July 31 - The caves

After a good rest, the 16 km to Vardzia was nothing, especially as I had left my bags in the house I had spent the night - there was no other way out of the valley.

Road to Vardzia...

...filled with violet flowers

Chris and Enio had spent the night at a campsite at the base of the cave town and I soon met up with them. As it was still early, I made a quick detour to a nun's monestary about 4 km away, it was a little church, where the Sunday prayers were full in swing. I bought some candles for an old lady, she almost kissed my hands.

The cave town turned out to be one the main highlights of this trip so far. To quote Wikipedia, "the caves stretch along the cliff for some five hundred metres and in up to nineteen tiers". I think I counted only 13, but whatever - this is something I have never seen so far. I spent good three hours trying all the narrow passages hewn into the rock, climbing up ladders and being astonished by the beautiful frescoes of the church. It did remind me a bit of Ethiopia, but this made a stronger impression on me.

13 floors of caves

Really impressive

Churches hewn into rock

On the way down, I met some Russian bikers - and after picking up my luggage, I was back on the main road. Yes, I was definately not in Austria - after all the whacky hanging bridges, I saw a rail wagon serving as a bridge - somehow it was dragged there and turned across the river, so you could walk from one end of the wagon to the other. Quite clever, eh?

A bridge too far?

The crossing

The evening brough some real bad weather, first it was strong headwind slowing my path upwards, then there were accumulating thunder clouds - no, no camping that evening. After a bit of searching, I found an OK place to sleep in the town of Ninotsminda, as soon as I had entered my room, the thunder started outside. Oh, was I glad to have had a place above my head.