A Week in Magical Svaneti

The idyllic mountain village of Ushguli

Oak leaves

November 5, Tbilisi

A symphony of autumnal tones

There are places that I visit around the world that don't stick in the memory that much after I visit them; Denmark, Uruguay and Saskatchewan spring to mind off the top of my head.  Others are fun, but somehow don't live up to the expectations I created in my mind, like Tunisia or Morocco.  Then there are places that I visit once and spend years thinking about afterwards, hoping to arrange a return visit because I feel there is unfinished business there.  Svaneti, a mountain-girded valley in the far northwestern corner of Georgia, is in this category.

The quintessential Svan structure

I first visited in the summer of 2011, on a bike trip from Tbilisi to Tallinn.  With so many kilometres to cover during summer holidays from school, there was not nearly enough time to spend to get to know the hidden corners of this Caucasian jewel, regarded as the bastion of the purest essence of Georgianness because its remote inaccessibility spared it the not-so-tender attentions lavished on the rest of the country by invaders such as the Arabs, the Seljuks, the Persians, Timur, the Persians and the Russians.  I rolled across the high Zagar Pass and down into Ushguli under grey skies and spitting rain, then rolled onwards to Mestia.  The next day the weather was better, but I had a deadline to meet Terri in Sochi and had no time to linger.  I remembered the views of mighty Mt. Ushba and of the distinctive Svan towers, and cast longing sideways glances at the tributary valleys as I raced past on my bicycle.

Deep burgundy red leaves

For years I had dreamed about returning to Svaneti, enticed by stories of its culture and the wonderful mountain trekking to be done, but there were other adventures to be undertaken, and the dreams remained unfulfilled.  Then in February of this year I signed a contract to teach in an international school in Tbilisi, and I began thinking much more seriously about when and how I would return to Svaneti to do some hiking and to show Terri the sights.

Vibrant fall colours above Mestia

As soon as we arrived in Tbilisi in August, we raced off to Tusheti, the other great mountain wonderland of Georgia, for a week of trekking.  After that, we started the process of looking for a Mitsubishi Delica, the ubiquitous 4x4 minivan that serves as taxis and marshrutkas in regions of the country.  With so many Delicas on the road, we had no idea that it would prove so difficult to buy one for ourselves, but with only a few days left before my fall break, it became clear that we wouldn't have our own wheels and would be travelling by local marshrutka minivans instead.

Terri underneath a Svan tower in Mestia

Early on the morning of Saturday, October 13, we jumped into a taxi with our backpacks and headed off to Tbilisi train station.  The day train to Zugdidi was inexpensive, modern and very comfortable, and the trip across the central mountain barrier of the country and down into the lush plains of ancient Colchis (fabled destination of Jason and his Argonauts, where the Golden Fleece was to be found) was comfortable and scenic.  At Zugdidi station we hopped into a battered Ford Transit minivan and, after much waiting around for passengers, we eventually drove off, past villages lined with walnut orchards and uphill into the first folded creases of the High Caucasus.  We were following the Enguri River and soon found ourselves looking down on the artificially azure waters of a giant hydroelectric reservoir.  The hillsides were cloaked in dense ancient stands of oak and hornbeam, their leaves various pastel shades of orange, yellow and brown in the afternoon sun.  Once past the reservoir, each tributary offered views of tall square-based stone defensive towers up below glaciated pe.  aks.  Eventually we tumbled off the marshrutka in the main square of Mestia, a town that has seen massive investment in tourist infrastructure over the past decade, resulting in a feel not unlike a small French Alpine resort.  We walked to our chosen lodgings, the Keti Pilpani Guesthouse, dropped our bags and then headed into town for a meal.  We picked the most touristy restaurant in the main downtown and ate well, serenaded by a group of the polyphonic folk singers for which Svaneti is famous.

Beautiful late-season wildflowers

Mt. Tetnuldi

Our first full day was spent climbing high up above Mestia town.  The weather, as would be the case all week, was perfect, with cool morning temperatures but bright sunshine and nary a cloud in the sky.  The light on the autumnal foliage was perfect, and it was almost sensory overload to walk through Nature's palette of colours.  It was a brutally steep ascent to a viewpoint just north of, and some 800 metres above, Mestia.  As we neared the top, some of the highest peaks in the High Caucasus hove into view.  Ahead of us to the northwest loomed the steep ramparts of twin-horned Mt. Ushba (4710 m), while behind us the broad pyramid of Mt. Tetnuldi (at 4858 m, it's 50 metres higher than Mont Blanc)  almost obscured the even higher peak of Jangitau (5058 m).  To the south a chain of anonymous 3500-metre peaks sported a heavy white covering of glacial ice caps.  We were on the roof of Europe, with the continent's highest peak, Elbrus (5642 m) just out of sight and out of reach on the Russian side of the international border.  After we caught our breath, we continued uphill for a while towards the Koruldi Lakes, but didn't quite make it, seduced by the perfect picnic spot that we found beside the path.  We ate a lavish picnic, watching Delicas shuttle non-hiking tourists up towards the lakes along a road that looked impossibly steep and narrow and precipitous.

An unusually patterned ladybug

Mighty Mt. Ushba

We walked back down the jeep road, passing a newly-built chalet that wouldn't have been out of place in the Swiss Alps.  It would make an amazing base for hiking, mountain biking or ski touring (although winter access would definitely be a serious issue).  We dropped back into Mestia along a country lane lined by oak trees and stone towers, perfectly content with our day's walking.  We were back in town in time for a matinee showing of the award-winning Georgian feature film Dede, shot entirely on location in Svaneti and with a cast of almost entirely amateur actors plucked from the village of Ushguli.  It was a well-made film, although more than a bit dark.  

The reds of autumn

Monday morning found us in a marshrutka headed towards Ushguli.  The government has been lavishing lots of money on improving roads around the country, and the Ushguli road is no exception.  The climb up to the low Ughviri Pass and down the other side to rejoin the Enguri River (Mestia is located in a tributary valley) was all on newly laid cement.  From that point onward we were in the midst of a muddy construction site for the next ten or fifteen kilometres as the government tries to finish the work before the snow sets in.  The final fifteen kilometres are the same muddy, rutted dirt track that I remember from seven years ago, but the view as you pull into Ushguli is worth it.  We wandered into town, selected a guesthouse from the dozens on offer, then set off to explore the valley.

The view from Ushguli towards Mt. Shkhara

Birch leaves showing yellow against the rhododendron bushes

When I had last been in Ushguli, it was cold and rainy and I had barely even seen its famous towers.  Now the village was bathed in sunshine and the immense rocky ramparts of Mt. Shkhara (5068 m), the highest peak in Georgia, dominated the view to the north.  We pulled on our hiking boots and set off towards the base of the mountain along a valley so gently inclined that a Delica track runs along it.  An hour and a half of quick marching brought us to a point where we could sit and contemplate the source of the Enguri River as it bursts forth from the tongue of the Shkhara Glacier.  Shkhara is a broad, imposing mountain that reminds me of a shorter version of Nanga Parbat.  A half-dozen glaciers drop vertiginously down its steep face, carving deep scars that eventually melt out into pristine mountain streams.  We sat atop a glacial erratic and had a late lunch, contemplating the immense mountain architecture around us, before turning back towards Ushguli.

An autumnal morning in Ushguli

Back in town we wandered around the streets, photographing Svan towers and looking at the outsides of St. George's Chapel and the Lamaria Church, both in improbably grand settings with Shkhara as a huge white backdrop.  As we were returning to our lodgings, we ran into Mose, the eight-year-old child star of Dede, perched precariously over the saddle of a horse.  He was trying in vain to adjust the girth of the saddle, and couldn't quite reach, so Terri gave him a hand.  He gave a quick smile of thanks, then cantered off down the main street.  I thought that having a taste for fast horses was probably healthier than some of the lifestyle choices of Hollywood child actors.

The unbeatable backdrop of the Lamaria Church

That evening we had company in our guesthouse in the form of a Dutch couple, Harry and Roelie, in the midst of a round-the-world cycle tour.  We devoured a typically voluminous Georgian supper while swapping cycling stories and tips for sightseeing.  Harry commented that while on a 3-month bicycle trip the previous year along the Great Divide Trail in North America, they had experienced an epiphany:  they were just as happy living out of 4 panniers as they were living in a flat with three bathrooms and a closet full of tailored business suits in Eindhoven, so they decided on a radical downsizing of their lives.  I thought of all the happy months that I have spent in the same situation and was happy for them.

The bells of the Lamaria Church in Ushguli with Shkhara behind

Tuesday was spent in a state of pleasant sloth, ambling around the streets of Ushguli.  We found the Lamaria Church open and peeked inside.  Its tiny interior still boasts the remnants of medieval frescoes, and has a peaceful, contemplative air that captured my imagination.  I find the atmosphere inside the intimate confines of a typical Georgian or Armenian church to be more conducive to contemplating the infinite than the Pharaonic scale of Western European Gothic cathedrals.  The small dark interior also contrasts vividly with the blazing reflected sunshine and epic scale of Shkhara behind.  Both the Lamaria Church (dedicated now to the Virgin Mary) and the Jraag (St. George) Chapel nearby are repurposed pagan shrines.  Lamaria seems to have been dedicated in pre-Christian times to the Svan sun god Lile (or Lileo), whom many scholars seem to identify with the Sumerian sun god Enlil.  Jraag seems to be the Christian reincarnation of the pagan Svan moon deity, probably associated with the Mesopotamian moon god Sin, whose temple I visited near Harran in Turkey back in 2009 on my Silk Road Ride.  To this day there are strong surviving elements of the indigenous Svan religion overlaying Christianity, and it excites me to think that the ancient Sumerian and Mesopotamian gods live on in some form in this magical out of the way corner of the world, millenia after they died out in their ancestral homelands.

The Lamaria Church in Ushguli, dwarfed by Mt. Shkhara

Terri with Sopho, our new movie star/waitress friend

After saying goodbye to Lamaria, we tried to hike up to another Svan tower high above the town in the middle of an ancient oak forest.  We passed the hilltop tower associated with Queen Tamar, the only female ruling monarch of Georgia and the queen at the time of the greatest medieval flourishing of national independence, power and culture.  Our hike led us steeply uphill through some cow pastures but then petered out in a stream bed that got steeper, wetter and more overgrown with rhododendrons.  No sooner had we given up and turned around then a lone bull with a bellicose attitude came ambling down the stream bed, snorting, pawing at the ground and goring bushes with his horns.  Terri, who has prior history with ill-behaved bulls, hid in the forest along with me until the bull stopped staring at us malevolently and began heading downhill.  We set off quickly on a different downhill trajectory and calmed our nerves with a lunch and a beer in the Cafe Enguri.  As it turned out, our waitress Sopho was another cast member from the film Dede, while one of the patrons drinking chacha at the bar was Nestor, a third cast member.  We sat in the sunshine, soaking up the views, until the attentions of a pack of feral dogs became a bit much, sending us indoors.  There we found a shrine to Dede, with a collection of trophies and awards from film festivals all over the world.  As it turned out, the owner of the cafe is the twin sister of Miriam Khatchvani, the film's director, and the film is shown several times daily on the cafe's video screens.

The trophies amassed by the Svan film Dede, on display in the Cafe-Bar Enguri

The Mulakhi Valley near Zhabeshi

After much fussing about, our return lift to Mestia finally rolled up around 3:45 and we got going at 4:30.  The sun had almost set by the time we got back over the Ughviri Pass and hopped out for the stroll up the Mulakhi Valley.  It was a long walk, but eventually we were offered a lift by a passing pickup truck and were dropped at a huge guesthouse where we got a room and a sizeable meal before tucking ourselves into bed for an early night.

The Gates of Georgia above Zhabeshi

Wednesday saw us up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for a long hike up into the mountains.  It was a comedy of errors when we set off at 10:00 am.  I managed to forget both the paper map and the GPS unit back with our luggage at the hotel, and we both forgot which valley we were supposed to be hiking up.  We got to the start of the Tvibeeri Glacier walk, then convinced ourselves that it was in fact the Tanneri Glacier we should be heading for.  After backtracking into the village of Zhabeshi, we set off upstream again through a stunning autumn-tinted landscape but soon found our path dying out in series of impenetrable rhododendron thickets that had overgrown the disused path.  We retreated again and tried our luck on the Tvibeeri trek again, and took almost half an hour to find the start of the trail.  Eventually we got onto the right path and climbed steeply up towards the impressive narrow gorge known as the Gates of Georgia.  We had a late lunch under the shadow of these impressive cliffs, contemplating the perfect weather and wonderful views, then trudged back down towards our guesthouse to pick up the rest of our luggage.  We retraced our steps back to the main Ushguli-Mestia road, thumbed down a lift almost instantly and zipped the 10 kilometres back to Mestia in a quarter of an hour, past numerous clusters of Svan towers punctuating the copper and gold foliage of the hillsides.

Looking back towards Zhabeshi

Fall dried flowers

From Mestia we kept heading west, hiring a taxi to drive us along the main Zugdidi highway and then up the Becho Valley to the end of the road at Mazeri.  The road was in abysmal condition up the valley, and apparently a week before our arrival angry Becho residents had blocked the road and staged angry protests until the government promised to hurry along a three-year road improvement project that had to date paved less than one kilometre of the eight-kilometre road.  We tumbled out of the taxi, oohed and aahed at the imposing sight of Mt. Ushba dominating the head of the valley in front of us, then made a beeline for the nearest guesthouse.  Luckily it was a wonderful choice, as the Baba Nikolozi is run by the gruff but hospitable Ange with assistance from her vivacious cousin Miranda.  We spent three nights there, and found it the perfect base for our excursions.

The west side of Mt. Ushba seen above its eponymous glacier

Thursday morning saw us up and off in the crisp cool of morning.  Once again it was a bluebird day, and Ushba looked very vertical and hard to climb, meriting its title of the "Matterhorn of the Caucasus).  We walked up the valley, past a series of mineral water springs bubbling to the surface.  For the first time in Svaneti, the main forest patch was composed of pine, spruce and fir, giving the surroundings a very Canadian feel.  We passed a border police post, then began a long steep uphill slog up a rather treacherous scree slope.  We were bound for a point above a series of impressive waterfalls tumbling down the headwall of the valley, and we had to get up the precipitous incline.  A couple of groups of hikers turned back, leaving Terri and me along with a Canadian insurance broker named Shawn.

Becho Waterfalls

Eventually the path levelled off just below the tongue of the Ushba Glacier, leaving us with an unobstructed view of the west face of Ushba.  This is the standard mountaineering route, and it looked pretty daunting to my untrained eye.  We sat down and had a late picnic lunch, soaking up the view both towards the peak and also down the Becho valley to a series of glaciated 3500-metre summits to the south.  The scramble back down was less treacherous than we had feared, and we eventually found ourselves marching back down the banks of the river, getting back at 6 pm after 8 hours on the trail.  Luckily Ange had brewed up an exquisite mushroom soup (the woods are full of tasty fungi rather like Portobellos, and the soup was rich with their earthy flavours), which took the edge off our hard-earned hunger.  We sat around the toasty warmth of the kitchen stove, chatting in English with Miranda and in Russian with Ange, until we could no longer put off the return to our cold bedroom.

Terri with the irrepressible Miranda at our guesthouse in Becho

Moon over Svaneti

On Friday we took it a bit easier and walked to the deserted hamlet of Guri.  On the way we passed the village school where Miranda teaches (and where Ange once taught as well).  Ange had told us the night before that they had once had 15 or 20 children in most grades; now there are only 40 students in the entire school (with a staff of 20 teachers), a symbol of the declining population and birthrate in rural Georgia.  The walk was idyllic, with not another soul to be seen in the valley.  This route can be extended high above Guri and then down to Mestia, via the Koruldi Lakes that we had almost reached on Sunday from the Mestia side.  We sat outside the locked church, eating the immense picnic of bread, cheese, jam and persimmons that Ange had lavished on us, looking out at the colours of fall and feeling immensely at peace with the world.  I felt as though I could gladly have spent weeks in the Becho valley, walking to perfect little spots like this and soaking up the atmosphere.

Glaciated peaks south of the Becho Valley

Ange, Miranda and Terri in Mazeri, in the Becho Valley

After another convivial evening around the wood stove, talking about Georgian history, bemoaning the collapse of the USSR (a common refrain among many Georgians) and eating more mushroom soup, and another slightly chilly night in our room (luckily our comforters were warm), Saturday morning found us saying goodbye to Ange and Miranda with real regret; we felt that we had been welcomed into the bosom of the family.  We shouldered our packs and ambled downhill towards the Zugdidi road.  Along the way we found the perfect Delica van beside the road being washed by its owner.  He said that he was looking to sell it for the reasonable price of US$ 6000; we shook hands on the deal and continued along the way, happy at having found our vehicle at long last.  (Sadly, it was not to be; the owner kept raising the price when we called from Tbilisi, and eventually we gave up and bought another Delica instead.)  We caught a passing marshrutka back to Mestia and spent the afternoon at the Mestia Museum.  It's a surprisingly good collection, lovingly curated and well displayed.  The things that struck me most forcefully about the museum were the strong trade connections between the mountain fastnesses of Svaneti and the Mesopotamian lowlands 4000 years ago, and the wonderful illuminated religious texts preserved in some of the churches of the region.

Gorgeous gold repousse work in Mestia museum

Vivid fall colours

And then, sadly, after a final meal at Cafe Laila and a night back at the Keti Pilpani guesthouse, we were up early on Sunday morning for nine hours of hair-raising driving back to Tbilisi in a marshrutka.  It was a relief to extract ourselves and our luggage from the cramped confines and stagger back into our house late on Sunday afternoon.

It was an unforgettable week, and it could not possibly have had more perfect weather or fall colours.  Terri and I both look forward to returning to Svaneti over Christmas (this time driving our newly acquired expedition van) for skiing in the Tetnuldi resort, ski touring and (we hope) cross-country skiing.  Svaneti was everything I had hoped for, and I expect to be back there more than once before I leave Georgia.  It was definitely worth waiting seven years for!

Below the end of the Ushba Glacier

Celebrating my 50th in the Caucasus

Tbilisi, September 22

The face of 50

Impressive Georgian bubbly for my 50th

So it's over a week after my 50th birthday and I am still in denial that I've entered my sixth decade.  The festivities on September 13th itself were wonderful but slightly subdued since I not only had to teach that day but also attend an evening "Meet the Teachers" night and then teach the next day.  Terri, however, managed to make the entire day a series of celebrations, from a gourmet breakfast to a quick luxury afternoon apero between classes and the evening conferences, and finally a wonderful late dinner featuring luxurious wine, including some Georgian sparkling wine that was outstanding and some of the best brandy that I've ever had.  It was capped off by a fabulous chocolate birthday cake.

Since my birthday was on a Thursday, we had decided that the real celebrations should take place on the following weekend.  The next afternoon we were on our way out of town in a shared taxi bound for Kazbegi (or Stepantsminda, as it's been renamed), the same destination we had had two weeks earlier.  We arrived at 8:15, walked up to Nana and Alex's guesthouse (the same place we had stayed a fortnight before) and in no time Terri had warmed up some of the delicious leftovers from the birthday feast.  We were in bed early, worn out by the previous day's feasting and lack of sleep.

A massive breakfast spread that did us for two subsequent lunches

The plan was to mark my 50th birthday in the mountains, the environment that has meant so much to me over the (numerous) decades of my life.  After a brief morning juggling session and an extensive breakfast buffet that was so large that we ended up carrying away more than half of it for later meals., we were ready to go walking.  We started out with a brisk hike up to the Gergeti Trinity Church, the iconic structure perched 400 metres above Kazbegi.  I hiked up to the church twice back in 2009, but Terri had never been there, and we ended up taking a new route that I hadn't hiked nine years ago.  It was a pleasant hike, leading through the village of Gergeti and then up through meadows and a birch forest that brought me back mentally to my childhood in the Canadian Shield.  A new road has been built recently, and is still under construction in places.  As a result, most of the crowd of tourists up at the church now arrive by 4x4 Delica van, rather than on foot.

Mighty Mt. Kazbek flying its pennant of cloud

Stone carving on Gergeti Trinity Church

The church is one of the most dramatically situated churches I've ever seen.  Dating back to the 14th century, it's high above both Kazbegi and Gergeti, the village on the opposite bank of the river.  It took us about an hour and a half to get there from Nana's, and it was just as dramatic as I had remembered, although the number of tourists (probably ten times what I had experienced back in 2009) did detract somewhat from the serenity of the experience.  The stonework on the walls of the church is superb, as is usually the case on Georgian ecclesiastic architecture.  Most of the tourists were Georgian, kissing the icons and touching their heads reverentially to icons and the doorways, reminiscent of what I saw from Tibetan pilgrims in Lhasa.  There were quite a few Russian tourists as well, with a strong minority of French, Swiss and British represented as well.

Wonderful stonework on Gergeti Trinity

After examining the incense-filled interior of the church, we turned our attention to the scenic backdrop.  The view down to Kazbegi is pretty, but it's the wall of 4000-metre peaks behind the town that is the real draw in this direction.  Turning 180 degrees, however, the view is even more spectacular, with the 5033-metre peak of Mt. Kazbek as the centrepiece.  Terri and I spent a while eyeing up possible ski touring routes and hoping that the new road will be kept open all winter, since then we will be able to ski tour right from the parking lot.   We made our way back downhill along another route down a river gully and got back to Nana's moments before a brief cloudburst.

Hillsides below Mt. Kazbek

After the rain finished, we collected our gear and walked back down to the central square of Kazbegi to catch a lift to Juta.  As before, it cost us 60 lari (about US$ 24) for a 4x4 to drive us the 18 km.  With the improvement of this road, it seems excessively expensive, as any 2-wheel drive car can handle the drive (even a few Ladas that we saw parked in the village), but until we get our own vehicle, we are at the mercy of the driver mafia.  We got to Juta by 2:00, shouldered daypacks and hiked steeply uphill out of Juta, a different route than we followed two weeks previously.  We left the village behind, then passed Zeta Campground and made our way to our destination, Fifth Season.

Relaxing below Mt. Chaukhi at Fifth Season

Fifth Season has an unbeatable location, looking straight up a long valley towards the steep stone ramparts of the Chaukhi Massif.  We had seen the other side of those cliffs two weeks before, when we crossed the Sedzele Pass (by mistake; we had planned to cross the Chaukhi Pass, but got confused) and camped on the Roshka side with a brilliant view of the peaks.  The west face, though, was even more dramatic, really similar in feel to Cerro Fitzroy in Argentina.  We spent the afternoon lounging on beanbags, reading, juggling (for me, anyway) and watching the peaks play peek-a-boo through the clouds.  There were a lot of guests when we arrived, but they drifted away as the shadows grew longer.  As the afternoon wore on, we moved indoors into the restaurant, rather reminiscent of a Swiss Alpine Club hut, and had a delicious dinner.  There were several groups of other guests, and we struck up some interesting conversations before retiring for the night.

Chaukhi

This was where the experience of the Fifth Season lost much of its charm.  One of the groups of guests consisted of about six Georgians who got extraordinarily drunk and were incredibly noisy in their room.  Since the interior walls of the hotel are very thin, this meant that they kept everyone else awake, despite repeated requests for silence.  Finally the staff, who were also trying to sleep, arrived, gave the offenders a prolonged harangue and, eventually, the noise abated slightly.  It was a miserable night, and we awoke very tired and annoyed in the morning.  This is the sort of behaviour that a more proactive hotel staff should have nipped in the bud, but did not.  Given the high price of rooms at the Fifth Season, we expected much more, and were very disappointed.  It would have been a far better idea to eat at the Fifth Season and then retire to a tent quite some distance from the main building.

The ruffled green velvet slopes of the Caucasus

Sunday morning we ate the final remnants of the previous day's breakfast (the hut didn't serve breakfast until 9:00 am, very late for hikers!) and set off for a walk up the valley.  Since we weren't carrying heavy packs, we made rapid progress upstream, arriving at another restaurant beside a tiny mountain lake after an hour, and a climbers' campsite another 15 minutes beyond that.  The scenery was wonderful, with the steep, undulating hillsides carpeted in textured grass on one side (the sunny southern slopes) and low rhododendron bushes on the other side (the shady northern slopes).  There were big glacial erratic boulders scattered here and there like giants' playthings; some of them were clearly used for bouldering near the campsite.

Terri looking tiny in a huge landscape

We turned left and followed the path towards the Chaukhi Pass.  It was a gradual, gentle ascent all the way, and we eventually turned around when we obtained a clear view of the pass itself, a shortish, steep scree slope at the head of the valley.  The terrain was exhilarating, and as had been the case earlier, Terri and I scouted out some potential ski touring lines on the big wide-open slopes; winter will be here soon enough, and we will want to take advantage of the cold, snow and big mountains!

We scampered back down the valley to the hut, picked up our belongings and were headed down towards Juta before noon.  In the village we asked around for transport and ended up sharing a Delica back to Kazbegi with a couple of French university students who were doing internships with the French Embassy in Tbilisi.  Relatively quickly we shoehorned ourselves into a marshrutka and retraced our route back to the capital.  On the way, we noticed a new ski lift being installed on the north side of the Jvari Pass; if it's operational this coming ski season, it will open up a huge amount of new terrain for skiers!

By 4:00 we were back at our house in Dighomi, north Tbilisi, where Lilian and John, a New Zealand couple of self-described "grey nomads" who are friends of Terri had been staying in our absence.  They had cooked up a feast of Iranian-inspired food, very welcome for a couple of hungry hikers.  Lilian and John have travelled to more countries than I have, with their tally standing somewhere in the mid 150s.  They are inspirations to me to keep up my nomadism now that I am officially old!

You can see more pictures of this trip, and our previous jaunt across the Sedzele Pass, here.

Dinner with globetrotting world travellers Lilian and John

Thoughts on Reaching My Half-Century

Tbilisi, September 12, 2018

The spirit of travel:  Western Australia, 1996

Tomorrow I will reach a temporal milestone that once seemed unimaginably distant:  50.  I don't think that I ever agreed with The Who ("Hope I die before I get old"), but I just don't think I imagined that I would reach this milestone of decrepitude while still feeling roughly the same as I did when I was 30.  This blog is mostly about travel, but travel through time is another type of travel, one that all of us, even the most homebodyish, undertakes, so I thought I'd look back briefly on my half-century. 

0-10:  Childhood in Thunder Bay (mostly)

With my mother in Ottawa

I was born in Ottawa late on a Friday the 13th; the woman in labour next door to my mother was trying to keep her baby unborn for another half hour to avoid bad luck, but my mother was just glad to get the entire experience over with.  (My high school friend Katherine was born on the same Friday the 13th, and the hospital in Thunder Bay burned down during her labour, so maybe there's something in the superstition?).  I was the first-born, and my first year was spent living in an apartment at 12 Somerset Avenue West, just across the street from where my mother now lives, 50 years later.

With my doting father, 1968

12 Somerset East

After a year in Ottawa, my father quit his government job in Ottawa and drove himself, my mom and me down to Ames, Iowa to do a PhD in forestry.  I spent 2 years in Ames, and then in 1971 my father took us back to Canada, to a job as a forestry professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, where he would work until his retirement.  I spent the next seven years growing up on the shores of Lake Superior, with one enormously enjoyable interlude in the summer of 1977 when my father taught summer school at the ETH in Zurich and took the family along to explore Switzerland while he worked.

Thunder Bay, early 1970s

Sailing with my cousin Cris on Lake Superior, 1973

Triumphantly riding my first full-sized bicycle

10-20:  Thunder Bay, Morogoro, Waterloo, First Travels

All four siblings together, 1980

First summer playing baseball, 1979

At age 12, I headed off to Morogoro, Tanzania, where my father had taken a 2-year contract teaching forestry at an agricultural university.  I was unhappy to be uprooted from Thunder Bay, but eventually grew to appreciate the incredible wildlife and adventure of life outside the comfortable confines of Canada.  This experience, more than anything else, got me thinking about travel as a way of life.  As well, since I was doing correspondence courses for high school, I had ample free time to read voraciously for 2 years, something that was far more educational than the formal courses I was taking.

Graduating from Hillcrest High School, 1986

I returned to Thunder Bay at age 14 for the final three years of high school.  I attended an excellent high school, with a number of top-quality teachers, and made a plethora of life-long friends.  I played tennis, played Reach For the Top (quiz bowl for high school), took part in mathematics contests and graduated in 1986 eager to study mathematics and physics in university.

Portrait of the traveller as a young graduate, 1986

Reach for the Top team, 1986

My best friend Hans and I headed down to the University of Waterloo in September, 1986 as roommates.  I enjoyed my first year at Waterloo, but burned out a bit in my second year and took a mid-degree gap year.  I spent three months bartending in London and gorging on theatre, musicals and other art in my free time, then spent a month Eurailing around Europe before heading to Budapest to start my Budapest Semester in Mathematics, a truly transformational experience both in terms of travel and in terms of learning.

My first semester in the dorms of West Two, Waterloo

20-30:  Further Studies, Further Travels

Budapest, 1988

My 20th birthday happened in Budapest, and I felt as though those 4 months, in the days before the Iron Curtain fell, were the most intense experience of my life up until then.  I learned a ton of mathematics while feasting on Hungarian food and wine and developing a taste for opera.  I headed back to Canada poorer in monetary terms, but immensely enriched in experience and knowledge, and certain that I wanted to travel a great deal more.

Off to the rink, Christmas 1989

With my sisters, 1990, rocking the big curls

My last 2 years at the University of Waterloo were largely enjoyable, with lots of tennis, beer-brewing, mathematics contests and socializing, and my first-ever bicycle trip (around the Low Countries, France and Germany) in the summer of 1990.  I did well in my courses and assumed naively that any graduate school would be glad to have me.  I applied only to a handful of places, and wasn't accepted anywhere, so I took an extra year off, applied to far more grad schools and then headed to Australia for eight months.

I had a great deal of fun in Australia, especially travelling around with Hans and another friend, Inder.  After a month in New Zealand, I arrived back in Canada penniless and spent my third summer treeplanting to rebuild my finances before heading off to Harvard to study astrophysics in the fall of 1992.

I had assumed for years that I would be a brilliant academic and win a Nobel Prize for decoding the secrets of the universe.  Instead, although I had a wonderful time socially, played a huge amount of tennis and squash, brewed barrels of beer and learned lots of Russian, I was a poor excuse for a graduate student, unable to motivate myself to work hard enough to succeed.  I was already on my way out the door when I got myself onto the game show Jeopardy, won $17,000 and decided that the money would help finance the start of a world travelling career.

July 1994 saw me headed to Egypt and Turkey on my first foray alone out of the Western world.  I had intended to teach English in Prague after that, but instead returned to Canada to earn a bit more money.  I tried my hand at writing code that winter in Ottawa, and it almost killed my soul.  I was rescued by a job offer from Japan to teach English on the JET program, and headed there, via a couple of months in the UK, Spain and East Africa, in July, 1995.

Fuji, 1996

I loved my life in Japan, working not terribly hard during the week and exploring Japan on the weekends, especially the mountains, either on foot or on skis.  After a year, though, I had itchy feet and headed off on a year-long traipse through Southeast Asia, Western Australia and South Asia.  My first view of the Himalayas in Nepal was life-changing, resulting in numerous return trips to High Asia and its high-altitude magic.

Summer of 1997, Thunder Bay

I rounded out my 20s with a year spent cycling around Europe, getting a TEFL certification, working in Toronto and spending a few months working as a bicycle guide in the Netherlands and France.  I spent much of the summer of 1998 on my first long-distance expedition bicycle trip with my sisters and their partners (the XTreme Dorks) across Pakistan, Xinjiang and Tibet, and celebrated my 30th birthday in France in September, back at work as a bicycle guide.

K2 Base Camp, Pakistan, 1997

Entering China over the Khunjerab Pass, 1998

The XTreme Dorks, Lake Manasarovar, 1998

30-40:  Getting Serious About Travel

Palmyra, 1999, long before the ravages of IS

The next decade was fruitful in terms of travel, much of it on bicycles.  I spent the winter of 1998-9 on a long swing through Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, then headed to Chile to teach English.  The Chilean gig didn't pay much and the English school folded, but I had a lot of fun, learned Spanish, skied a lot and then headed back to Japan to earn some money.  I returned to South America for several months of travel, including climbing Aconcagua with the XTreme Dorks, then went back to Japan to refill my coffers.

Family hiking trip to Macchu Pichu, 1999

Bolivia, 2000 with the Xtreme Dorks

With my sisters in Kathmandu, 2001

Nepal, 2001

Silk Road ride start, Xian, 2002

2001 was spent travelling with my girlfriend Joanne, cycling through Southeast Asia.  Eventually Joanne decided that cycling wasn't her thing and I carried on alone across Tibet.  2002 was supposed to be the year I cycled the Silk Road, but I was felled by rheumatic fever in Urumqi, China and had to abandon the plan 

for the time being.

Cross-country skiing, Thunder Bay, 2004

2004, Pamir Highway, Tajikistan

Another reunion with my sisters, Ladakh 2005

Two rather disappointing years followed, one rebuilding my health and strength in Canada and my bank account in Japan, and one spent slogging through a Bachelor of Education degree in Thunder Bay, as I had had my fill of English teaching and needed to engage my brain a bit more.  In 2004 I rode the central third of the Silk Road, from Urumqi to Tehran, and then went to Egypt on my first teaching gig, but lasted only 4 months as the students were too much to handle and I did more zoo-keeping than teaching.  I went back to Japan, my regular financial fallback position, one last time, after being caught up with Joanne in the great Boxing Day tsunami in December 2004.  I spent a year in Japan, with the summer being set aside for a Himalayan cycling trip in India with my sisters, then rode through Vietnam in the summer of 2006.

Mongolia, 2007

Nepal with my mother, 2007

The next three years were spent teaching at Yangon International School in Burma with Joanne.  It was a wonderful time to be there, and I finally got to enjoy the long holidays of the teaching lifestyle, with summers spent cycling in Mongolia and backpacking around Europe, and shorter breaks in the Himalayas, skiing in Japan and diving all over Southeast Asia.  I played tennis most days of the week, playing better than I ever had in my 20s. I welcomed in my 40s at a huge party organized expertly by Joanne at our palatial apartment in Yangon, glad to be where I was.

40-50:  More Travel, and Five Years in the Alps

Made it!  End of the Silk Road ride, Ayas, Turkey, 2009

The last decade started with my last year in Yangon, and then a year of travel.  I finished my Silk Road ride on Halloween 2009 in Turkey, then rode through the chilly Balkans, toured around Italy, Libya and Malta with Joanne, then flew to Ethiopia for some challenging cycling there.  I got back to Canada to find a job offer waiting for me at a school in Leysin, Switzerland at a school that my mother had taught at years before.

Ethiopian highlands, 2010

Terri in Ladakh, 2012

Latvia, 2011

My five years in Leysin were wonderful from the point of view of lifestyle and travel, although teaching at a boarding school eventually proved too intense for me as I burned out, had a nervous breakdown and was off work for 2 months and on reduced hours for another 5.  The rest of the time, though, I skied, ski-toured, hiked, cycled, played tennis and travelled compulsively.  2011 saw me cycling from Tbilisi to Tallinn, 2012 saw Terri (my partner since arriving in Leysin) and I hiking across Ladakh, then my heading to Kyrgyzstan to try to climb some high mountains (Peak Lenin and Muztagh Ata), an experience that made me conclude that mountaineering was not my thing.  2013 was a year for Togo, Benin and Iceland, while 2014 saw me exploring Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

South Georgia, 2015

Wild camping out of Stanley, Botswana, 2016

The past three years, after leaving my job in Leysin in 2015, have been a whirlwind of "pretirement" for Terri and me:  hiking in Europe, a cruise to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica, cycling in South America, a year spent driving around southern Africa in our beloved camper Stanley, and another year spent diving and writing a book on the northeastern corner of Bali, after the death of my father at age 85 in Thunder Bay.  Another spin around Namibia with Stanley, after a tour around New Zealand, and it was time to return to work, this time in Tbilisi, Georgia.  

49th birthday, Bali, 2017

I have to say that I feel relatively youthful at 50, although the onrushing sickle of the Grim Reaper does whistle in my ears occasionally.  My hair is noticeably greyer now, as is my beard, and my physical recovery time from strenuous exercise is enormously longer than it was in my 20s.  I tire more easily, and my memory isn't as razor-sharp as it once was.  But I can still cycle long days, hike over mountain passes and ski tour, so I'm not ready for my rocking chair just yet.  I hope to get another 20 years of active travel in before my body gets too old for this sort of thing, and to get some travel books published.  I'm not sure I'll see out my second half-century, but I am certain that I will have fun trying!

Atsunta Pass, Georgia, 2018