We weren’t planning a lot of things in Georgia. From several car break downs to driving the most dangerous road and the most car killing road. But visiting Svaneti was actually one of those things we planned for a second visit to the country.
I, Milene, really want to go hiking here with my little brother (Morrits, that’s a deal!) so I didn’t want to visit. But as we had some spare time here we decided to explore the area so we would know where to go the next time we will be here. So, we headed to Mestia.
Mestia the capital of Svaneti
Mestia is where all the tourists and hikes get together. It’s a hotspot for tourists and so every house is made into a guesthouse and many new hotels are being built. Which means, we did some grocery shopping and left. We stayed close by at a wonderful spot right on the middle of nature. The only living things we saw were crickets, birds and cows.
We continued our road to probably the most touristy place of Svaneti; Ushguli.
Upper Svaneti
Though very touristy it is a cute place to visit. Yes, all the houses are made guest houses or cafes, but there are still the famous Svan towers to be seen and with the highest mountain of Georgia as a back drop it can’t be skipped when visiting the area. We didn’t need any guesthouse as our van is our home but we did have some local food. This is where we tasted the famous Kubdar.
Kubdari or Kubed is a Georgian filled bread dish which is particularly a national dish of the Svans. The bread is leavened and allowed to rise. The filling contains chunks of meat, which can be lamb, kid or pork, Georgian spices and onions.
We hiked to the glacier nearby. The hike is easy but nice. The glacier not so much. It’s a bit ugly and seems dirty. Anyway, it was a wonderful hike, took about 5 hours going there and back. The view on the mountains was amazing! And all the flowers and little water streams we had to cross were wonderful. Only at the end we came across a lot of other people. Many actually go by car to a campsite and walk from there to the glacier. We did the whole way which was a lot more fun.
Back in Ushguli we relaxed a bit, met a very beautiful Svan lady and made friends with dogs, what else?!
Mazeri & Mount Ushba
The next day we left again to explore some other mountenous parts of the area and we ended in Mazeri. From here we had a wonderful view on the most famous mountain of Svaneti: Ushba. And wow what a view!
We hiked to a waterfall which many call the highest of Georgia. Well, no one knows how high it actually is. Which we don’t really understand cause it’s not that difficult to find out. But, we continue living with the mystery of this waterfall and the believe that this is the highest one.
The best part of this hike was actually not the waterfall itself – which is great! – but the hike to it. We absolutely love to hike through the forest. Often our hikes take us to beautiful places but most of the hikes are out in the open, not in the forest. There is a lot of deforestation going on in Georgia which really is a pity. So hiking here was amazing. Though we weren’t alone.
Many many other hikers followed us, or we followed them… Well, we went a bit further up the mountain to see the waterfall from up close. There where most people don’t go and it was great. Such a breathtaking view, on the waterfall but also on the valley behind us.
We weren’t done with Svaneti at all. But as I wrote in the beginning of this post, that’s for next time. So, this would be our last hike in the area and our last night. It’s time to get back and maybe cross another border?
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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Sorry! We’ve been a little absent lately. It has good reasons though. We weren’t quiet because it was too hot to type, or too wild to share but our adventures were mainly about fixing the van.
Maybe Alexine had her own version of the Pandemic flue. So from having to change her alternator we went to having to fix the carb. Then while we were driving in these beautiful mountainous area we had to change the spark plugs and after driving to Tusheti we found out the starting engine failed. So we asked our friends from VW Airhouse to send us a big package full with beautiful extra parts.
Impatiently we waited for the package to arrive in Tbilisi. We booked an apartment and had some work done. But the days passed while we heard nothing about our package. After a week in Tbilisi we were craving for nature. So we headed into he parks around Tbilisi. We already made some new friends in Georgia. Some of who own a T3!
Anyway, a couple of days we were surrounded by nothing but nature. Alright and some huge pensioned shepherd dogs! So many dogs here, that we decided to buy dog food to be able to feed them, cause they are very very skinny!
We had the most amazing overnight locations and were able to cook on a campfire which feels very “into the wild”.
After a week in nature we headed back to Tbilisi to work on the van a bit and meet with our friends. The package was still nowhere to be found so we couldn’t really work on the van. Meaning: new plans. We left the city behind and headed towards Signagi and Vashlovani National Park. The lather is a semi desert on the border with Azerbeidzjan. A tiny part of the park is impressive to be honest. The rest is just farmland. And the part that is amazing isn’t made for 2×2. Even though Alexine can handle most roads, this one wasn’t hers to handle.
Thus we stranded in front of a steep hill. Not because it was too steep for her but because the engine felt it didn’t get enough gasoline. Too much dust in the engine?
We got a tow from fellow travellers who got us out of the mess of Vashlovani. We drove back to Tbilisi but not before visiting Lamara, the last silk weaver of Georgia.
She showed us around and we got to see the silkworm! Pretty great. In Venice we bought a silk book, here we bought a silk face mask.
Our package arrived and when in Tbilisi we immediately started fixing Alexine.
So we checked the valves, changed the battery (which we cooked in Vashlovani), had the window fixed, cleaned the carb, cleaned the spark plugs, changed the VC joints, bought new good oil, changed starting engine, changed the oil sensor, installed a new filter, took care of rusty bits due to annoying stones and checked her timing. Two days and we are finally on the road again.
That brings me to today. We take Alexine for a spin. Hopefully tomorrow we will be having a small road trip with the other T3 guys which will be fun. Up to now she feels fine but to be honest, we have some trust issues now. Every strange sound we hear makes us scared. Especially me, Milene, because I adjusted the valves, which is a very critical thing. Too tight is a disaster, too wide is a disaster and I’m not the one for the perfect timing. Perfection has never been in my vocabulary, i just hope I’ve got the valves to nearly perfect.
Georgia is a great country, but full with Soviet cars, not Germans. So any problem on our van and we are kinda screwed.
Locals say it isn’t possible, they call us crazy, look at us with doubt. Call us crazy but we have believe in the power of Alexine. We have no doubt whatsoever that she can manage to climb up a pass, located at 2900 mtrs, also known as one of the most dangerous roads of Georgia. Or the world for that matter.
Still, all this didn’t scare us. Sometimes we feel fearless, and so does the van. Because we had to skip one of the most beautiful parts of Georgia (Svaneti) we thought this would be a good second.
Late, was the hour on which we arrived at the bottom of the pass. We decided to drive up for a while and find a nice camping place. Little did we know that we just passed the last possible camping spot before the pass. And so, steady, slowly but strongly we drove up.
Little sharp stones everywhere, hairpin corners all around and steep steep climbs. We have no 4×4, but we have the engine in the back and that helps a lot. The beginning of the pass is a lovely, rocky, ride next to the river through a beautiful forest.
Something to note; this pass is open only 4 months a year and in these 4 months it happens often that people die driving the road. The locals call it ‘inexperienced driving’, but however experienced you are this is a pass you shouldn’t mess with.
Once we’re out of the forest and leave the treeline behind us the road gets less rocky but more dangerous. There are bumps in the road so deep a mini would fit in it entirely. Other than that one has to drive through many water streams coming from falls of which some are quite deep. On the one side there are the steep rocks of which some have rollen off and located themselves in the middle of the road. On the other side is the deep ascend. When I write deep, I mean deeeeeeep. Some corners are quite narrow and incredibly steep. Alexine manages, but just.
At 8PM we arrived at the top of the pass, it took us about two hours to get here. That’s two hours for 25km’s. You can imagine how quick it goes. But, we made it to the top, at last. Because we moved quite late in the day we didn’t have a lot of oncoming traffic. There are some places to pass but there is not too much space, so we are happy we didn’t have to pass a truck or anything else big enough to make us drive backwards.
We slept at the top of the pass. A lot of wind and rain at night, but other than that a good relaxing stay. The next morning we were welcomed by a shepherd, who looked astonished. Not at us but at the van.
Today we would go down a bit, feeling quite confident we hit the road early and managed without too much difficulty. Alexine is quite high on her wheels which is definitely helpful at some of the deep holes in the road. We pass some motorbikers, some hikers but most we pass tourists in 4×4 minivans, all have the same astonishing look on their faces as the shepherd. The people in the villages here mostly live from tourism, they all have minivans with which they pick up tourists on the other side of the pass and bring them here to one of their guesthouses. Some tourists rent a car themselves but most go by minivan and have a great hike in the valley.
We will tell more about Tusheti National Park in another post. This post is all about the incredible road to and out of this somewhat remote area of Georgia.
Cause, we were in Tusheti now. Very nice, but will we get out? And more important: will we get out without any damage?
Fast forward; the way back!
We slept at the rangers station right before the pass to go back. At 9 in the morning we decided to hit the road. Not much of a road, more like a path, a rocky pathway through the mountains. The way up from the Tusheti side is a lot shorter, also a lot steeper? We would find out. Going down is of course very different from going up.
Some of the corners on this side were so steep and were covered with big stones in the middle of the road that one time Alexine couldn’t make it and we needed to back up a little. Luckily at some of the corners they made space to back up and try it again. But that was about it. She did well and it almost looked easy. From far away. From the drone, maybe. It wasn’t, we can tell you that.
At the top of the Abano pass we had a break and enjoyed the scenery. The hardest part is behind us, right? Then it was time for the descent. Not very eventful. Alexine did what she had to do, although she doesn’t really like to go down in gear 1 or 2, or any gear at all, and she struggled a little bit. Struggled in the sense of; turning off her engine and sputtering. But other than that, it went quite easy. There was a lot more traffic now then on the way up but nothing that we couldn’t pass or handle. After half way we decided to check out the medical water of Georgia as Alexine deserved a rest and our muscles as well. We stopped at a little house on the cliff and drank home made brandy and chacha (a local drink, quite strong and not recommended when one drives the most dangerous road, but well, it calms the nerves) and had some pears. We checked out the baths, which were quite nice actually. Refreshing and with a very beautiful view.
Fresh and delighted we started the last part of the trip down. The road is worse on this side and some moments we feared for the wellbeing of Alexine and her tires. But, after one hour we arrived at the bottom of the mountain alive and well. High five time.
So, we made it! A Volkswagen T2 can actually drive over the Abano Pass, one of the most dangerous roads, for us definitely the most dangerous one we ever drove. A friend of us said that we are probably the first Volkswagen T2 in Tusheti National Park. Wow, wouldn’t that be amazing? Alexine being the first T2 to cross the pass. I’m sure the name giver Alexine would be proud of her. An explorer by heart & engine!
Freedom can only be found in the mountains, as the Georgians say. So, after a couple of days in Tbilisi, getting Alexine fixed and some work done, it was time to head to the mountains again. Everyone tells us Svaneti is amazing, but that’s on the other side of Georgia so we decided to head where all of Tbilisi is heading in the weekends: Kazbegi.
It’s only a two hour drive from Tbilisi. What to see in Kazbegi? Well, there is the Trinity Church, probably the most famous church of Georgia. And that says something as we’re sure there are thousands of churches here.
On the way to the Trinity Church we stopped at the Georgian & Russian friendship monument. Not such a great monument but the views are spectacular. Lots of tourists here go parapenting or horse back riding. We didn’t do any of that but just had a look before we continued our journey.
Maffia monks
At the Trinity Church it was too crowded for our taste so we parked the van and had a walk through the mountains. Best idea ever! The hiking path we took wasn’t really a path, more like a trail made by cows and horses. It brought us all around the mountain and so we had the best view on the trinity church. The church itself isn’t so spectacular, it’s especially the backdrop. The mountains surrounding the church are just breathtaking. Truly astonishing.
We slept the night with a great view on the mountain. Strangely, at night the monks are apparently working as cars drive on and off to the gates of the church.
Earlier on we where told about the dubious activities of the monks in the country. The word ‘maffia’ was even mentioned. We couldn’t really believe it until we were sleeping right next to the monastery and witnessed all the strange nightly activities there. Our suspicion only got strengthened when we saw monks on the news participating in the anti LHBTI riots in Tbilisi last weekend. Monks with double agenda’s perhaps?
Of course we will never know what goes on behind those closed church doors. However, everything that goes through our minds and is written down here is subject for debate. For our own safety we will not elaborate any further on the matter…
So, early in the morning, when most tourists are still sleeping, we walked over to the church and had a look around. Inside and outside not too impressive but again, with the mountains surrounding it, it feels very majestic.
We soon hit the road to drive almost to the border with Russia to have a small but nice hike to a waterfall. Afterwards we drove to Juta, here we wanted to have a hike the next day. A proper hike, which we definitely had.
Hiking the Chaukhi pass
Early in the morning we started the hike. We were thinking of hiking to a lake, only 1.5 hours hike, but as we missed the lake and got closer to the Chaukhi pass we decided that it would be nice to reach the pass. The pass is at 3.200 metres high and the trail to it is amazing!! The mountains surrounding us, the flowers in the field, the little river we hiked alongside. The only downside were the many many insects, but alright, we take it. So we had to climb a lot to reach the pass but as the view got more and more beautiful it wasn’t a bad thing. The higher you get the more mountain tops you see, until you are on top of the pass and it truly feels like you’re on top of the world.
After a while enjoying the view we headed back down. Going down is a lot easier than going up but it’s a lot heavier for the body. So, we didn’t go too quick and not too slow either. We had a nice speed and half way down took a detour as walking the same way back isn’t that much fun right? Good choice! The route was so great, from stones to flower fields, to river crossings and grass lands. All that with views on the magnificent mountainside which reminds us of the Dolomites. On our way back we even found the little lake, which to us felt manmade but we’re not sure. Not the most interesting place, so we were very very happy to have done the long hike.
Back in Juta, after 6 hours of hiking, we jumped into the ice cold river next to the van. So refreshing, so nice. We get more and more used to this lifestyle. Taking a bath wherever you can, however cold it is.
No more rolling for Alexine
We didn’t want to stay in Juta so we continued our road. Not for too long though because Alexine didn’t want to continue. She stopped. Apparently we had to change the spark plugs every 5.000km and we’ve driven almost 15.000km now so yeah, they needed to be changed. Luckily we met a very nice guy at the gasoline station who knew someone who works on old cars. He came in the evening, changed the spark plugs, checked some other things and Alexine was running again.
We learn so much on the road, not only about ourselves or the countries we drive through but also about the van. And up to now we’ve been lucky with the people we met who helped us fix her. On our own it would still be quite difficult.
Hi there! We are Milene & Yuri. We are travelling the world together since 2015. Our endless curiosity and will to explore has resulted in many cool, and somewhat extreme, adventures. On MYgrations you'll read all about our adventures, you'll find lots of information about the countries we visit you won't find anywhere else and more. Enjoy!
We’re also grammin’
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