Thursday, May 30 - Day 10
Florian and I met in the morning of this day, which was still nice, if not as sunny as the previous day.
We were sure we wanted to go hiking this day, but we did not know where. In "downtown", we headed for a hiking office, where there was a young lady, who spoke perfect English. She had been on top of Kazbegi mountain, climbing up in the month of August. She presented us a couple of options and we picked one called Juta, a remote village. The road leading up to Juta started in Achkhoti, a settlement some 5 km on the main road towards Tbilisi. Florian suggested we take a cab, I countered that we hitchhike there, we tried and it worked, after a couple of minutes, two tourists from Netherlands (if I remember correctly) dropped us off in Achkhoti.
There was a nice guard tower, a type of building I would see a lot in the Svaneti a week or so later.
We started the hike in the valley of the Terek River, which was quite a gentle climb for the first few kilometers. There were nice views all around and as said, it was a bit overcast. There was a side valley where we decided to turn onto, as it looked very romantic, with only a small stream of water flowing. However, water always chooses to take most direct path and in a bend, it cut off our way - it would have been quite wet to cut across, so we turned back to follow the main valley towards Jura village. We saw some horse riders, who had no trouble galopping in the riverbed.
We were soon in a small village, Akhaltsikhe, where there was a small church, which was closed. Soon, however, a lady soon nsowed up and opened up, we thanked her by giving her a couple of Laris.
There were small villages scattered around, where once former nice looking houses looked rather impoverished.
Traffic was practically non-existent, there was an occasional jeep carrying tourists - all the more surprising was this pedestrian crossing, with not less than four signs, two facing one way, two the other - to make that one car per hour aware that pedestrians might be crossing.
Near one village, under the watch of two not-too-friendly guard dogs, we sat down for lunch. It was a beautiful meadow with yellow flowers, as far as the eye could see.
On the way, we spotted something weird - it was small puddle of water, in it worm-like creatures - not sure what they were. Please contact the editor in case you do.
The lady at the tourist office told us that Juta was at 2,200 meters above sea level and I was wondering how we would reach that height, given we were walking on gentle slopes. Soon, after a bend in the mountain, the answer became evident - the road started ascending, so did we. Still a mile or so from the village, we saw there was construction going on, trying to repair an earlier landslide. Car traffic was prohibited beyond this point. A few cars were parked before the road building equipment, but then we saw a convoy of jeeps passing us, they did not care about the danger - and drove to the village. We kept on walking, with beautiful views of the surroundings, the river running below and subsequently, of the village itself.
From the hike the previous day, I was getting a bit of a running nose, but nothing too bad. Getting to Juta, we relaxed at a café, with other hikers, some coming from Poland, others from Asia. A pancake with some home.-made jam was quite yummy. We had done some 15 kilometers and about 500 meters of elevation.
Florian and I fell in love with the village and said, hey, we can always come back in the future - and this would be the following day. Our stuff was back in Kazbegi, so we decided that the following day,, after our check-out, to return to Juta and do more hiking there.
Not caring for the barrier on the road was a camping car from Vorarlberg in Austria. It was a couple, digital nomads of our age, who had been on the road for 3 months, driving all the way from Western Austria, carrying e-bikes, climbing and rafting equipment. They were entrepreneurs, having a marketing company, working for large firms - after all, they are able to do their editing from all over the place, including Juta, whereveer there is internet. Amazing, eh? As you might have guessed, all this information was coming from our discussion with them, as we of course had to talk to people with an "A" on their license plates. We asked if they could drive us downhill, as we were not looking forward to doing the exact same route back, it would not have been too exciting. They agreed and now we were sitting in the back of the RV. Before the washed-out section of the road, we were asked to exit the car, as it was not without danger to navigate there. I had to laugh at Florian, who brought his back-pack with him - apparently, he thought the chances of the RV tumbling into the valley was larger than 0%. It made it through all right, now we got back got he village where we started our hike. The Austrians turned towards Tbilisi, we had still 5 km to go the other way - we hitchhiked with success again.
Back in "downtown", we went to a Spar for some groceries, where I saw a lady and (apparently) her mother in front of the store and I asked if they could take a photo of Florian and myself. I thanked them, asked where they were from, they said Italy, I told them I was Hungarian, when they burst out laughing - the lady was actually from Hungary, right from the town of Szeged, where my mother was born. Quite a coincidence!
They were staying in Kazbegi, too and we told them we knew a good restaurant. This was how, for the third time, we landed in Restaurant Panorama, remember, the one with the panorama. We ordered family style, and as their VIP - and pretty much the only - guests, the cook did wonders.
I could hardly schlep myself up to my accommodation yet again - so full was my belly...I would have slept well, but then my nose was running quite steadily.