A Roadtrip through Western Georgia

Tbilisi, January 7

Tomorrow it's back to work after three weeks of Christmas vacation, so now is a good time to draw a curtain on our adventures in western Georgia, also known as Colchis, the Land of the Golden Fleece from Greek mythology.  The wind here in Dighomi is howling, so it's a good afternoon to sit indoors and type up this account of our road trip in Douglas the Delica.

A First Attempt at Goderdzi

On Friday, December 21st we rolled out of Tbilisi after a couple of lazy days recovering from our ski trip to Gudauri.  We rolled west all day, through increasing rain, along a modern double-lane expressway, then on a single-lane road clogged with slow trucks over the low pass (the Rikoti, now with a tunnel under it) that separates eastern Georgia (Kartli, or Iveria) from western Georgia (Kolkheti, or Colchis).  We kept going towards the coast, thus entering new territory for both of us, as on our previous trip we had diverted north towards Zugdidi and Svaneti.  This time our destination was the Black Sea coast and the resort town of Batumi, where half of Georgia seems to migrate in August.  In December it's dead, making for cheap deals on hotel rooms.  We stayed the night in a fancy apartment in the Orbi Residence, a towering concrete structure close to the shore.

View over the Lesser Caucasus from Sataplia

The following day we drove inland from Batumi into the small, mountainous region of Ajara, the only area of Georgia with a Muslim majority (thanks to the long Ottoman occupation of this part of the country.)  The road was new and paved for the first 30 km, then winding and potholed, and then turned to dirt and mud, making the entire 100 kilometre drive take more than three hours.  Our destination was the newish, small ski resort of Goderdzi, located near the Goderdzi pass which connects Ajara with the town of Akhaltskikhe to the east.  That road is closed in the winter, making our route from Tbilisi much more circuitous than it would have been in the summer.

We hadn't been able to get in touch with anyone from Goderdzi to find out if it had opened yet for the season.  We knew that this winter had been unusually snow-free, and Bakuriani hadn't opened yet, but Goderdzi is touted as the "Japan of Georgia" for its abundant fluffy powder, so we took a chance and drove up on a reconnaissance trip.  As we got up to 1700 metres, the elevation of the bottom of the lifts, we realized that there was far too little snow, and it was far too warm, for the ski resort to be open yet.  We talked briefly with some of the workers, who assured us that come December 28th, the lifts would start running.  We had lunch and contemplated our options.  There might have been enough snow to skin up and ski down, but it looked thin and rocky, and we were both on fairly new skis, so we decided that patience was the better part of valour and turned back downhill, vowing to return before the end of my holidays.

Birdwatching in Poti

Terri in the ruins of Gonio

The drive back down was just as slow and miserably muddy as the drive up, but our Delica's 4x4 handled everything well.  When we got down to Batumi, it was mid-afternoon, giving us time to visit a place that has been on my mental radar for years, the Roman/Byzantine/Ottoman fort at Gonio, just south of Batumi on the way to the nearby Turkish border.  It's a big place, with high walls (mostly dating from the Ottoman period) enclosing a 200 by 200 metre square.  There's not much left to see inside, but it was pleasant to walk up on the walls, gazing out at the surrounding citrus orchards, and to poke around the small site museum.  Gonio (or Apsaros, to give it its Greek name) is located at the mouth of the Chorokhi River, which flows down from the highlands of modern Turkey and which would have been a main trade route into the interior.  The legend of Jason and the Argonauts plays a role in the mythology of Gonio, as does the legend that the Apostle Matthew was buried somewhere inside the fortress walls.  

There was still plenty of light left in the sky when we finished up at Gonio and we decided to put some kilometres behind us and continue north along the coast to the town of Poti.  We booked a holiday apartment on booking.com and headed north into the darkness.  It took a while to find the apartment in the dark, and the grim crumbling Soviet exterior and stairwell were supremely unpromising, but the apartment proved to be lovely, with a view out over the water and a well-equipped kitchen in which Terri whipped up a delicious repast.

Me on the beach at Poti

We had chosen Poti as a place to spend the night because we knew that it was surrounded by a protected wetland area rich in birdlife; the parents of one of my students in Tbilisi are ornithologists, heavily involved in bird conservation, and had talked up the area to me.  Terri and I are not true "twitchers", but we have derived a great deal of pleasure from birding in places like Ladakh, Iceland, Antarctica and (especially) southern Africa, and we were curious what we would see in Poti.  

It was a fun morning; we walked out to the Black Sea coast, past an inland lagoon, and then along the beach.  We then drove over to Lake Paliostomi, the large lagoon just inland, and had a poke around there.  Both places were rewarding, even if it was the off-season and even though we didn't hire a boat to head out towards the uninhabited eastern shore of the lake.  We spotted well over a dozen species, from smews (a largely white duck that summers in Siberia, and a new species for us) through crakes, coots, herons and crested grebes, culminating in beautiful kingfishers and stately Dalmatian pelicans.  It was good to spend time scanning the shore or the air with our binoculars, trying to pick out new species.  It was also a good day to see the snow-capped ridges of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus floating ethereally above the waters of the lake.

The mountains of Svaneti loom over Lake Paliostomi

A Return to Svaneti

Winter wonderland in Mestia

All good things must come to an end, and we drove off mid-afternoon bound for Svaneti, where we had been two months earlier.  It was an easy drive, through the coastal lowlands, through the city of Zugdidi and then up the Enguri River.  We were anticipating a white winter wonderland in Mestia, but there was very little snow in the town when we arrived, dampening our excitement about skiing.  We took a room at Nino Ratiani's guesthouse, where I had stayed on my bike trip in the summer of 2011, and settled in for some skiing.

On the lift at Tetnuldi

We drove up to Tetnuldi, the big new ski resort located about 20 kilometres from Mestia, on December 24th and 25th.  It was an exhilarating drive, over snowy roads and up steep inclines, our 4x4 and new snow tires proving their worth by effortlessly handling conditions that stymied other vehicles.  Tetnuldi is high-altitude (from about 2200 to 3100 metres above sea level) and offers access to plenty of off-piste powder.  The gain in altitude from Mestia meant that there was much more snow on the ground, although most of it had been skied out.  We had two fun days exploring the runs and finding a few lines of untracked powder, and my new telemark skis proved their worth, effortless floating through the powder.  On the 25th it began to snow and visibility dropped dramatically, particularly as most of the resort is well above the tree line, providing no visual help in a whiteout.  Back at Nino's we built a tiny snowman in honour of Christmas (Western Christmas, that is; the Orthodox world runs on the Julian calendar and celebrates on January 7th instead).  

Terri's first-ever snowman

Tetnuldi

On the 26th it began to snow heavily and we took the day off, convinced that we wouldn't see anything, and reports from a Ukrainian group staying at Nino's confirmed that there was no visibility at all at Tetnuldi.  On the 27th it was still dumping snow, we drove over to Hatsvali, a tiny ski resort directly above Mestia and skied there, enjoying plenty of new powder and the visibility provided by abundant trees lining the runs.  Our enjoyment was marred, however, by Terri being knocked over getting off a chair by our seatmate and her glasses being broken, leaving her largely blind for much of the day.

At Hatsvali with our rather mud-spattered Delica

Snowy forest at Hatsvali

Bluebird pow day at Tetnuldi

Finally on the 28th we got the day we had been waiting for:  perfectly clear blue skies, dazzling sunshine and Tetnuldi full of freshly fallen powder.  We drove over early and were first in line for the chairlift.  We skied off the chair at the top full of purpose, and found an entire mountain blanketed in deep, fluffy, perfect powder.  That first run, flying through the snow, contrails of billowing white smoke streaming from our skis, was unforgettable.  We skied hard for hours, slowly working our way outwards from those first runs, whooping with delight at the sheer joy of graceful movement and the illusion of floating.  It was perfect, and by the time we took a late lunch, our legs were just about finished from the effort of skiing so much deep snow.

Beautiful mountains seen from Tetnuldi

At lunch we chatted with a couple of Swedish skiers whom we had met over the previous couple of days on the slopes, as well as the mother of one of my students from Tbilisi.  As we stood up to go to the car and drive home, I somehow managed to lose the ignition key for the car.  We didn't have a spare key, and so we couldn't get into the car, and couldn't drive it.  To make matters worse, I had left the lights on in my hurry to get out and ski the lovely snow in the morning.  We searched everywhere, but eventually gave up and hitched a lift back to town. 

To make matters more annoying, we had packed up all our possessions that morning to move out of Nino's guesthouse, as she had prior reservations that completely booked out her rooms.  We walked over to our new lodgings with only our skis and our skiing daypacks, only to find the power out.  It was a cold, somewhat miserable evening, but at least our host made some phone calls and arranged a rescue mission for our car.

Replacing our ignition system

The next morning a vehicle drove up to our new guesthouse, with a skilled car ignition specialist and a driver inside.  We drove to a non-descript Soviet-era apartment complex and bought a second-hand car ignition system from a wrecked Delica, then drove up to Tetnuldi.  The driver had brought a long, thin metal rod with him and, having pried the driver's side door slightly ajar at the corner, slid the rod in and popped open the lock.  Then Andrei, the ignition man, set to work.  Within an hour and a half, he had replaced the entire ignition system, and after jump-starting the car with our booster cables from our driver's vehicle, we were good to go.  Our car was completely frozen, we couldn't lock it and we didn't dare turn off the engine until the battery had recharged, but at least we could drive.  The best part was that everything (the car and driver, the work by Andrei and the purchase of the ignition system) cost us less than US$ 130.  We drove back down the mountain and over to the Becho Valley, where we had hiked in October and where we wanted to do a ski tour the next day, then drove back to Mestia and our guesthouse (where the power had mercifully returned).  We spent an enjoyable evening chatting with another group of Ukrainian snowboarders, twenty-somethings from Yalta who had left Crimea after the Russian takeover in 2014.

Ski touring up the Becho Valley

Our last day in Svaneti was wonderful.  We packed up our gear and drove back to the Becho Valley, where we drove to the foot of the Guli Valley, put on our skis and skins, and climbed up to the Guli Church, where we had hiked in October.  The scenery was magnificent, as the morning ice mist dissipated and left us with wonderful views of iconic Mt. Ushba and the glistening of millions of snow crystals in the crisp winter sunshine.  We headed uphill a bit further from the church and I climbed up a bit above Terri to try to get some decent turns in.  The snow wasn't bottomless and the underlying terrain was rough, but I managed a reasonable descent.  The rest of the way back down the valley to the car was pretty much just following the up track, but the scenery was ample compensation for the lack of quality downhill action.  We got back to the car with broad grins on our faces, glad to be alive and outdoors on such a beautiful day.

A Goderdzi New Year

From our ski tour we drove back down into the lowlands, reaching Zugdidi in the dark in time to be caught in enormous traffic jams in this small city.  We eventually reached the Green House guesthouse, by far the most genteel accommodation of our trip, and settled in for some well-earned rest.

New Year's Eve in Goderdzi

The following day was a long day of driving.  We poked around Zugdidi for a bit, buying food and wine and trying to visit a museum that was closed for the New Year's holidays.  We finally headed out of town at noon, retracing our path of a week before, through Poti and along the coast to Batumi, then uphill to Goderdzi again.  This time the drive was muddy at the bottom and snowy and frozen at the top.  The last twenty kilometres were a bit hair-raising, with icy roads making the potholes more treacherous, especially with steep dropoffs on the side.  It was dark when we finally reached Danisparauli, the tiny hamlet just downhill from the ski lifts.  We knew from our reconnaissance the week before that there were twenty or so tiny guesthouses there, but we weren't prepared for the fact that they all seemed to be full.  Luckily a guesthouse owner took it upon himself to phone around the entire village looking for a place for us, and eventually we found ourselves welcomed into the Iveria Guesthouse.  It was New Year's Eve, and we found ourselves welcomed into the bosom of the extended family that was celebrating downstairs in the kitchen.  It was yet another example of Georgian hospitality, and was a wonderful experience, although we were in bed long before midnight, worn out by skiing and driving.

On the wall of our Goderdzi homestay

The guesthouse was bitterly cold when we awoke in the morning and Terri never got warm as we dressed, ate and headed up to go skiing.  She was desperately chilly, and the howling winds buffeting the mountain did nothing to make her feel warmer.  We did one run, and then I left Terri indoors at the bottom of the hill while I went for a few runs.  There was definitely a lot more snow than there had been on our last visit, but it was hardly Japan-style bottomless powder.  Raking winds had pummeled the snow, making for a bleak landscape of cardboard crust.  I jumped off for a few powder turns here and there, but it was hardly a touring paradise as I had hoped.  Eventually Terri returned to the mountain, warmed by her indoor sojourn, and we did a number of runs before calling it a day and having a late lunch at the foot of the hill.  Georgian tourists, late-arising after the New Year's festivities, many of them having driven up from Batumi, were swarming the lower slopes of the mountain as we left, and driving back down to our guesthouse was alarming as we had to stay out of the way of two-wheel-drive cars with bald summer tires and no snow chains fishtailing madly up the rutted road.

Goderdzi looking cold and forboding

After another frigid night in our guesthouse, Terri decided that she couldn't spend a third night in the cold, so we packed up, paid up and headed back up for our second and last day of skiing.  The wind had strengthened overnight and the mountain looked bleak.  Terri bailed out on the idea of ski touring, leaving me to do a few runs on the piste before heading off to do a short ski tour.  The wind slabs on the snow made me cautious, especially as I was on my own, so I headed up through a summer village for herders and up the middle of a gentle valley.  I could see interesting-looking descent lines on either side, but as I had set off a tiny slab avalanche on my way into the village, I kept to the gentle incline and wide-open slopes of the valley.  I reached the top in an hour and peered over to see a wonderland of rounded peaks stretching off into the distance in the west.  Luckily there was a shepherd's hut at the top, providing welcome shelter from the searching wind as I took off my skins and got ready to descend.  The snow was surprisingly good and provided plenty of good telemark turns on the descent.  I skinned up and across to rejoin the pistes, and found Terri ensconsed at the bottom of the mountain, glad to be out of the wind.  We packed up and were on our way by 3:00.

An exploratory ski tour in Goderdzi

Overall Goderdzi was a bit of a disappointment.  Since it's so close to the Black Sea, it gets more snow than anywhere else in the country, but the constant winds scour the ridges and turn the snow into unpleasant slabby cardboard.  The accommodation, while adequate, is cold.  Until a hotel or apartment complex opens at the base of the lifts (both are under construction), it will be a bit of a hardship spot in terms of midwinter lodging.

Exploring the Colchis Lowlands

Medical waste on the beach at Paliostomi Lake

The drive back downhill was long, tedious and unpleasant.  There were more ill-prepared cars than ever trying to make their way up the road, which had been churned into sheets of ice by fruitlessly spinning summer tires.  It took forever to get through Danisparauli because of the narrow roads, lack of passing spots and the number of cars coming uphill.  It was a relief when we finally got onto pavement again 30 kilometres (and an hour and a half) downhill from Goderdzi.  From there we followed a familiar route back to Batumi and Poti, where we stayed for two nights in the same apartment as before.  The birdwatching was good, and we had a delightfully lazy morning watching the sun rise over the Black Sea, 12 hours after a full moon had risen in the same spot.  The only blight on our happiness was the sheer quantity of rubbish that was everywhere along the shore of Lake Paliostomi, including a huge quantity of medical waste from the local hospital, including syringes and intravenous tubing, that had been dumped beside the lake.  Georgia has a serious issue with trash disposal, and this was an unpleasant reminder of that fact.

Sunset over Poti

Prometheus Cave

Our last stop on our way back to Tbilisi was Kutaisi.  I had visited Georgia's second-largest city in 2011 on my bike trip, but hadn't really taken the time to explore much.  This time we stopped in at two caves, the Prometheus Cave and Sataplia, and found them to be wonderful.  Prometheus is a long cave system, and we were underground for a good hour, oohing and aahing at the stalactites and columns, lit up in different colours.  Sataplia's cave was smaller but still pretty, but the real attractions were the dinosaur footprints nearby and the primeval oak-hornbeam forest surrounding everything.  Kutaisi is the centre of ancient Colchis, where Jason and his Argonauts came searching for the Golden Fleece, and the forest felt as though it was unchanged from Jason's time three millenia ago.  In keeping with this theme, our guesthouse was called the Argonaut, and our delightful hostess told us stories of ancient myths, including the connections between Georgia and Sumeria and the story that the Holy Grail ended up in Georgia, where the drops of Jesus' blood that it captured fertilized the finest grapes in the country.

Dinosaur footprints at Sataplia

Gelati churches

Our final day on the road saw us visit two very different monasteries and an ancient archaeological site.  We started off with Gelati Monastery, built up by David the Builder, Georgia's most accomplished medieval king, as a centre of royal prestige, religious power and secular learning.  His tomb lies beneath one of the monastery gates so that everyone entering could step on him and remember him (a strange mix of humility and egotism).  I loved the churches as well as his Academy, and spent a long time trying to capture details of roofs and stonework on my tiny ski camera.  The beautiful frescoes and stunning mosaic of the Virgin Mary are some of the best medieval art to be found anywhere in Georgia.

At Gelati

Magnificent mosaic at Gelati

Motsameta Monastery

We drove from there to Motsameta, a much smaller and more isolated monastery perched high above a forbidding gorge.  The monastery marks the spot where two brothers were martyred by Arab invaders in the eighth century and tossed into the gorge.  The surrounding forest and limestone cliffs are in some ways more impressive than the recently rebuilt structures, and it was wonderful to stand looking out into the void contemplating the long history of this area.

On the final stretch into Tbilisi that afternoon we stopped briefly at a small archaeological dig near Gori called Graklianis Gora.  It's not yet fully ready for tourists, but we were happy to poke around the muddy hillside, looking at shattered potsherds and the remnants of Zoroastrian temples from Georgia's pre-Christian, pre-Roman past.  

Shattered wine qvevris at Graklianis Hill

And then it was all over, with a final 45-minute drive through frenetic traffic back to our house in northern Tbilisi, happy with the exploration we had done in western Georgia in our 2300-kilometre, 15-day odyssey (or should that be argossey?).  There is so much to see in this country, but we are finally starting to make inroads into it.


PS  Although I started this post nearly two weeks ago, I only ended up finishing it now, in Bakuriani, the fifth and last Georgian ski resort that we have visited.  I will have to have another blog post soon on our weekend ski trips out of Tbilisi!

Our first weekend warrior expedition, from Juta to Roshka

An Ansel Adamsesque photo of Chaukhi

The impossibly contorted green felt of the high Caucasus

Tbilisi, September 3, 2018

Nana and Terri on Saturday morning

It's Monday evening after a wonderful weekend spent hiking in the Caucasus.  On Friday afternoon, Terri and I caught a shared taxi from Didube station to Stepantsminda, formerly known as Kazbegi, the tourism epicentre for hiking in Georgia's mountains.  It cost us 20 GEL each (about US $8) and we got there relatively quickly, in about two and a half hours, including two fuel stops and a tourism stop at Ananuri fortress.  By 8:00 we were standing in the rain in Stepantsminda, trying to figure out where the bed-and-breakfast joint we had booked on Booking.com was.  Eventually we called, and Nana and Alex came to pick us up.  It was a lovely, welcoming, big room, and after an overpriced but tasty dinner in town at a new restaurant, we slept the sleep of the dead.

Insect life in the wildflowers

Camberwell Beauty butterfly beside the trail

Saturday morning we awoke at 7:30 to Nana's tap on the door, bearing the first of a succession of trays groaning with a lavish breakfast spread.  We fed ourselves silly, made lunch from the rest of the feast and then shouldered our packs and walked down to the main square to find a lift to Juta village.  Within a few seconds we had a lift for 60 GEL and were zipping back south along the Georgian Military Highway, then east up the Sno Valley on a newly-improved gravel road.  By 10:00, we were in the village of Juta, a rapidly-developing tourist village, and on our way.  Ironically, although we had a new technological toy (a Garmin 64s handheld GPS) and a new paper hiking map, we left town in the wrong direction.  We had planned to climb the Chaukhi Pass, but we ended up heading towards the Sadzele Pass instead.

Terri climbing up towards the Sadzele Pass

The skies were grey and threatening, but the scenery and weather slowly improved as we marched upstream, along a newly-constructed dirt road leading to a border patrol post where our passports were checked, just as they were last month in Girevi, Tusheti.  The Georgians are keeping a very close eye on their borders with the rapacious Russian Bear, and border patrol posts are popping up everywhere.  We continued upstream, looking up at a back route up the Chaukhi Pass that requires ropes and mountaineering skills, then climbed steeply to the Sadzele Pass, at 3056 metres some 300 metres lower than the Chaukhi.  As we climbed, a succession of buzzards soared above us, and a huge eagle, possibly a golden eagle, hurtled past at almost ground level like a feathered cruise missile.  The view from the top back the way we had come was curtailed by clouds wreathing the summits towards the Russian republic of Ingushetia, but looking ahead we had clear skies and a view of a beautiful valley scarred by the construction of another new road, this time north into an isolated border area; again, the Georgians seem to be improving the ability of their border guards and troops to move quickly to any border area.

Feeling pleased with myself at the summit of the Sadzele Pass

It was windy and chilly atop the pass, so we didn't linger and descended steeply to the east, with the first two hundred vertical metres being uncomfortably steep and crumbly underfoot.  Eventually we reached the first stream in the valley, via a tortuous series of switchbacks, and had a delicious, long-delayed lunch, lovingly prepared in advance by Terri for easy trailside epicurean delights.  As we munched on khachapuri, ham-cheese-tomato sandwiches topped with slatherings of fresh coriander, boiled eggs and a luxury trail mix, we watched two Georgian cowboys leading four sure-footed horses down the precipitous trail with nonchalant ease.  Terri thinks that Georgian horses are particularly good at handling steep terrain that would ordinarily only be suitable for mules; we were both amazed that one of the cowboys actually rode his mount down the path.

Eventually we resumed our descent and finally decided to pitch our tents at 2340 metres in the Abudelauri valley, where we rejoined the trail from the Chaukhi Pass that we should have been following all along.  We were rewarded with sweeping vistas of the stone spires of the Chaukhi massif as we cooked up another delicious meal (pasta with tomato paste, topped with more cheese, olives and fresh coriander).  We got chilled lying outside on the grass eating and toasting the day with a small amount of Georgian brandy, and were both shivering as we crawled into our trusty Big Agnes tent.

Feeling pleased with life as I brew up some soup on my MSR stove

Not a bad scene to wake up to!

We slept soundly, and woke up to clear skies and 3 degrees Celsius.  The morning sun caught the rock ramparts of Chaukhi, making a striking backdrop to our morning muesli, tea and coffee.  We were walking by 8:40 am, losing altitude gradually as the landscape softened and became lusher, dotted with increasing numbers of wildflowers and full of butterflies, bees, crickets and a host of other insects.  It was impossibly idyllic, especially as the morning sun dispersed the frigid chill of dawn.  We made it into the village of Roshka, perched at 2000 metres and looking as though it would reward a return visit some weekend for some more hiking.  

The characteristic brushed green baize of a Caucasus hillside

We then struck out downhill along a narrow path that had both of us questioning our route-finding a few times (we were reassured by our trusty GPS), across overgrown meadows and down through old growth hardwood forests to the main Shatili-Zhinvali road.  We reached the bottom at 12:15, near a series of beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes, and found a driver waiting beside his Nissan Pathfinder for trekkers like us.  We negotiated a lift to Zhinvali for 80 GEL and sat back to watch the scenery fly by as we took the rutted, potholed road at a higher speed than seemed feasible.  The only thing that slowed down our manic progress was a huge flock of sheep and goats being driven down from the highlands after a summer of blissful grazing, an example of the millenia-old pattern of transhumance that typifies the high mountains from Europe across to Central Asia.  We descended the Pshavis Aragvi River, passing numerous side valleys that all beckoned us to return for more exploration some weekend in the future.  By 2:00 we were squeezing ourselves and our luggage onto a marshrutka bus and careening towards Tbilisi.  We hopped off 300 metres from our front door and were unpacking and hanging our dew-soaked tent out to dry before 3:00 pm, very satisfied with our weekend of exploring a new corner of the Caucasus.

The south wall of Chaukhi, seen from our campsite

Bucolic scenery near Roshka

Terri and I would love to return both to Juta and to Roshka, perhaps to stay indoors and do some day hikes through the spectacular scenery, unencumbered by heavy backpacks.  In two weeks' time, when I will be celebrating my 50th birthday, we might well spend the weekend in Juta, this time climbing partway up the Chaukhi Pass to get a view of the spectacular north wall of the mountain, described as Georgia's answer to Torres del Paine and the Dolomites.  In the meantime, we hope to buy a vehicle this weekend for easier access to the remoter corners of the country; we are hoping to buy a Mitsubishi Delica, a rugged 4x4 minivan that would be a perfect vehicle for camping, carrying skis and bicycles, and handling the rough roads of the Georgian backwoods.  We are hoping to spend most weekends away from Tbilisi, getting to know the wonderful countryside and mountains of this appealing and enchanting country.

An ovine traffic jam on the way out of Roshka

Back In The Saddle: A Quick Bicycle Trip Around Bali

Lipah, May 1, 2018

Dozens of sails along the RollerCoastal

I got back to Bali about ten days before Terri at the beginning of April, and used some of that time to put right something that has been bothering me for months.  I hadn't gone on a bicycle trip in over two years, the longest such gap since 1994-97.  Terri and I rode our bicycles up the Carretera Austral in Chile, and around Paraguay, in 2015-16, and since then I have done lots of travel, but none of it on my trusty Rocky Mountain.  I decided that I should do a short jaunt around the eastern part of the island of Bali, and quickly charted out a 4-day itinerary to hit a few of the highlights that I had so far missed.  On April 8th I loaded up my bicycle very lightly (just two rear panniers, as I was going to be sleeping indoors every night and eating in restaurants) and set off to explore.

Eye candy along the RollerCoastal

Day 1:  April 8.  Lipah-Peneloka          91 km, 2660 vertical metres

The coast east of Lipah is very pretty indeed!

The first day was the hardest ride of the entire trip, with some 2660 vertical metres of climbing in some pretty intense heat.  I started off by riding the RollerCoastal, the back road to Amlapura, the biggest town in Karangasem Regency (in which Lipah is located).  I often ride part of this road as a fun morning outing, but I had never cycled all the way to Amlapura.  My nickname for the route tells you what you need to know about it:  lots of short, steep ups and downs.  The road climbs up and down over a series of sharp ridges coming down from the caldera of the extinct volcano that rises just behind Lipah.  Lempuyang and Seraya are the two highest surviving bits of a mountain that blasted itself to pieces sometime in the dim prehistoric past, but looking on a map you can see that there is a clear outline of what was once a much broader, higher volcanic cone.  It was a hot, challenging ride, with lots of it ridden in my lowest gear.  About two thirds of the way to Amlapura, the road finally became gentler, with better pavement and kinder grades.  It felt amazing to be back in the saddle, headed out for more than a couple of hours of riding.  I had missed the sensation of freedom and exploration that a bicycle tour always brings me.  The views along the RollerCoastal are sensational, with every headland bringing another vista of a black sand beach crowded with fishing boats, with the shimmering azure of the Bali Sea studded with sails beyond.  This stretch of coast has escaped tourist development, and the villages are devoted to fishing as they have been for generations.

Gunung Agung seen from Amlapura

After two and a half hours of tough riding, I got to the big city and had lunch in KFC so that I could use their free wi-fi; my SIM card had been locked by the government, and I was hoping to get it unlocked at the Telkomsel office in town, but I had forgotten that it was Sunday, and the office was closed.  I sat in the air conditioned restaurant, loaded up a Google Map route onto my phone and then set off northwest into the highlands under the fierce midday sun.

Lovely rice terraces on the way to Besakih

I had a wonderful view of Gunung Agung as I rode out of Amlapura.  The volcano has returned to its usual peaceful state after a few months of intense rumbling, shaking and puffing from September to January, and it looked magnificent in an almost cloudless sky.  I rode along the main road for a while until Google Maps directed me off onto a side road.  I am usually a huge fan of side roads, but in this case the side road was a tiny bit shorter by being a lot steeper, with a series of steep ups and downs through the spectacular rice terraces for which Bali is famous.  It was gruelling work, and when I finally re-emerged onto the busy main road, it was actually a bit of a relief to have gentler grades, despite the incessant noise of motorcycles and trucks and the standard Balinese maniacal driving style.  The road led around the western slopes of Gunung Agung, past the turnoff to Besakih, the main temple of the mountain and the starting point for climbing Agung.  I was definitely feeling all that vertical climbing when I finally reached the rim of the Gunung Batur caldera.  It was disappointing to discover that this was not the end of the uphill, as the road undulated, more up than down, for the next several kilometres until I got to the junction at Peneloka.  There a road plunges down to the shores of the lake, Danau Batur.  I was less than keen to lose all that hard-earned elevation, so I took a room at a hotel perched on the caldera rim, hoping for a fabulous sunrise view the next morning; it was already dusk by the time I climbed off my bicycle, legs weary but otherwise feeling pretty good.  A much-needed shower, a big meal and an early night completed the first day.

Day 2:  April 9.  Peneloka-Candikuning          65 km,  1510 vertical metres

Dawn over Batur

I was up in the predawn the next morning after the soul-satisfying deep sleep that comes after a big day of riding.  There was a pretty dawn light show in the eastern sky, but thin cloud led to rather flat, disappointing light on the new cinder cone of Gunung Batur.  I could see the headlights and camera flashes of hordes of trekkers near the summit; Batur is a popular climb for tourists, and has been sewn up by a local guiding association who make it remarkably expensive for a relatively short walk.  I felt no real need to climb the volcano, as there was plenty of exercise ahead, despite it being a significantly shorter and less vertical leg than the day before.  I took a few photos, stretched and juggled a bit to wake up, then climbed onto my bicycle.

Early morning light on Gunung Batur

Festival time

The road continued to climb, albeit fitfully, as I circled the caldera clockwise.  There was a lot of traffic on the road, as this is part of the main north-south route from Denpasar to Singaraja.  Luckily there was a festival at one of the temples along the route which closed the road to all but motorcycles and one lucky cyclists.  After 11 kilometres and some 350 metres of ascent, to just over 1600 metres above sea level, I was happy to turn away from the main road and start descending to the south.  I could see the mountains enclosing the day's destination, another volcanic lake called Danau Bratan, to the west, seemingly close enough to touch, but the jagged gash of a deep gorge means that there is no direct road between the two lakes.  Instead my route led me 25 km south to a crossing point, then another 25 km north again.  The southward leg was all downhill, making for an easy morning.  The scenery was appealing too, across volcanic highlands devoted to plantations of oranges, coffee and marigolds.  I had not breakfasted before leaving, so in the small village of Catur I stopped for a big helping of gado gado, one of my favourite Indonesian dishes, at a small roadside stall.  The woman running the place spoke exceptionally good English, and it turned out that she had worked abroad for over a decade in Turkey, the Maldives and Dubai.  She worked first as a masseuse, then as a massage instructor and supervisor, and had only returned to her native village to care for her aged parents a few months previously.  We chatted about travel, and it turned out that she, like me, is a big fan of Kyrgyzstan.  These sorts of serendipitous encounters with people along the way are one of my favourite aspects of bicycle journeys, and I pedalled off with my belly full and feeling good about being back cycle touring.

A well-travelled restaurateur in Catur

Volcanoes lining up from near Plaga

I lost altitude increasingly rapidly, eventually crossing one deep canyon and climbing into the small town of Plaga before dropping again to the main crossing over the Ayung River.  I was now less than 30 km north of Ubud and the landscape, all rice terraces and pretty ridge-top temples and villages, was very similar to the magical countryside that made Ubud famous (too famous, to judge by the appalling traffic that was choking the place the last time I visited, last September).  Now all that remained was 900 metres of regaining lost elevation.  It was a steep, hard grunt, but much of the way I was on a small side road without any traffic at all, so I had time to look around and appreciate my surroundings.  It was a bit grey and hazy, not so good for views but a welcome relief for a cyclist sweating his way uphill.  About 6 km short of my destination, I joined another major north-south road and resigned myself to more heavy traffic and obnoxious driving behaviour.  I finally got to the village of Candikuning around 1:30, found a cheap hotel, showered and then set off in search of sustenance, both physical and intellectual.

Highland plantations

Marigolds grown in the highlands

The former came in the form of mujair, the fish that is raised in fish farms in both Danau Bratan and Danau Batur; it was pleasant, but the sweet soy-based sauce was a bit strange.  I then wandered up the road to the Bali Botanical Gardens where I hoped to do some birdwatching.  I had read several accounts of birdwatchers who had seen a couple dozen species of highland birds in an afternoon there, but I was either incompetent or unlucky, or both.  I could hear birds calling high overhead in tall trees, but peer as I might through my binoculars, I couldn't spot anything.  It was a complete strikeout in terms of new species; at least I had a pleasant stroll through the gardens.  After a big dinner of nasi goreng, I was in bed early, feeling a bit tired.

Near Danau Bratan

Day 3:  April 10, Candikuning to Lovina        33 km  330 vertical metres

It was a good thing that I was in bed early, as I had not paid enough attention to the religious makeup of Candikuning.  Bali is mostly Hindu, but there are pockets of Muslims here and there, and Candikuning was almost exclusively Muslim.  I was sleeping with my earplugs in (Bali's obsession with roosters, along with its packs of feral dogs, make for noisy nights), but they were no match for the high-decibel call to prayer that shook my hotel at 4:30 am.  I eventually fell asleep again, but I was not a well-rested little cyclist when I crawled out of bed.

Overlooking Danau Buyan

The day's riding was amazingly short and easy.  I rode out of town along the shore of Lake Bratan, then along a level valley leading to two more lakes, Buyan and Tamblingan; all three are nestled under the caldera wall of another extinct volcano.  At Buyan the road climbed steeply up to the rim of the caldera and then continued fairly level, with expansive views of the lakes to the left and the ocean to the right.  I felt suspended in mid-air and it made for wonderful cycling, especially when the main torrent of traffic disappeared downhill towards Singaraja.  Not long afterwards I followed Google Maps down a very steep route to the tourist hotspot of Lovina Beach.  I had 1500 metres to lose over 15 km, an average gradient of 10%, but the first half was surprisingly level.  The second half, however, was precipitous, and my forearms were starting to cramp by the time I got to the bottom.  It was very pretty and there was next to no traffic, and I really enjoyed being so far off the beaten track.  At the bottom I was able to boil water from my bottles on my brake rotors; all that gravitational potential energy that I had gained the day before was converted into heat, a fact that pleased my physics-teaching brain.

I had stayed in Lovina one night back in November during a quick diving trip along the north coast, and I had been surprised at how tatty the village is.  I knew that lots of expats and retirees live in Lovina, and I was hard-put to figure out where.  This trip revealed another side of Lovina in the hills above the coast, where genteel villas have been constructed to catch the mountain breezes.  I stayed closer to the coast, in the cheapest hotel so far; 150,000 rupiah (about US$ 12) bought me a spacious room in a complex with a swimming pool and pleasant gardens.  I went out for a sizeable lunch, then ended up spending much of the afternoon catching up on my beauty sleep, undisturbed by any muezzins.  I went out for dinner that evening overlooking Lovina's rather underwhelming beach and listened to quite a good cover band before retiring to my room.

Danau Buyan

Day Four:  April 11, Lovina to Lipah         90 km, 740 vertical metres

The last day of the trip was a bit of an anticlimax.  After the mountains, climbs, descents and new scenery of the first three days, the final stage was a fairly flat, uneventful trundle along a road that I had travelled twice before in each direction on visa runs (Singaraja is the nearest visa extension office to Lipah).   I stopped in Singaraja and got my SIM card issue resolved, a process that took almost an hour as I was behind a line of Chinese visitors who had also been stymied by the government's obsession with having all SIM cards registered.  After Singaraja I was able to ride fast enough to generate some wind cooling in the heat of the day, and I made good time all the way to Tulamben, site of the USAT Liberty wreck and many more less well-known muck-diving sites that Terri and I have visited many times.  From there the road got a bit hillier, but I was still back in Lipah by 2:30, having taken less than four hours from Singaraja.  I was hungry and a bit sunburnt, but elated at having seen a few more corners of Bali by bicycle.  I can't wait to do more cycle touring (probably just weekend jaunts) when I move to Tbilisi in August!