Return to Tusheti

Tbilisi, August 28

The hard-won top of the Col de la Croix 

Since I last updated the blog, I have finished the second draft of my book (while in Bali), and then travelled for nearly 2 months around Namibia with Terri in our beloved camper Stanley before leaving him in storage for the next couple of years near Cape Town.  A month of catching up with my mother and working further on my book followed, and now I find myself in full-time gainful employment for the first time in three years as I start a two-year teaching adventure at an international school in Tbilisi, Georgia.  I will update my blog retroactively with stories of our trip through New Zealand in February and March, and of our Namibian escapades as well, but for now I want to keep the blog up to date by writing a bit about a trip that Terri and I did as a welcome-to-Georgia adventure.

Myself with former LAS students Ashley, Eric and Arshia

I arrived in Georgia on July 29th, bleary-eyed from two successive night flights, and was picked up by my school and taken to our new home, a spacious two-storey three-bedroom place in the far northern suburbs of Tbilisi, in a neighbourhood called Dighomi.  It's a rapidly-developing part of town, with plenty of new houses on sizeable lots being built.  It's also close to the US Embassy, so many American diplomatic families live nearby and send their children to our school.  

Reunited with Steve in Leysin

After two days I caught another night flight to Geneva and spent three nights in my old stomping ground of Leysin.  I picked up 40 kg of ski and mountaineering equipment to bring back to Tbilisi, and caught up with a number of friends and former students in the village, as well as riding a road bike for the first time in three years around a couple of my favourite local routes, up the Col de la Croix and around the Col de Forclaz-Voettes loop, the latter with my cycling and skiing friend Steve.  I was definitely a lot slower and more leaden-legged than I was three years ago, but it felt indescribably good to be riding in the beautiful
Alps again.

Yet another night flight, my fourth in eight days, brought me back to Tbilisi on August 4th, more bleary-eyed than ever.  The next morning Terri arrived from New Zealand and was promptly whisked off to dinner with Ardak, a former student from my Leysin days, in Georgia to visit her father.

Myself and my Kazakh former faculty daughter Ardak

Roadside picnic during landslide break below the Abano Pass

There was no rest for the jet-lagged the next day, as we got up early, shouldered full backpacks and set off for Ortachala bus station for a 3-hour marshrutka minibus ride to Telavi, the capital of the picturesque, historic Kakheti region of eastern Georgia.  Kakheti is abundantly fertile, and it was a feast for the senses.  We zipped past vineyards and stalls selling churchkhela, delicious snacks consisting of strings of walnuts dipped in thickened grape juice, along with peaches and melons.  Finally, in Telavi, we tumbled out and boarded smaller, tougher 4x4 Mitsubishi Delica minivans, the workhorses of Georgian mountain travel, for the crossing of the high, rugged Abano Pass into the legendary Tusheti region.

Dramatic hillsides below the Abano

I had been in Tusheti before, back in 2009 during the final leg of my Silk Road bicycle ride.  I rode my bicycle over the Abano and almost didn't make it; I had to camp beside the road partway up, worn out by the relentless steep grade and rough road, and then continued over the top into a magical landscape that stole my heart away.  This time, I thought it would be much easier sitting in the comfort of a minibus seat, but I hadn't reckoned on the weather.  It had rained torrentially a couple of hours before our departure, and the downpour had caused landslides that roared down the precipitous slopes of the pass and buried sections of the road.  We, along with dozens of other 4x4s, were stuck for hours until an ancient Soviet-era bulldozer hove into sight and set about pushing tons of boulders and mud over the edge of the road with nonchalant disregard for the vertical drop just centimetres from the centre of gravity of the vehicle.  In the meantime we shared in an impromptu feast of fish, khachapuri (cheese pie, the staple snack of Georgia), chicken and melon served up by some of the stranded drivers, washed down by some chacha, the eye-watering schnapps distilled from skins left over after wine-making.  Eventually the road was cleared and we roared up the pass, down the other side and back uphill to Omalo, the capital of the Tusheti region, where we spent the night in a pleasant little guesthouse and ate a lavish spread of local treats.

Galloping home in Omalo

Day 1:  August 7, Omalo to Pharsma, 24 kilometres

Wildflower

Wildflower

Terri woke up feeling not at all well; something she ate disagreed with her, and her jet lag probably didn't help matters.  She bravely decided to walk anyway, and to do a double stage; we were worried about getting back to Tbilisi on time at the end of our hike, and decided we could use an extra day at the end of the walk.  The first half of the day involved a couple of steep grunts uphill, first to the top of Omalo village and its impressive medieval defensive towers (a leitmotif throughout Tusheti), and then another to get into the Pirikita Alazani valley.

Omalo fortress

Psychadelic moth

Tusheti is located to the north of the Caucasus watershed, and the Pirikita Alazani River flows east out of Tusheti into Daghestan, on the Russian side of the mountains.  This was all new territory for me; in 2009 I had only ridden as far as Omalo's towers, and had done no hiking, so I was glad to see fresh vistas.  After the second climb, it was a long downhill to the village of Dartlo and its collection of towers, then an even longer level slog along the river, past the village of Chesho and its impressive outlying towers (located high up atop a long ridge) to our final destination for the day at Pharsma.  The scenery was magnificent, with the north-facing slopes mostly clad in forest of hardwood and cedar, while the south-facing slopes were open grassy meadows grazed by huge herds of sheep and the occasional cow.  Tusheti is only really inhabited in the brief summer months, when herders from Kakheti drive their sheep and cattle over the Abano Pass to fatten up on the lush grass and produce huge amounts of cheese, butter and wool.  Tumbling whitewater streams incised profound gashes into the green felt of the hillsides, while above us 3000 and 4000-metre peaks towered into the azure sky.  It was impossibly idyllic.

Another striking butterfly

Towers above Chesho

Terri was pretty worn out by travelling, illness and the rigours of a double stage and was keen to sleep indoors, but there was no room for us at the inn, so we ate a huge meal in a trail-side restaurant and then slept under the roof of its patio after closing time, as we were concerned about impending downpours.

Day 2:  August 8, Pharsma to Kvakhidi Meadows, 17 km

Fresh snow dusts the peaks above the Atsunta

Stone drywall construction

It did rain in the night, although not too dramatically, and by the time we were ready to leave the skies had cleared completely.  It was an easy stroll up the river to Girevi and its border guard post, where we showed our passports and got a border area permit while a curious puppy tried his best to devour my wet socks which were drying on the outside of my backpack.  From there we made our way steeply uphill past Girevi's beautiful towers and further upstream, staying high above the river.  The abandoned village of Chontio was spectacular and its elegant drywall construction and feeling of utter desolation reminded me forcefully of wandering around Mystra and Monemvassia in the Greek Pelepponese back in 2008.

Looking towards Chontio

A meadow viper (I think)

The mountains continued to dominate the skyline, and looking at the map we realized that the line of the highest peaks, a mere 7 kilometres to the north, marked the Georgian-Russian border.  We continued to oscillate vertically, climbing high above cliffs and then dipping down to ford rivers, before finally descending to the main valley floor and a campsite in a large meadow at about 2400 metres above sea level.  We set up Terri's trusty Big Agnes Copper Spur tent, cooked up a delicious dinner and shared some of it with Antoni, a personable Austrian with whom we had played leapfrog all day along the trail.  There were a good dozen other trekkers in small groups:  four Americans, five Russians, Antoni and a Brazilian couple.  There was also a large group of older Austrian trekkers who arrived not long after us but whose baggage horses didn't show up until after sunset, leaving them sitting around without food or tents for hours.  We were in bed relatively early, ready for the exertions of the Atsunta Pass the next day.

Day 3:  August 9, Kvakhidi Meadows to Khidotani Ridge, 17 km

Crossing the snow bridge

Pollinator at work

It was not a restful night, with a Biblical downpour keeping us awake in the night.  In the morning we were the first trekkers to breakfast, pack up and start walking, a highly unusual situation as we are usually among the last to leave a campsite.  We marched upstream, along a valley that was now much narrower as we approached the source of the river.  The banks were a riot of colourful wildflowers, and I spent a lot of time trying to shoot macro photos of the blossoms.  We crossed a rather precarious snow bridge; we had been seeing patches of old snow, sometimes several metres thick, at the base of avalanche chutes ever since Girevi, but this was by far the largest so far.  It surprised me that so much snow survives until August at such a low altitude, but it must reflect the sheer volume of snowfall over the long winter.  We forded the main river (a cold, unstable and rather unpleasant task), then headed up a tributary before turning away from the valley and clambering steeply up a grassy slope that turned into a long uphill slog across a soggy scree slope.

Yet another pretty wildflower

Antoni fording the chilly river

It took a few hours to climb up to the summit of the 3431-metre Atsunta Pass, and we were rewarded for our toil with views of the inside of a cloud and 5-degree temperatures.  As we descended abruptly into the Khevsureti region the cloud began to spit hailstones onto our heads intermittently, while thunderclaps sounded only seconds away over our heads.  When the clouds finally dispersed, we found ourselves on a broad grassy ridge surrounded by 4000-metre peaks dusted white with fresh snow.

Trekkers in the mist:  atop the Atsunta

Fresh snow dusting the slopes above the Atsunta

A brief moment of clarity on the Khidotani Ridge

We made the most of our ten minutes of clear views before the clouds returned, and then traversed endlessly across a steep slope before a cruel uphill and a final descent to a campsite oddly lacking in a clean water source.  No sooner had we set up our tent than the heavens opened on us for two hours and we crawled into our tent, eschewing cooking in favour of cold food and hard-earned sleep.  It had been a long, hard day, and the rain seemed like poor recompense for our efforts.

Day 4:  August 10, Khidotani Ridge to Shatili, 20 km

Wet flowers

Terri teetering above the muddy torrent

We awoke to a soggy world, hungry after our frugal repast of the night before, and cooked up sizeable portions of oatmeal before leaving camp with Antoni.  It was a steep descent to the Andaki River through the lushest fields yet of wildflowers, a quilt of violent pinks, purples, yellows and oranges.  The path was less slippery and muddy than we had feared, even after the torrential downpour of the night before, and within an hour we were beside the river, a grey mass of liquid mud, swollen by runoff.  A few dodgy bridges led over the river to a jeep track; one bridge consisted of a slippery log and a rusty pipe, millimetres above the raging waters, that required a great deal of concentration.  After that, it was an easy, almost flat stroll through wilderness, fields and the occasional village to the towers of Mutso, then on to Anatori, where the river led north to the closed Russian border barely a kilometre beyond.

Badland scenery between Anatori and Shatili

Anatori necropolis

Anatori was a lonely promontory high above a confluence, with a few old stone plague houses full of bones from the victims of an 18th-century epidemic.  From there it was just a short stroll upstream, past eroded conglomerate pillars reminiscent of Cappadocia, to our endpoint, the medieval tower village of Shatili.  We had anticipated spending the night there and then returning to Tbilisi, but we found Antoni, the two Brazilians, the four Americans and a handful of other trekkers waiting for us to fill up a chartered minibus that they had arranged.  Minutes later we were off along another dodgy mountain road, over a 2600-metre-high pass (less alarming than the Abano Pass, but still dangerous-looking).  Four hours (and a flat tire) later, we were being dropped off beside the highway, a short walk from our house, and our Tusheti adventure was over.

Blossom and insect

More wildflowers

I loved this walk for its combination of nature, big mountains and historic, picturesque villages, as well as its vast proliferation of wildflowers.  The Caucasus is a magical part of the world, and it was the memory of my bicycle rides through various Caucasian valleys in 2009 and 2011 that lured me back into teaching.  I am looking forward to returning to the mountains this coming weekend for another traverse, this time from Juta to Roshka, and I will post about that trip next week.  I hope you enjoyed this blog post and its pictures, and that it inspires you to get out into the mountains, either here in Georgia or wherever you find yourself in the world.

Tired, wet but elated at the end of the trek