While I look at the stars with my back warming up from the campfire we just made I feel small. I feel like an ant discovering the world, small but strong. Small because the world is just a tiny planet in this huge universe. Strong because most of those stars are unliveable and we made it work on this planet.

We feel so much alive during this trip. Camping in the wildest of places – well, as wild as our van can go. We cook on campfires, wash ourselves in tiny streams, rivers or lakes and use a secret spot behind the bush to do our business.

It’s funny that city life never made us feel this much alive, even though we absolutely love the buzz of cities. Nature is where we humans belong, we feel that. Nowadays we feel strange in cities, as if we don’t belong in these concrete jungles anymore. They are too crowded to our taste. Everything is just too much, the traffic, the people, the sounds, the smells, the colours.

We are happiest while camping where we hear nothing but the wind through the trees, the birds tweeting and a river crashing into some rocks. We feel at home with grass below our feet, stars above our heads and surrounded by trees and mountains.

That’s why we are only in Tbilisi if we have to. And Alexine – loving the good roads of the city – makes us return there more often than we like. But then we return to nature as soon as we can. Finding the most wonderful spots, often only sharing it with some dogs. Sometimes with locals having a bbq.

Maybe it’s the never ending sound of humanity that make us crave for the sound of birds so much. Maybe it’s the flats of the city that make us need forests in our lives. Maybe it’s the screens we so often stare at that make us want to see mountains again. Maybe it’s the city we know so well that we feel so free in nature.

Roadtrip

Cities are good to meet people and make friends though. And so we did. With these friends, owning Volkswagen T3’s we had a short but amazing Roadtrip. The planet is so diverse yet so similar. We drove through the mist finding ourselves in what’s known as the Lake District of Georgia. The weather, the views, the roads – it did feel like we found ourselves back into Western Europe. We visited the Georgian birthplace of Christianity, the chocolate making nuns and one of the oldest castles of Georgia. We drove through the mist into the sun, were almost blown from a cliff and were blinded by a big rainstorm. We had a van breakdown, were helped by locals and visited an old slave market.

In the end we had diner in a very luxuries restaurant, got ourselves a doggie bag and slept at the foot of the famous Cave city Vardzia.

The next morning we climbed the stairs of this cave city, explored the secret tunnels and had a sound check in one of the dark rooms. We left for Borjomi, where we drank a glass of ‘smelly’ water that made Stalin deranged. True story.

And after two days, 300 kilometers and countless enjoyable moments we said goodbye to our friends and headed into the wild again.

Into the concrete wild

While heading North to Svaneti, we made a quick stop in Skaltubo. It’s a small town but very interesting. It once was a vibrant spa resort city, but since the fall of the Soviet Union it became an urbex jungle. If cities are called concrete jungle, I’m sure this is called the concrete wild. A city where, just like Chernobyl, nature has taken over. Or back I guess. The baths where once thousands of Russians came to relax are now home to bushes and dogs. The sanatoriums where the Russians came to regenerate and get better are now in decay. Stairs without steps, windows without glass, walls without roof. For explorers like us this is a feast.

The displaced people from Abkhazia

Even more so because we found out that there are actual people living here. It’s definitely not suitable for living but the people living here have no choice. They are internally displaced people, also; Abkhazians, forced to flee from their home due to the civil war between Abkhazians wanting to be part of Georgia and Abkhazians wanting to be part of Russia. The war started on the 14th of August 1992 and ended 16 months later. The people were given a temporarily home. Thirty years later they are still living there.

So while we venture through this lost city like some urbex explorers, these people actually live in these buildings ready for demolition.

More hot springs

We continued our trip to the hot springs cause we needed a hot shower. Well Yuri needed it. Ok, a hot waterfall, who can resist?

The next day we moved our butt to the mountains of Svaneti. We felt like Bilbo in Lord of the Rings, happy to see mountains again. And that, people, is the end of this story. We are exploring the mountains and our climbing altitude limits the coming days in this most famous area of Georgia. Now, luckily, with a lot less tourists!

Love, Milene & Yuri

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