July 10
Our departure from Tbilisi started very auspiciously. We had another good breakfast at the Renaissance Hotel, although there was no mustard for the sausages, and then by accident we met Ketie our former tour guide, there. She was taking out a group of Dutch tourists and came there to meet them at the hotel. We reviewed our travel plans with her that we had discussed the prior day and she thought that she had made guesthouse reservations for us for the next two nights. That was important since in Georgia we had no Internet service on our phone and telephone calls at $6 per minute. (T-Mobile's world wide plan is not so world wide).
We used the hotel's wifi to get directions out of Tbilisi. I have found that getting out of major cities without getting lost has been a problem for me on the trip after we lost the voice directions from the phone (that service does not extend into the former eastern block and further eastward) Even when we get written directions, the street names are often not marked and even when they are, they, understandably are written in the local language which in Georgia has been hard to decipher and impossible to do so while driving. However, this time we made it out without a misstep, in part because we had been in Tbilisi so many days and had some familiarity with it from walking and prior driving. We drove up on a serpentine road that took us high up into the hills over Tbilisi, affording us a wonderful view of the city. Departing the hotel we filled up the tank, as I anticipated few gasoline stations where we were going. I asked (Georgia is like Oregon and New Jersey, no self service) for 95 grade, regular. We even got started on time, so all seemed well.
We stopped at one point to check directions and then the car would not start. I hoped that it was caused by having sat idle for 5 weeks and jumped started it by rolling down the roadway. We proceeded southwest for about 50 km into the Lower Caucasian mountains and the Samtskhe Javakheti area, a rural and mountainous region. Going up one of the many 10% grades the car started bucking and finally stalled out and died. This time the battery was completely dead. With the assistance of a local driver we got it jump started by rolling backwards. However that only proved to be a temporary solution since after another few km it again stalled out and died.
What to do? We were in a rural, heavily forested area with no internet or phone access. I decided to try to get a ride to the nearest town of any size, Tsalka, which I thought/hoped might have a mechanic. I tried flagging down the infrequent passing motorists. Some passed me by, some stopped but there was complete language disfunction and they declined. Finally using a map and lots of body language one driver agreed to take me to town. Karen stayed with the car. When I arrived at Tsalka my driver just dropped me off. No tourist office in sight so I started going to bank offices hoping I could find an English speaker. At the third bank I got incredibly lucky. Not only was there an English speaker, but a young bank employee, who did not speak much English, agreed to drive back with me with his SUV and some straps to tow the car into town. He drove like a madman up and down the hills and around the potholes. Hooked up our car to his and then began the trip back to town. It was weird and challenging steering my car while being towed. I could not see all the potholes and I had to make sure not to run into the tow car, but also not to brake to hard.
Before we got to town he picked up another person whose car had broken down. When we got close to town he pulled into a mechanic's shop. No one there spoke English so there was a lot of pantomime. The mechanic peered into the engine and revved the carburetor. He seemed to pronounce that there was bad benzine and that the problem was fixed. The car started and I followed the bank employee back into town without a problem. Then they put me on the phone with a mystery someone (I never determined who he was) who spoke English. He told me that while the car was fine, I had to go back to Tbilisi and use the main highway to go to Betumi to get to Turkey since my car could not make it over the mountain passes in the south.
With all the talk about bad benzine, it began to dawn on me that perhaps I had gotten the wrong grade of gasoline in Tbilisi. Again following my tow guy I went to a gas station and filled up with the proper grade of gasoline. I still was not sure what was wrong with the car and nervous that if there was an additional breakdown I would not be so lucky, so I was inclined t return to Tbilisi. However, my tow guy insisted that "problem no" and that we should continue on our journey. So we decided to do that. We thanked our tow guy profusely, but he declined my offer of compensation.
We then headed into an incredibly pretty, but virtually empty region. A few very small, and seemingly poor towns, lots of shepherds and their herds and Lake Paravni, a large inviting lake that strangely seemed devoid of human presence, was mostly all that we saw for over 100 km as we climbed to over 7500 feet. But the car performed without any problem.
Finally we reached Ninotsminda, a large town that was the most southern point in our trip. It is about 20km from the Armenian border. We turned northwest and followed the roaring Mtkvari River along a twisting road through a very scenic valley. There were several monasteries along the way, but we passed on them, given that we had spent time with the car misadventures. After about 60 km we saw a large fortress that dominated the skyline. The Khertvisi Fortress is at the juncture of two rivers and dominates the passageways east to Armenia and south to Turkey. Fortresses have been at this site since the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered this area. The present structure dates back to the 10th century with subsequent additions. It is a massive structure that contains a tunnel down to the river. We hiked to the top accompanied by a dog, our tour guide. Incredibly commanding views of the rivers and valleys. Hard to imagine that the fortress was conquered, but it was several times by Persians, Mongols, various Turks and Russians.
We then drove south into the Vardzia valley along the Paravani River. We saw several cave complexes in the adjacent cliffs, until we came to the main one in Vardzia that looked like a mini Petra. We continued further south as the road deteriorated to the Cottages guesthouse where our tour guide had tried to book us a room. It was a lovely place with extensive vegetable acreage and flower gardens. The eating area was along the river bank and we saw employees harvesting food for dinner. It has grown beyond the 4 cottages listed in the Lonely Planet book and now also has a two-story building that has another score of rooms. Unfortunately, it was full and since we were out of service our tour guide had not been able to reach us to communicate that or an alternative. After several calls by the people at the Cottages with various translations, we were directed back up the valley to the Old Telari Guesthouse.
This turned out to be a wonderful experience. The guesthouse required us to drive off the main road up a steep dirt/rock lane through a village. Lots of kids playing, cows being brought home and adults socializing or playing games. It is a working farm with cows, a trout farm, vegetables and fruit. We had a large room with shared common area and bathrooms, but there were no other guests. There was virtually no English spoken and they seemed to indicate that there was no wifi, but they had a computer in the common room. It was in Georgian and I did not want to try to mess up the settings by getting it into English. A son, one of 5 kids, his wife and child, one of 10 grandchildren, lived there along with the hostess and her one-armed husband. After the husband brought the cows back the wife milked them. She got two large buckets of milk (there was still some left for the calves to drink) and then showed us how she made cheese.
The dinner came entirely from food produced on the farm, including the fish and wine. (I assume that she bought the flour, but she made the bread in the outdoor oven.) We had trout, vegetables, cheese and bread. But I drank the local water and later paid for that. Most of the homes have vineyards and we were served homemade white wine. All very good.
Our departure from Tbilisi started very auspiciously. We had another good breakfast at the Renaissance Hotel, although there was no mustard for the sausages, and then by accident we met Ketie our former tour guide, there. She was taking out a group of Dutch tourists and came there to meet them at the hotel. We reviewed our travel plans with her that we had discussed the prior day and she thought that she had made guesthouse reservations for us for the next two nights. That was important since in Georgia we had no Internet service on our phone and telephone calls at $6 per minute. (T-Mobile's world wide plan is not so world wide).
We used the hotel's wifi to get directions out of Tbilisi. I have found that getting out of major cities without getting lost has been a problem for me on the trip after we lost the voice directions from the phone (that service does not extend into the former eastern block and further eastward) Even when we get written directions, the street names are often not marked and even when they are, they, understandably are written in the local language which in Georgia has been hard to decipher and impossible to do so while driving. However, this time we made it out without a misstep, in part because we had been in Tbilisi so many days and had some familiarity with it from walking and prior driving. We drove up on a serpentine road that took us high up into the hills over Tbilisi, affording us a wonderful view of the city. Departing the hotel we filled up the tank, as I anticipated few gasoline stations where we were going. I asked (Georgia is like Oregon and New Jersey, no self service) for 95 grade, regular. We even got started on time, so all seemed well.
We stopped at one point to check directions and then the car would not start. I hoped that it was caused by having sat idle for 5 weeks and jumped started it by rolling down the roadway. We proceeded southwest for about 50 km into the Lower Caucasian mountains and the Samtskhe Javakheti area, a rural and mountainous region. Going up one of the many 10% grades the car started bucking and finally stalled out and died. This time the battery was completely dead. With the assistance of a local driver we got it jump started by rolling backwards. However that only proved to be a temporary solution since after another few km it again stalled out and died.
What to do? We were in a rural, heavily forested area with no internet or phone access. I decided to try to get a ride to the nearest town of any size, Tsalka, which I thought/hoped might have a mechanic. I tried flagging down the infrequent passing motorists. Some passed me by, some stopped but there was complete language disfunction and they declined. Finally using a map and lots of body language one driver agreed to take me to town. Karen stayed with the car. When I arrived at Tsalka my driver just dropped me off. No tourist office in sight so I started going to bank offices hoping I could find an English speaker. At the third bank I got incredibly lucky. Not only was there an English speaker, but a young bank employee, who did not speak much English, agreed to drive back with me with his SUV and some straps to tow the car into town. He drove like a madman up and down the hills and around the potholes. Hooked up our car to his and then began the trip back to town. It was weird and challenging steering my car while being towed. I could not see all the potholes and I had to make sure not to run into the tow car, but also not to brake to hard.
Before we got to town he picked up another person whose car had broken down. When we got close to town he pulled into a mechanic's shop. No one there spoke English so there was a lot of pantomime. The mechanic peered into the engine and revved the carburetor. He seemed to pronounce that there was bad benzine and that the problem was fixed. The car started and I followed the bank employee back into town without a problem. Then they put me on the phone with a mystery someone (I never determined who he was) who spoke English. He told me that while the car was fine, I had to go back to Tbilisi and use the main highway to go to Betumi to get to Turkey since my car could not make it over the mountain passes in the south.
With all the talk about bad benzine, it began to dawn on me that perhaps I had gotten the wrong grade of gasoline in Tbilisi. Again following my tow guy I went to a gas station and filled up with the proper grade of gasoline. I still was not sure what was wrong with the car and nervous that if there was an additional breakdown I would not be so lucky, so I was inclined t return to Tbilisi. However, my tow guy insisted that "problem no" and that we should continue on our journey. So we decided to do that. We thanked our tow guy profusely, but he declined my offer of compensation.
We then headed into an incredibly pretty, but virtually empty region. A few very small, and seemingly poor towns, lots of shepherds and their herds and Lake Paravni, a large inviting lake that strangely seemed devoid of human presence, was mostly all that we saw for over 100 km as we climbed to over 7500 feet. But the car performed without any problem.
Finally we reached Ninotsminda, a large town that was the most southern point in our trip. It is about 20km from the Armenian border. We turned northwest and followed the roaring Mtkvari River along a twisting road through a very scenic valley. There were several monasteries along the way, but we passed on them, given that we had spent time with the car misadventures. After about 60 km we saw a large fortress that dominated the skyline. The Khertvisi Fortress is at the juncture of two rivers and dominates the passageways east to Armenia and south to Turkey. Fortresses have been at this site since the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered this area. The present structure dates back to the 10th century with subsequent additions. It is a massive structure that contains a tunnel down to the river. We hiked to the top accompanied by a dog, our tour guide. Incredibly commanding views of the rivers and valleys. Hard to imagine that the fortress was conquered, but it was several times by Persians, Mongols, various Turks and Russians.
We then drove south into the Vardzia valley along the Paravani River. We saw several cave complexes in the adjacent cliffs, until we came to the main one in Vardzia that looked like a mini Petra. We continued further south as the road deteriorated to the Cottages guesthouse where our tour guide had tried to book us a room. It was a lovely place with extensive vegetable acreage and flower gardens. The eating area was along the river bank and we saw employees harvesting food for dinner. It has grown beyond the 4 cottages listed in the Lonely Planet book and now also has a two-story building that has another score of rooms. Unfortunately, it was full and since we were out of service our tour guide had not been able to reach us to communicate that or an alternative. After several calls by the people at the Cottages with various translations, we were directed back up the valley to the Old Telari Guesthouse.
This turned out to be a wonderful experience. The guesthouse required us to drive off the main road up a steep dirt/rock lane through a village. Lots of kids playing, cows being brought home and adults socializing or playing games. It is a working farm with cows, a trout farm, vegetables and fruit. We had a large room with shared common area and bathrooms, but there were no other guests. There was virtually no English spoken and they seemed to indicate that there was no wifi, but they had a computer in the common room. It was in Georgian and I did not want to try to mess up the settings by getting it into English. A son, one of 5 kids, his wife and child, one of 10 grandchildren, lived there along with the hostess and her one-armed husband. After the husband brought the cows back the wife milked them. She got two large buckets of milk (there was still some left for the calves to drink) and then showed us how she made cheese.
The dinner came entirely from food produced on the farm, including the fish and wine. (I assume that she bought the flour, but she made the bread in the outdoor oven.) We had trout, vegetables, cheese and bread. But I drank the local water and later paid for that. Most of the homes have vineyards and we were served homemade white wine. All very good.
July 10 definitely sounds as if it was a day completely full of adventure, whether or not you wanted it. I'm sure it was extremely stressful overall but you must have been hugely relieved when things eventually worked out ... and at what sounds like a very lovely guesthouse. Its one of those stories that you should tell whenever you can find someone to listen. You certainly had an off the beaten path experience that day.
ReplyDeleteI'm very pleased that things eventually worked out!