I thought I had overcome the obstacles others had failed to conquer. The challenge had come and gone. I let out a sigh of relief and relaxed my guard upon a successful climax of the hike and relished in the accomplishment.
One Hundred Ks to Shatili: Part 1
A rag tag militia of Mitsubishi Delicas awaited my arrival to the small in-between town of Alvani. I assume the assembled mass of drivers would generally prey upon two travelers who make their way to the main intersection, but seeing as Abi and I had already paired up with our 4x4-van hybrid nobody bothered to leave the comfort of shade. I was surprised to see the aforementioned vehicle in such quantity here as a friend back home had recently told me it was becoming quite popular to convert these 90’s Japanese rovers into overland travel vehicles. If they are in short supply back in the U.S. it’s because they have all ended up in Georgia. For two hours I waited at the intersection with my driver and hordes of others, all of whom were praying today was the day visitors arrive, no one wanted to miss opening weekend. I was headed into the Caucasus Mountains, to the region of Tusheti, and this high altitude range has a very short tourism window. Mid-June - mid-September pretty much sums it up but a big snow season on either side can shorten that spread. The drivers, all eager to fill a car for the five hour ride, don’t want to miss a chance at what can be a relatively nice payday by local standards. I should have taken it as a warning sign that no other visitors ever came; eventually my car departed.
Georgia (not the state)
A bit after midnight an old, yet seemingly sky worthy Wizz Air craft bounced onto the tarmac at Kutaisi international airport. The plane offloaded via a hand pushed rolling staircase. It was a short, unsupervised walk over to a small door reading ‘customs’ in English below a long string of unrecognizable characters. There were no formal lines so the mass of people piled into a tiny hall where two customs agents rapidly stamped passports with no regard for what kind of document was handed to them. Georgia’s government is all about tourism these days, and their eagerness to let outsiders in was obvious. Bags arrived promptly on the lone carousel. Before even checking if the airport had WiFi I was in and an armed police officer strapping well-worn soviet firepower was happy to watch Abi and I bobble around the unfamiliar language, eventually setting us up with a taxi. I had no idea, not even a preconceived notion, about what I would see outside the airport. The road was dark so first impressions included nothing more than a straight road ahead and the occasional dim, fluorescently lit, petrol station.