Meeting strangers while traveling seems a lot easier than meeting strangers in our hometown. Or well maybe meeting them is not the difficult part but becoming friends with strangers is. Not here in Georgia though.
Meeting a stranger on the road
After a couple of days working we drove towards Tbilisi. We are loving Georgia but after five weeks it’s time to move on. Thus, the idea was to drive slowly to Georgia, do some work, get a PCR test done and drive to Armenia on Wednesday. Our plans always change and so did this one.
While on the road a big blue Raptor stopped next to us, kids waving to us and that went on for a couple of minutes. Then he asked us where we were going (we were in a traffic jam) and he took us to a shorter detour cause it was busy. Then he told us his daughter want to invite us for a cup of coffee. Of course we were doubting a bit cause we’ve always learned to not go with strangers, but the kids looked very innocent. 45 minutes later and we are sitting in a cafe on the side of the road with a table full of food. Georgian coffee is never just a coffee.
Levan and his kids happened to be such kind and hospitable people. They invited us to check out their village. Which we did the next day.
Food, quads & a bridge
The next day we arrived in Garigula. Immediately we got food, drank wine and got to meet part of the family. What a big family! So, the family is huge – about 150 people. Not all of them living in this village anymore (many moved abroad as well) but every summer they come back to the village and be together. We met many uncles, aunts and the boss of the family. Grandmother showed us around and told us stories from a long time ago. Apparently this family is descendent from a nobleman, they call him King, but we are not sure. Lost in translation sometimes.
After a while we got onto some quads and got a trip to an old bridge; the King Queen Tamar bridge. A beautiful bridge that we’ve also seen in parts of the Balkan. On the quad we had to cross rivers and had the most beautiful views. Although we couldn’t really watch the view too much cause the road wasn’t made for relaxation.
We got back, had dinner (and wine), met more family members and in the end slept way past our bedtime. But it was super fun! We got invited to Nikolas (the son) birthday on Wednesday, so we’ll get to see how Georgians celebrate birthdays.
Back to Tbilisi
For not being our favorite city on earth we do spend a lot of time here. This time we needed to get back to Tbilisi to get a PCR test done. It’s so hot here that we stayed inside the hotel most of the time. Which isn’t that bad cause we paid for it anyway. So we did just that; relaxing, watching movies, working, figuring out our next steps, doing research, editing photos, writing blogs, relaxing, eating and waiting for the test results of our PCR test, which we get later today.
Let’s hope its negative cause if it’s not we have to go in quarantine and cannot cross the border into Armenia for the next two weeks. We do feel very healthy though and have no symptoms so it should be fine. Still, we have some time to kill which we are doing in the coolness of the hotel, then we’ll buy a present for the birthday boy and get ourselves ready for a Georgian birthday party with a lot of people. We’re sure that after today we will be hiding in the woods again to get some peace and quiet and maybe no internet for a few days.
We are planning on crossing into Armenia on Friday! So probably the next blog will be from there.
Love, Milene & Yuri