Wednesday, May 29 - Day 9

As I had mentioned, the clouds had disappeared the previous night - and it was a beautiful, crisp, sunny morning, one you would expect when going on a hike, with just a couple of clouds in the sky. Yup, I know, I know, it is just the second hike, but for that, it would not be a small one - nor would it be ugly.

First, the peak of Mount Kazbegi winked at me.

Katarzyna arrived the previous evening, she took the marshutka, so paid like a third of our fare and her trip was hardly longer than ours by car. She met Florian at the bottom of the hill and they walked up towards my accommodation. At 9:30, were were united, taking a pathway, leading towards the Gergeti church. The views were wonderful both looking up and back down.

Though tempting, we decided to visit the church only the way back, after the hike. We had amazing views of the church - which is displayed on the cover of 90% of the guide books of Georgia. Maybe I should try to sell my masterful pictures to a publishing house (or maybe not).

The roughly 4 km hike to the church lasted about an hour, after which the real hike had begun. There was a sign explaining the dangers of it, after all, some people go all the way to the top - but then we were not equipped to climb to 5000+ meters in May. There was a funny sign, which said "Need help? Call Mom or dial 112" 😉.

In contrast to my biking blogs, there are not so many notable events that happen on a hike - it was quite a tiring one - but we climbed up for about 3.5 hours, reaching a point of roughly 2,900 meters above sea level. From then on , the going would have been hard, as it was all dry snow and ice, so we would have needed better equipment. True, some hikers continued just with their hiking shoes, there was a hut at the "base camp", before the last, even steeper incline to the summit begun...I do admit I was quite tired, so was happy that we commonliy decided to stop (oh, that peer pressure). On the way up, the views motivated Florian to do a head-stand and I was taking photos of the wild flowers.

On the way back from the summit, we once again had breathtaking views.

I must admit I am having a hard time to select which photos I should paste in, as all seem so nice...and yet again, these do not really do justice - in reality, the hike was one intensive mix of astonishing, unforgettable impressions.

It was only around 4 pm that we got back to the church, before reaching it, we came across a horse that must have found us erotic.

Not everyone will agree, but the church was a bit of a disappointment - had it been somewhere else and not on this peak above the town of Kazbegi, it would not be just an average one. What still makes it special is the location, location, location. Moreover, it is very touristy, most people just take their car to visit.

We noticed a guard tower that we did not see the way up.

It was only at 5:30 pm that we got back to "civilization", meaning we were on the mountain for 8 hours. Florian struck up a conversation with a German guy and the four of us sat down in the garden of a café, drinking a cold beer, to enjoy the last rays of the sun. I did something stupid - even though it was quite windy and getting cool, I failed to put on a sweater - and my body reacted to this by catching a cold, as I would find out the following two days or so. Moreover, I got quite sunburnt - so it was a learning for the future, to pay more attention to such details.

For dinner, the four of us went back to "our" restaurant, the one called Panorama and had very tasty food again.

Katarzyna told us she would explore other places, so for the next day onwards, it was just Florian and myself.

After dinner, I was really tired and still had to walk back to my hotel. The view was worthy to the entire day. I slept well, as you might imagine...