raging river, I could do a cliff edge icy glacier, it was all good! I could see a guy scrambling about in front and figured we were all in the same boat. We edged along, with at least one hand holding the snow on the left, cautiously stepping forward, waiting to see if our next step would cause us to be knee deep in snow, as the glacier was slowly melting. Since everything was snowy, you could not see where our mission would end, but at some point we saw people standing about in a circle. They smiled and told us what t was grand where they were. A few minutes later, we joined them. Ohhh, the relief!! We were alive, and we hadn’t required mountain rescue – what a success. As we chatted to the others, the Israeli couple arrived behind us. The larger group left and the Israelis offered us coffee. We accepted – how could we not after such an ordeal?!

The guy took snow and put it into his little pot for the coffee. We got chatting again. The couple, Naomi and Leon, had come to Georgia to get married, since getting married in a non-religious ceremony was not an option in Israel. They had come to do a post-wedding hike before settling into some luxury in a fancy hotel for a few nights before flying home. They had special Israeli coffee, which was an Arabic special, cardamon coffee. It was delicious. After our coffee stop, we thanked our new friends and continued on. No doubt we would see then again later!

Thankfully, we were heading down to pastures green on a regular stoney path. What luxury!! As we got to the bottom of the valley and walked along, we saw many waterfalls – at one point, I could see seven all at the same time! It was insanely pretty!! We stopped and sat awhile to enjoy the views. We crossed more streams and saw some waterfalls where the waterfall flowed under the snow somehow creating a kind of snow cave! We had been hiking a long time and to ensure we got to our final destination happy, we stopped one village before for a drink and some sugar. We ended up with homemade red wine and a Snickers, which fit the bill surprisingly well! Of course, the Israelis were also there and we chatted again, before they left in a taxi to their slice of luxury and we walked to the next village, an hour away.

We arrived, found a guesthouse, Luca had a fight with one of the dogs of the house and then we went in, after the owner broke up the dog fight. The other dogs were put inside and Luca was given a corner of the garden. We rested, showered and waited for dinner. We had a simple dinner with the usual soup, kachapuri and bread and then went to sleep almost straight away.

7/6/22

Iprari to Ushguli

Today was meant to take just over four hours and we hoped that we would be able to get a marshutka back to Mestia, if not all the way back to Zugdidi so that getting to the beach the following day wouldn’t be such a painful journey! To try and achieve this, we had a 6.30am breakfast and a 7am start. We sat by a stove for breakfast, which they used to bake fresh bread. It was very warm!! We collected Luca from his spot in the garden, gave him a Georgian breakfast of kachapuri and bread before we left.

We headed down another valley and passed through a village. Then the path went through a gate which had been locked up. Paulo went over barbed wire and Luca tried to follow and got some fur ripped out he whimpered and backed away. I decided to go over piled up wood and a corrugated iron fallen down fence. Luca followed, unhappy. We reached another village overs the hills only to be barked at aggressively by vicious dogs. Initially it was okay, as they were behind a fence but soon they had jumped the fence and were attacking Luca. Of course Luca fought back. It was terrifying. We retraced our steps prontissimo!! Why are all Georgian dogs so darn big?! No delicate pointysnouts here, no no! All square jaws perfect for attacking! After rerouting via a very nettle veg patch, we avoided the dogs’ house and headed for another part of the village only to be met by the biggest dog I’ve ever seen! It scrambled over a ladder style just to fight Luca, and on the barking, the dogs from the original house also joined in the fight. As soon as the dog came over the style, I ran over it fast as I could and ran into the village. There were two women and an old man with a stick int he lane. I ran towards them. The huge dog returned (afyer struggling back over the style) along with Luca and the others. They were all wild! I’m not proud to say that I hid behind the old man while he wielded his stick at the dogs. He told us that the path we needed was the same direction as the wild dogs which I was not pleased about. He helped us past and waved us in the direction of the path. Once the other dogs had abandoned Luca, of course there was a bull blocking the path we needed. We scrambled up the hill to avoid trying to navigate around a bull. Stress levels were high – would the dogs come for round three, or would the bull decide to chase us?

Once we had crossed a few streams and reached a high meadow, we stopped for a breather and to enjoy the view. Then we continued up and down winding around the side of hills and through woods, looking across to the other side of the valley to see snow-topped mountains. We reached the road and picked up another dog. We had to navigate through a herd of cows that we completely blocking the road. There was also a bull and calves, and now, we had two dogs in tow – ideal!! Our newbie dog behaved impeccably while Luca barked at one of the calves last minute and all of the cows turned to look at us!! Luckily we had already past through them! After the cows, we crossed a small stream over the road where there was a massive dog with a massive head and therefore a massive jaw – his head was bigger than mine!! There was a guy near the dog who waved at us and told us not to worry about the huge beast, but we knew Luca wouldn’t like him. Of course, seconds later, Luca went for him and the man spent his time trying to break the dogs apart with a stick. Luca ran towards us while fighting (as he always does) and I went to hide behind a car! The man held the huge beast while we coaxed Luca away!!

We headed for the next village dreading the thought of the next batch of dogs waiting to pounce. Of course, it didn’t take long for more dogs to jump over fences and follow Luca. Paulo walked with Luca as bait and I stayed a ‘safe’ distance behind with the new, chilled dog. Paulo had a stick and had to beat the floor in front of the wild dogs and Luca. There were at least four dogs in that pack. After escaping through them, we decided to re-route around the final village to avoid surprise dogs! We reached the cute village of Ushguli tired but pleased. We found a marshutka to take us back and requested twenty minutes to sit and eat cake before we left. We went to a small cafe with hugeee cakes and a gorgeous tiny puppy, which even Luca didn’t take a dislike to, before getting in the van and heading for Mestia, leaving Luca in Ushguli, forlorn, watching us drive away.