Saturday, June 8 - Day 19

Now that I had a bike waiting in the yard of my accommodation, I was excited to go for a ride in Svaneti for the first time and in Georgia for the second time, eight years after the first one. I was up before 6 am and on the bike by 6:30 am.

As mentioned, my bike was a mountain bike, not the best for a longer ride, plus I had a small backpack on my - where else? - back, so the progress was a bit slower than expected. It is also possible that these things are just an excuse and I am getting old(er) - anyhow, according to Google (

Acthung! Spoiler alter!) I had an ascent of 1,887 meters waiting for me, which is quite a lot.

The scenery was amazing, snow-capped peaks looking down at villages with guard towers.

Here are some of the peaks, try to find the pairs:

...and here are some guard towers:

Not only was it a ride in wonderful scenery, it was not an uneventful one. Let me tell you what had happened on the way up to Ushguli.

Quite early in the morning, I saw a herd of cows crossing a bridge. I stopped to take a video of this, the first few cows, afrer crossing the bridge, turned away from me, to the right. The last three, however, stopped, looked at me and while they did not charge, they definitely started approaching me, in a manner that was anything but friendly. OOOOh, I thought, it was better to stop filming and get the heck out of there - I have heard of cows trampling people.

A bit later, I met an Argentine couple on their bikes, who have been riding from Portugal through Europe and were on their way to Central Asia. Sigh, I would have loved to join them...and even though they were fully loaded, they overtook me.

After a few switchbacks, I stopped to take a couple of photos of the scenery, probably I have pasted one or two above. There was not a single soul around, I was just by myself. All of a sudden, I felt something warm and wet on my hand, which was on my side; I was so startled, that I cried out. I looked down and a dog just signaled its appreciation for me.

There came a summit, then the road dropped back to a small village. Hmm, I will need to climb to this summit on my way back to Mestia, but that was another day. I stopped again to take a photo, this time of a guard tower. All of a sudden, a herd of piglets came running to me. I was rather popular with animals that day, they all came towards me...

There were more surprises, on top of a hill, there was a church. I made it a point to visit it on my way back.

Along the road, there were nicely maintained signs pointing at hiking trails. Definitely a reason to return and hike on these beautiful, well-kept trails!

The road was quite good at the beginning of the climb, but it started deteriorating with the ascent. At times, there was no asphalt - and in other places, construction was going on with heavy machinery. There were quite a few switch-backs, me wondering when I would finally reach Ushguli .

I did reach Ushguli, after 45 kilometers and 1,400 meters of elevation and I was rather glad it did. I met two hikers (one from the Netherlands, the other from Slovakia) just short of the village, they told me they had been in the mountains for four days and were really hungry. We walked together into the village and were all busy clicking the shutter on our cameras/phones. Ushguli was even rougher, wilder, more exotic compared to Mestia - and it was definitely worth the effort to have gotten there. As I learned, with 2,100 meters, it is one of the highest continuously inhabited settlements in Europe.

We spotted a restaurant (well, there were quite a few of these), we had some lunch there. At first, I felt like I would never ever want to stand up from my seat, but the food and a local beer helped me recover. The weather, which was so crisp in the morning, turned rather overcast, but it seemed to hold up. After about an hour or so of a break, I decided to head for the summit, which was still 8 kilometers and 700 meters of elevation away.

Now I was glad to have rented a mountain bike. The road was not paved and was quite wet, so the going was tough. Also, while it did not rain, it got increasingly unfriendly. I thought of the warnings I had gotten in 2016, with a fully loaded road-bike, this would have not been an easy task to cross here.

Finally, I reached the summit, called Zagari Pass at 2,590 meters, not envying the ones who have to ride down the other side of the mountain - the weather was not friendly and the road all muddy, not so pleasant descent. While I did not expect a Michlein-rated restaurant at the summit, I was surprised there was not even a sign saying you have made it to the pass.

I took a bit of a rest, knowing that even the descent would not be easy. It was getting cold - but luckily, it did not start raining.

I made it back to Ushguli in one piece and decided to stay there for the night - it would have been far too late to return to Mestia, plus I wanted to discover more of the place. When I got back to village, I saw a relatively modern hotel, which seemed to have been completely full of partying guests. Not far from there, was a more modest place, it seemed to be rather empty. An elderly lady led me in and showed a rather basic room typical for Eastern European accommodations - for about €13, it was good enough for a night, breakfast included.

After taking my room, I parked my bike and decided to tour the village on foot - which, while only 200 people live there, is spread over a relatively large area. This was a very interesting walk.

Late in the afternoon, the weather improved - the first destination was the local church - and even the church had a guard tower. It is called Lamaria church (named after a goddess in Svaneti mythology) and is located on a hilltop dominating the village. The chapel dates back to the 12th century and containsseveral frescoes. It was Saturday evening and a mess was going on.

Outside the church, I got to the courtyard, where I think I made the best shot of in Georgia.

This monk spoke a bit of English, a few words, but he was not very friendly. More friendly was his dog, who started playing "fetch" with me, us each time having a close fist-fight for the stick.

The old monk did not really appreciate this interaction between the dog and myself and politely, but firmly asked me to leave - so I did. Mhhhh, OK, I get it, my apologies.

Now I had great views of the village, where there were cows and horses gazing at the foot of the guard towers.

I agreed with my host to have a dinner at the hotel. She prepared some dish made of eggplant, it was quite tasty. At dinner, I chatted with a German tourist from Bavaria - his main job was traveling, he had been to dozens of countries - so we switched some travel stories.

In the evening, before going to bed, I got one more glimpse of the lit church.

The room was rather cold, well, we were at 2,100 meters, but the host told me to use both blankets, which I did and I slept really well after this intensive day.