Caucasus unveiled - Svaneti Region

So after reading a travel blog of a friend of mine, my fingers started to itch and woila there you go, the very first post of my long abandoned blog. Don't bother searching for my previous post as I've already deleted ALL of them. And because I'm just too lazy to maintain my blog, I've decided to copycat my friend  adopt this simple habit of writing my travel stories. 

As the title already suggest, I have very recently landed myself in *drum rolls* Georgia and Armenia. All in all I've spent a total of just 2 weeks - 7 days in Georgia and 5 days in Armenia. Too long and too much to squeeze in everything into one post, I decided dedicate this post first to Georgia. Please do not missunderstand, not that I favor Georgia over Armenia, it's just that I landed first in Georgia. Armenia to be continued....perhaps in 3 weeks time.

Cutting to the chase, my journey started exactly at Kutaisi, which according to wiki, is the 3rd most populated city in Georgia. Why not fly to the capital Tbilisi you ask? Cos I'm cheapskate  a budget traveller - I opted for Wizzair for just over 72€.

Truth to be told, I didn't explore much Kutaisi except for the Bagrati Cathedral as Kutaisi was just a pit-over stop for Mestia. For those who fancy extreme sport, there is this cable car that flies over the Rioni river which looks super old and dangerous. 

Bagrati Cathedral 

Our first encounter with Georgian cuisine is the Khinkali. Basically it looks like the chinese dumpling but much bigger in size. Fun fact: the head of khinkali is not meant to be eaten. The proper way to eat a Khinkali is to grab its head with the finger, gently bite off the skin and suck the meat juice out before putting the whole dumpling into your mouth. Being an avid traveller who didn't do much research on food ethics beforehand, I was foolish enough to eat the whole dumpling while complaining about how "hard" the head was. 

Khinkali - brought to you by the Mongols

After a good night sleep in Kutaisi, we flew domestically with Vanilla Sky to Mestia, known to be listed in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites for the Caucasus mountains. As cute as the name Vanilla Sky sounds, the plane actually does not fit more than 15 passengers (and does not fly more than 30 minutes). Even the boarding ticket is a hand-written one. I repeat: a hand-written flight ticket in the 21st century. How cute is that?!

Scenic Mestia

Landing in one piece in Mestia, we went straight to what we do best: finding food to eat. My personal favourite is a dish called Shkmeruli. To put in simple words, it's baby chicken cooked with tons of garlic - together with bread this would make angels wanna piss in my mouth (as the dutch would phrase it). 

Shkmeruli

If you're in Mestia, you're in for a hike. We opted for an easy day hike (16km) from Ushguli to Shkara glacier, which according to google picture, promises an amazing view of the Caucasus mountain ranges. The road to Ushguli was winding and cliffy and....how to put it in word....full of living obstacles. See the video yourself. 

Only drive there yourself if you have the confidence of an elephant and a really good 4-wheel jeep/tanker. We paid 40GEL each for a to-and-back ride in a minibus. The only regret is that the minibus departed quite late from Mestia. As soon as we reached Ushguli (around noon), the sun was calling it a day. After 2 hours of hiking, the weather God then started to shower us with rain and thunder. 

Ushguli village - pretty much untouched

Despite the rain, we continued hiking untill we reached a stream of fast-flowing glacier water. That's when we decided we were wet enough and headed back to our minibus. 
So no, we didn't reached the Shkara glacier as planned - shame on us.  

The hiking path to Shkara glacier 

one last picture for a happy ending. This here is kebab. 

Stay tuned for the next post about Kazbegi.