Sunday 10 May – A day in Mountains – Stepantsminda

After sleeping well (by my low standards) I woke and checked the time on my I-pad. Merde, it’s 10.30! Departure time was 10.00. Panic! I jumped out of bed and opened the curtain – the sun was on the very top of the mountains opposite. Surely, it’s not 10.30? I check my phone – it shows 06.30; that’s more like it. I went and took a couple of photos of the early light on Mount Kazbek and Trinity Church, before pondering what on earth is wrong with my I-pad. The wonderful piece of Apple technology had been doing odd things the evening before, with Google Maps showing my current position as being just outside Beijing! I spent a good while trying unsuccessfully to work out what was causing that. The bottom line was that it thought I was 4 hours ahead in China. Was it a virus?

 

Not a bad view to wake up to! 

At 10am we boarded three 4 x 4’s that took us to the car park next to Gergeti Church. It was a spectacularly clear and sunny morning. So much better than the rain and cloud I encountered last year. The tour group went sheeplike straight up the church, whereas I walked half a mile back down the road to make sure I got “that picture” with the snowcapped peaks behind the church. After all, Nodge knows best! Photos captured, I walked back up to the church to meet the rest of the group, but in no time at all our allotted 45 minutes there was over and it was back to the 4 x 4’s to go onto the next place.

 

 

 

This short visit to Gergeti was a microcosm of why I don’t really like this trip. Basically, it’s a tour, and not an “adventure”. Last year the schedule gave us the opportunity to walk up and down the 1400 feet each way to the church. I was p’d off to be honest. Voyages Jules Verne is beginning to feel like a development company readying people for the ultimate in oldies travel – SAGA. And as a mere 40 year old (in my head), I’m not ready for that. I would have gladly walked down on my own – yes, I know about risks of doing things like that on my own, but I’d done the route before. If our next destination was somewhere I’d been to before, I would have broken ranks and Health & Safety rules. However, I was intrigued by the next place. Not particularly the building we were due to visit, but the location.

 

Dariali Monastery

Forty minutes later we arrived at the car park next to the relatively new Dariali Monastery. The monastery itself was a fine enough building, but I was far more interested in what was 200 metres down the road. The Georgian border post for the crossing into Putin’s Paradise. A further 200 meters on, tucked around a corner in the gorge was the Ruskie Reception Centre. But with no Visa to get in, my aspirations had to end there. Rather a shame. The Georgian side was rammed with 100’s of trucks waiting to get across.

The Georgian Border Crossing

Despite over 30 years of Independence, the Bear to the North still casts its shadow over most of the former Soviet Republics. All those countries must tread a careful diplomatic line not to anger the Bear too much. Georgia clearly wants to be more aligned to the EU, but influence from across the border remains strong, and has a destabilizing effect. The conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have clearly been partially stoked from outside, using the traditional “protecting ethnic Russian’s living there” line. Our guide, who I initially felt was very wooden and robotic, is now giving more of herself with some nice personal anecdotes. She can barely conceal her contempt for Russia and Russians. I guess she’s c30 years old, and very typical of her generation of young, ambitious, worldy-wise Georgians.

So, it was a wander around the monastery, then back to Stepantsminda to have lunch at a local’s house and see how they make dumplings.

The dumpling making was actually very interesting, and they tasted even better. But that was it for the day. We were back at the hotel by 2.30, with a free afternoon. Fine on the face of it, other than it takes about 20 minutes to wander around Stepantsminda. Not quite a one horse town, but not far off. With the long 3 hour drive back to Tbilisi scheduled for the following morning, I can’t help thinking that we’d have been better off using the free afternoon to do that. Plus, we’d get an evening somewhere that was more than a touch livelier. This, in my opinion, was a really poor piece of scheduling by VJV. I shall be advising them accordingly. Given our really slow journey from Jvari pass yesterday, surely it would make sense to get back up and over it again whilst the weather remained good?

 

 

Oh well, that left me with time to kill and the prospect of another group dinner. I wandered to the centre of the town where miraculously (it’s a Sunday) there’s a supermarket open. I stocked up with a few health food products and decided it was dinner in my room for me tonight.

 

 

Downtown Stepantsminda

Summary of the day – Gergeti was truly awesome. I wish we could have spent a couple of hours there and had the option to walk back. The weather was equally superb. How lucky were we!