2020 Vision: Blurry

 December 18, 2020

Ordinarily, this is one of my favourite blog posts of the year, as I look back on the year that is finishing, remembering the journeys that have enlivened this lap of the sun.  This year, however, has been different.  The Year of Coronavirus has destroyed lives and livelihoods and completely changed the way that so many of us live,  In the greater scheme of things, my own losses have been pretty mild:  no illness, no enforced unemployment, friends and family untouched by illness.  However the plans that Terri and I had laid so elaborately have been laid waste by the effects of covid-19 on international travel, so this year's post will be shorter and less full of the joy of wanderlust than usual.

Saakje, my mother, myself and Henkka in Panama

Terri and I near Boquete

2020 began, as usual, with travel; Terri and I spent nearly three weeks exploring Panama and having a Christmas rendezvous with my mother, my sister Saakje and her partner Henkka.  It was a fun trip, with lots of nature and beaches and plenty of pina coladas on Bastimentos Island.  I'm very glad that Terri and I were able to see my mother, as we had planned a full family get-together for the summer of 2020 to mark her 80th birthday, and that obviously didn't happen, so at least we got to spend time with her before covid closed down travel.  We enjoyed Panama, but if I were to go back, I think I would spend more time birdwatching in the jungle and less time on the beach.

On the way home to Tbilisi, Terri and I stopped off in Qatar for one night, just long enough to visit the wondrous Museum of Islamic Art and to eat fabulous Indian food.  It's hard to believe that less than 12 months ago this sort of flying visit was easy to do!

Once back in Tbilisi, the year began to go downhill.  There was, for a second year running, almost no snow in the mountains of eastern Georgia.  We tried to go skiing one weekend, and ski touring the next, but there was so little snow that it wasn't worth it.  That made for a less amusing winter than we had hoped.  We got out of town for a couple of weekend trips to look for castles, or to go hiking, but without skiing, winter in Georgia can be a bit grim.  Instead, we began to plan in earnest for our summer and fall of travel, once my teaching contract was over:  a month in Iran and Armenia, another month in Canada, a third in Bali, and then to Cape Town mid-September to resume our explorations in our beloved camper Stanley.  There were carnets to buy, routes to choose, visas to research, and all the homework that comes before a prolonged expedition.

Terri and I at Gergeti Church:  not much snow!

Greg and I shivering on the Javakheti plateau

In early March, my friend Greg came for a brief visit at the same time that Terri flew off to New Zealand to visit her family.  Italy was starting to close down, but we didn't imagine that Terri would never be able to return to Tbilisi.  We did some exploring, and even played tennis outdoors in unseasonably warm spring weather.  Luckily Greg got out and back home to Japan just before travel ceased.  Terri's 5 weeks in New Zealand stretched to 5 months, as Georgia sealed its borders to incoming foreigners, and regularly scheduled flights stopped entirely.  I settled in for a few months of remote teaching.

Spring brings our backyard cherry blossoms to life

I can't really complain about being stuck in Georgia until mid-August.  While I was there, covid case numbers were among the lowest in the world, and apart from a two-week period with no car traffic (wonderful for cycling!), much of the city functioned as normal.  I ate well, went for bike rides and hikes and runs in the hills and played a lot of piano.  The only thing that was sub-ideal was teaching online, which I found an appalling waste of everyone's time, and frustrating as well, especially given my poor internet connection.

The view down to the Mtkvari River above Mtskheta

Katskhi pillar church near Chiatura

Lovely Lost World campsite near Tkibuli

In mid-June I finished the teaching year and with it my two-year contract.  I still couldn't leave the country as flights were non-existent, so I went off for a two-week bicycle tour around the country, filling in a few blanks on my map of Georgia.  It was good for body and soul, and at the beginning of July I returned to Tbilisi refreshed and ready to figure out how to be reunited with Terri.  It was a challenge:  she couldn't return to Georgia as the borders were closed, I couldn't go to New Zealand for the same reason, she couldn't come to Canada, and I couldn't leave Georgia until flights resumed.  I busied myself selling the contents of our house and packing things into seven suitcases, two ski bags and a bicycle box.  It was hotter than Hades in the city, and I found myself listless and unproductive, especially once I had sold my piano.  I got out from time to time on short road trips or bicycle loops, but not as much as I should have.

Kartsakhi Lake, on the Georgian-Turkish border

Hiking near Abudelauri Lakes near Roshka

Caucasus scenery above Roshka, on the road to Akhieli

Eventually Terri and I figured out that we could be reunited in Europe, as I have an EU passport and she has a Swiss passport.  Flights resumed in early August, and I bought a ticket for August 13th to Geneva.  My school kindly let me stay on in my house until the beginning of August, when I had to vacate to make room for my successor.  I packed up the house, stored my mountains of luggage at a colleague's house for a week, and drove up to Kazbegi for a farewell to the Caucasus.  A few days of hiking and exploring remote mountain roads made for an excellent finale to two years in Georgia.  On August 13th I headed to the airport with 8 bags (I had had to send one ski bag and the bike box by air freight), left my beloved van Douglas the Delica for my successor, who had agreed to buy it, and flew to Geneva for a reunion with Terri, whom I hadn't seen in over five months.

Farewell to the Caucasus:  Gergeti Trinity Church above Kazbegi

Leysin reunion with my sister Audie and her daughters

We spent two weeks in our old haunt of Leysin, helping pack up Terri's life for shipping a huge volume of possessions to New Zealand and buying a car, a Skoda Octavia station wagon that proved to be perfect for us.  We met up with my other sister Audie and her family, and stayed with Terri's friend Julie-Ann.  We got out for a few hikes and bicycle rides on the old familiar roads and passes around Leysin.  At the end  of August, we drove south into France for six weeks.  Saakje and Henkka have a house in Guillestre, and since they were both in Canada, they let us live there until Henkka came back.  It was a perfect place to catch our breath and to enjoy the best of France:  good food and wine, amazing mountain hiking and some of the best road cycling in the world.  We had a fabulous time, with an eight-day trek around the GR58 hiking trail the highlight.  We got out for our share of day hikes as well, and rode up a number of the local road passes too, although unseasonably early snow put paid to that earlier than we had hoped as the passes closed.

Terri and Julie-Ann hiking near Leysin

Pain de Sucre, a mountain near the Col d'Agnel

Terri and I at the midpoint of the GR58

A campsite with a view, near the Col de Furfande

Mosaic of Emperor Justinian in Ravenna

On October 9th we bid a fond farewell to Guillestre and drove into Italy as covid cases began to climb sharply all over Europe.  We could almost hear the restrictions clanging borders shut behind us as we drove south, meandering through Cremona, Bologna, Ravenna, Rimini, San Marino, Brindisi and Otranto before making our way to Sicily, where we had decided to wait to see what would develop in terms of travel possibilities.  I was waiting for a New Zealand visa, and we had hopes that we might be able to get to Terri's house in Bali.  We spend a few days in Agrigento, hoping to find a cheap place to rent by the month, but we ended up finding a tiny yellow house by the sea in Biscione, on the outskirts of Marsala.  We spent an idyllic month holed up there, eating well, having sundowners on our roof terrace, swimming in the Mediterranean every day, going for runs and bicycle rides along the coast, taking the odd excursion to local archaeological sites, reading and (in my case) studying Italian.  We also started feeding a local street cat and her three adorable kittens, and (briefly) a litter of 6 abandoned puppies.  A week or so after we arrived, we realized that Indonesia was granting "business" visas, and that it made sense to get one of those.  A frantic week of getting documents together and suddenly we had a plan.

Halloween (Almost) Full Moon 

Selinunte

"Our" kittens in Biscione:  Scamp, Ginger and Dio

The last forlorn abandoned puppy

On the beach near Marsala

We were just in time; France went into lockdown not long after we left the country, and Italy's restrictions got more stringent by the week.  We took a ferry from Palermo to Genoa on November 19th, then drove along eerily deserted autostrade to the Swiss border.  A few days lying low, selling our car and getting Terri's possessions sent off to New Zealand, and then we were on the train to Zurich airport.  Flying Qatar Airways to Jakarta was surreal, with airport terminals virtual ghost towns and flights maybe 25% full.  We waved our precious e-visas and negative covid tests around, and suddenly we had been stamped into Indonesia and were catching our connecting flight to Bali.

A male ribbon eel

We've been back in our beloved Lipah Beach for three weeks already, and it's the perfect place to wait out the tail end of a pandemic.  We swim, snorkel or go scuba diving every day, putter around doing home improvements, eat well and watch the world go by from our terrace.  We will probably be here until April at least, at which point (travel restrictions and quarantine permitting) I might go to Canada and Terri to New Zealand before we rendezvous in South Africa to resume Stanley's Travels, one year later than originally planned.

I can't say that it's been a wonderful year, but at least it's ending with Terri and I reunited in a beautiful place.  I have felt really listless and off my game since the pandemic erupted, and I haven't accomplished much with all the time that I've had on my hands.  Having said that, I have managed to get a book which I wrote eighteen years ago into shape for publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing.  I hope to have it out within a couple of months, so please keep an eye out for Pedalling to Kailash, the story of the 1998 XTreme Dorks mountain bike expedition from Islamabad, Pakistan to Lake Manasarovar in western Tibet.  I am excited that modern publishing technology means that self-publishing is easier and (potentially) more profitable than it has historically been, and I hope that many of you, my faithful readers, will soon be able to read the book.  Fingers crossed that it will become a runaway international bestseller (or at least sell more than two dozen copies!).

Bali:  a good place to finish 2020!

I hope that everyone reading this has survived what has been a very unusual and challenging year, and that 2021 goes much, much better, allowing us to thrive and not just survive.  From Lipah, Bali, Terri and I wish each and every one of you a Happy New Year!

A 2018 Retrospective

Tbilisi, December 20

The Earth has almost completed another lap of the sun, Christmas vacation is here and it's time once again to cast an eye back on the year that has just passed.  I like taking the opportunity to catch my breath and remember everything that happened in an eventful year.

Raja Ampat and Maluku

Manta flyby

Village children on Arborek at one of our Science Saturdays

A shadow puppet play about manta ray conservation

2018 began on Arborek Island, a small island in Raja Ampat, an archipelago of small islands off the western tip of New Guinea in far eastern Indonesia.  Terri was working as the project manager for a small group of volunteers, while I put my newly-earned PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor rating to use as an instructor.  Raja Ampat is a beautiful area with some of the best-preserved coral reefs and highest biodiversity anywhere in the tropical Indo-Pacific, and we were lucky to be located next to some of the local hotspots for manta rays.  The diving was fabulous, if a bit challenging thanks to raging currents, and we saw a career's worth of manta rays (both reef mantas, Mobula alfredi, and the much larger oceanic mantas, Mobula birostris).  The work, though, was frustrating, particularly for Terri, and within a week we had decided that we would leave after a month.  The Christmas period was particularly challenging, as many of our local Papuan staff disappeared without warning, leaving us short-staffed.  We also didn't get to do many of the community outreach programs that are a key part of the program, as local schools were closed for the holidays.  It was fun at times, but we were relieved when we finally put ourselves aboard a speedboat back to Waigeo in early January.  

At stunning Pianeymo

Ho-hum, another manta :-)

The crew bids us farewell on our departure

We spent a couple of days birdwatching once we were off Arborek, spotting both the Wilson's and the red birds of paradise in one action-packed morning of hiking with a local guide.  I had seen them before, in the summer of 2014, when I travelled through the region, but it was a first for Terri.  

Click here for more photos from Raja Ampat

Red bird of paradise

Wilson's bird of paradise

                                      

We then stopped off for three days of fabulous muck diving in Ambon, the capital of the province of Maluku.  The weather was awful, as the rainy season was at its height, but we still managed to spot lots of new species of tiny critters, although not the very rare psychadelic frogfish which we had hoped for.  Ambon is a treasure trove of rare species, and I would love to go back the next time I find myself in Indonesia, as well as venturing out to the Banda Islands (the sea was too rough and the weather too poor to contemplate doing that on this trip.)  On January 17th we flew back to Bali, glad to be back in our familiar, comfortable surroundings.

Click here for more photos from Ambon

A beautifully tinted weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa)

Coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) in Ambon

Striped bumblebee shrimp (Gnathophyllum americanum)

Bali

I spent three separate stints in Bali in 2018.  The first was a month in January and February, as the rainy season poured down on the island.  I spent a lot of time indoors, writing, but also ventured out diving now and then.  An American man whom we had met in Ambon, Austin, came to stay for two months in Terri's rental unit and he and I did some great muck diving in Tulamben while Terri was off to New Zealand in advance of me.  We spotted tons of new species of nudibranchs, thanks to the eagle eyes of Komang, our fabulous dive guide, who also gave us excellent photography tips.  I managed to finish the first draft of my book about cycling the Silk Road as well, which was a major accomplishment for me for the year.

Click here for more photos from Bali in January/February

The second stint in Bali happened in April and May, after New Zealand and before Namibia.  Again diving was the order of the day, although I started my stay with a four-day bicycle mini-tour all around Bali.  When Terri got back (a few days after me), we did lots of diving, and I started reworking the first draft of my manuscript.  We had some great days of diving in Tulamben, as well as just across the street in Lipah, where we found tiny Costasiella sp. sapsucking slugs that we had never spotted before; once we knew they were there, we saw them everywhere.

Click here for a blog post about my cycle mini-tour of Bali

Click here for more photos from Bali in April/May

I spent a final two frantic days in Bali in early July, packing up my life after our Namibia trip before heading to Ottawa and on to a new life in Tbilisi; it had been 11 months since I moved to Bali, and they were amazing, life-affirming months that were good for the soul and for my writing.

Lake Buyan

Seahorse

Taringa halgerda

Eubranchus sp.

Thecacera sp.

Ornate ghost pipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus)

Hypselodoris infucata

Paddleflap scorpionfish (Rhinopias eschmeyeri)

Emperor shrimp (Periclimenes imperator) riding atop a Tyrannodoris luteolineata

Maree in Lipah Bay, our local dive spot

Halgerda willeyi

Doto greenamyeri laying eggs

Costasiella sp. sapsucking slug

Carminodoris estrelyado

Discodoris boholiensis

Wunderpus photogenicus, the wunderpus

Chelinodura hirundina

Dasycaris zanzibarica, the Zanzibar whip coral shrimp

Costasiella sp. sapsucking slug

A big gathering of Stylocheilus striatus sea hares

Costasiella kuroshimae, the "Shawn the Sheep" sapsucking slug

New Zealand

Terri is from New Zealand, and as long as we had been together (eight years and counting!) we had been tossing around the idea of visiting New Zealand.  Finally, in February and March of this year, we made it happen.  We restricted ourselves to the North Island, but even so we had difficulty fitting in all the places we wanted to see, and all of Terri's friends and family whom we wanted to meet.  It was eye-wateringly expensive, but well worth it.  We hiked, biked, paddled and drove all over the North Island, seeking out rare native birds, wild beaches and campsites.  We circled the island, up to the Northland, then down south along the east coast and back north along the west coast.  It was great fun, but the best way to follow what we did is to read these blog posts:

The Northland loop

Down the east coast

Up the west coast

For more photos from our NZ travels, click here

While we were hiking along Ninety Mile Beach, I received a job offer from an international school in Tbilisi, Georgia.  Terri and I spent two days talking it over as we hiked, and I decided to accept the job, putting an end to three years of footloose freedom but helping restock depleted financial reserves.

Terri and 4 of her 5 grandkids on the farm near Wellsford

Hiking the Mangawhai Heads trail

Hiking Bream Heads

A lost little blue penguin

Ninety Mile Beach

Kayaking with Gavin and Michelle

Terri's sister's family in Upper Hutt

A takahe, one of the world's most endangered birds

Kakas

A prehistoric looking tuatara

Paddling the Whanganui River

Hiking the Tongariro Crossing

Looking down on the crater lakes of Tongariro

Terri cycling the Timber Trail

Mount Taranaki

Terri and Jess, her friend from Leysin days

Terri and her good friend Ross and Debbie in Hamilton

Namibia

In early May, Terri flew to Zambia to visit her school there, the Olive Tree Learning Centre, and to help out a party of volunteers from Canada and Australia who were spending time there.  We rendezvoused in Johannesburg airport and flew together to Windhoek, Namibia, to pick up our beloved Stanley, who had spent the year in storage there.  We had to move Stanley to South Africa for complicated reasons related to customs duties, and we had been regretting not being able to spend more time in everyone's favourite country in southern Africa back in 2017.  

Our trip through Namibia this time was absolutely fantastic, the culmination of Stanley's Travels.  We had finally worked out the optimum way to camp wild, completely off the grid, and so we did as much of that as we could.  We drove out to Swakopmund, then turned inland to Damaraland, an area we had briefly touched on in 2017.  This time we stopped and camped wild in a fantastic, unpopulated landscape, sparsely inhabited by springbok, gemsbok and giraffe.  Every night we had a campfire under the stars, cooked over the coals and stared up at the stars.  I tried my hand at some astrophotography, and loved learning an entirely new type of photography.  I had found an old macro lens while cleaning out my father's house, and spent a lot of time taking photos of tiny, colourful wildflowers.  The coastal desert of Namibia, too dry to support permanent human habitation, is one of the great outdoor wildlife adventure spots of Africa, free of the pressure of exploding human populations everywhere else on the continent.  Terri and I felt unbelievably free and close to the spirit of the San hunter-gatherers from whom all humans are ultimately descended, between our campsites in the middle of nowhere and our visits to San painting galleries in the middle of nowhere.  Our drive up to the Marienflusse, right on the Angolan border, was the highlight of the trip for me.  One day, in a couple of years' time, we will be back, this time to cross the border and drive north, all the way to Europe, before returning south to South Africa along the east side of Africa.  When we do, we will be ready, after our experiences camping and driving in the middle of absolutely nowhere Namibia.

After the Marienfluss, we returned south, via the wonderful Hoanib River and its legendary desert elephants and a return visit to amazing Etosha National Park, eventually passing south through Windhoek and heading regretfully south, via the epic Fish River Canyon and the lovely Richtersveld, into South Africa.  We left Stanley at a storage place outside Cape Town, ready for his next adventures whenever we leave Georgia.  Africa is definitely in our blood now, and we will be back again and again, between Stanley and the Olive Tree Learning Centre.

We flew out of cold, rainy Cape Town on the last day of June, bound for Bali and new adventures afterwards.  

Click here for photos from Damaraland

Click here for photos from Kaokoland

Click here for photos from Etosha

Click here for photos from south of Windhoek

Click here for photos of Namibian wildflowers

Somehow I seem to have neglected to write a blog post about Namibia; I shall have to remedy this grave omission soon!  Namibia really is one of the great travel destinations on earth, and we loved our time in this astounding country.

Sunset colours on the Brandberg

Half moon

Hartmann's mountain zebras near the Brandberg

Ruppell's korhaans

Another delicious roadside picnic lunch

This is what the road ahead should look like!

Golden grasslands of Damaraland

Wildflower colours

Outback pancakes

The best way to spend an evening:  campfire and starlight

In the shallow waters of the Hoanib River

Giraffes wandering past our campsite

More golden grasslands

Wildflowers

Passing motorists trying to fix Stanley, who wouldn't start

Outback campfire fare in our beloved potjie

Namaqua chameleon

The track along the Marienfluss

Looking across the Cunene River into Angola

Braaing boerwors over a campfire

The Hoanib River flowing through the Khowarib Gorge

Dancing from pure joy in the Khowarib Gorge

One-hour exposure of the night sky near the South Pole

Stanley and the Milky Way

Desert elephant in the Hoanib River

An attempt to capture the Milky Way

Secretarybirds in Etosha

Wisdom

Play-fighting elephants

Finally got the Milky Way!

Black rhino and gembsbok

Me and Stanley on the Etosha Pan

The best astrophoto of the trip!

A Damara dik-dik, an elusive creature spotted at last by Terri

Sunset heron near Etosha

Terri's birthday on the Orange River

Wildflowers in the Richtersveld

Ottawa

I spent most of July in Ottawa, visiting my mother and catching my breath after a whirlwind few months of travel.  I didn't do much other than read, sort through gear in preparation for my move to Tbilisi, rewrite my manuscript (an almost complete third draft), play cribbage with my mother and go out to various cultural events like the Ottawa Bluesfest (where we saw Blue Rodeo, Colin James and a number of lesser-known but equally talented acts), Shakespeare in the Park, Chamberfest and Music and Beyond).  It was great to catch up with my mother, a wonderful person who did so much to make me who I am today.  At the end of July I flew off to Tbilisi to start a new chapter in my life.

Georgia

I arrived in Tbilisi, dumped my gear in my new house and then flew to Leysin for a flying visit.  I picked up winter gear that had been sitting in my sister Audie's basement for three years, visited a few friends, then headed back to Tbilisi.  Terri arrived a day later and I dragged her, sick and jet-lagged, off for a four-day hike in Tusheti, a magical mountain region in northeastern Georgia.  It was a tough but rewarding hike over the high Atsunta Pass into the Khevsureti region, past ancient stone villages studded with high defensive towers, past meadows of wildflowers and beautiful mountain vistas.

After that I was at work.  It was certainly a shock to the system, returning to the classroom after three sabbatical years.  I am teaching physical science, geometry and physics.  The workload is certainly lighter than I had in Leysin (for one thing it's not a boarding school, so there are no residential duties), but it's still mentally tiring to return to the discipline of work after so long.  

We got away for a couple of great weekend trips in September, first hiking from Juta to Roshka (linking the Kazbegi region to Khevsureti and thus joining up with August's hike), then going back to Juta on my birthday weekend for more hiking around the spectacular Chaukhi massif.  

My 50th birthday came as a bit of a shock, but Terri did her best to soften the blow with amazing food, a lovely weekend in Juta and (best of all) a present of a unicycle.  I can now ride it reasonably well, but it was a long, tough learning curve.  I can't believe I'm a half century old now; I don't feel like it (at least not most of the time!).

In October we headed off to enchanting Svaneti for a week of hiking; you can read about it in more detail here.  

When we returned from this trip, we at long last were able to buy a Mitsubishi Delica van after more than two months of searching, allowing us to explore more of rural Georgia on weekends.  We have visited Uplistsikhe, Tbilisi National Park, Tianeti and other areas close to Tbilisi.  As well, on our long weekend in November we drove down to Armenia to poke around the Debed Canyon, an area full of very old, very impressive stone churches.  All this has whetted our appetite for further exploration of this ancient, historic, culturally fascinating country.

Last Friday school let out, and we have been out skiing, first in Gudauri (the best-known Georgian ski area, just north of Tbilisi), and (starting tomorrow) in Goderdzi (near Batumi and the Black Sea) and also in Tetnuldi (up in Svaneti).  We can't wait!!

Photos from August adventures

Photos from September and October

Svaneti Photos

Fall Photos

Ski Photos

What 2018 brought, and what 2019 promises

We are here for at least another 18 months, with summer 2019 having Kyrgyzstan pencilled in for some serious hiking, along with more hiking here in Georgia.  I can't wait to see what else 2019 brings (including, I hope, a publishing contract for my Silk Road book!).  Terri and I would love to welcome some of you to Georgia to explore this intriguing mountain nation.

2018 was a wonderful year, and a year of two contrasting halves:  frenetic movement in the first half, then a more steady, measured pace through the second half.  Freedom in the first seven months, then wage servitude for the last five months.  Tropical heat for much of the first half of the year, then a return to the seasonal rhythm of the temperate latitudes.

I enjoyed crossing paths with so many friends and relatives over the course of the year.  In no particular order, we met up with our new diving friend Austin; my friend Eileen; Terri's daughter Selena and her husband and grandkids; Terri's dear friends Gavin and Michelle; her cousins Steven and Toni, Mark and Gary; her delightful Aunt Lois and Uncle Phil; her brother Trevor; her childhood neighbour and friend; Terri's sister and most of her nieces and nephews; her Leysin colleague Jess; Terri's dear friends Ross and Debbie; our Leysin friend Thomas; my former student Ardak; Terri's friends (and epic travellers) Lilian and John; my Yangon friends Reid and Beth; and our new friend Brian.  There are many more who have slipped my mind, but as I get older, meeting up with friends and family becomes steadily more important.  

May 2019 bring all of you, my dear readers, peace and tailwinds and as much adventure as you want.  

Tusheti wildflower

Tusheti defensive towers

Tusheti wildflower

Butterfly and thistle

Tusheti mountain scenery

Thistle and beetle

Tusheti wildflower

Tired but elated atop the Atsunta Pass

On the descent into Khevsureti

Wildflower near Juta

Crossing the Sedzele Pass to Roshka

Camped beneath the Chaukhi Massif

Roshka wildflower

The green, green hills of the Caucasus

Chaukhi Massif

More wildflower and beetle action near Roshka

Barbecued mtsvadi, the best food in Georgia!

Yours truly at 50

Part of the wonderful half-century celebrations

My new unicycle!

Gergeti Trinity Church

Birthday weekend above Juta

Chaukhi Massif yet again

Terri hiking up to the Chaukhi Pass

Autumn colours in Svaneti

Looking down on Mestia

Me in Svaneti

The iconic peak of Ushba

Svan tower and fall foliage

Typical Svan defensive tower

Lamaria Church in Ushguli, Svaneti

Enchanting Ushguli

Hiking near Zhabeshi, Svaneti

Fall colours near Zhabeshi

Terri and I below Mt. Ushba

Becho waterfalls, Svaneti

Cycling through an ancient oak forest in Tbilisi National Park

Armazi Fortress

Ancient Uplistsikhe, near Gori

Me in Uplistsikhe

Georgia-Samoa rugby match

Birtvisi

Drying persimmons, Debed Canyon

Me with beautiful khachkars, Debed Canyon

Odzun church, Debed Canyon, Armenia

Odzun church, Armenia

Haghpat church, Armenia

Haghpat

Me with a MiG-21, Mikoyan Brothers Museum, Sanahin

Interior of Akhtala Church, Armenia

Terri and I in Gudauri

Terri ripping up the pow in Gudauri

Ski tour in Gudauri

The turns that we earned by skinning