Sunday, June 9 - Day 20

Remember, I saw a biker riding uphill on the way of my bus ride up to Mestia - and I waved to him? The first thing on this Sunday - well, after an abundant breakfast - was that I bumped into him - he actually remembered a hand waving at him - well, that was my hand. He was from Germany, started there, had been riding for close to a year (!) and was also headed for Asia. He told me some stories of riding through the Balkan countries in wintertime...

I was up for some more action in this lovely place, so headed with my bike towards another glacier, called Shkhara Glacier. The road led uphill to the church, then there was a drop, followed by a looong straight patch, finally, an ascent. Here a rather freak accident happened. I made it to the church, now the drop came. I started the descent on one fork of the dirt road, but noticed it would get rather wet, so I rode back to the top and wanted to take another fork, When I turned towards this other fork, my speed being about 2.5 km/hour (i.e. slow), my back wheel got stuck in a puddle, but as I was already turning - this way, nothing could stop me from falling. Hmm, quite stupid, to have a mishap like this - it is reminiscent of a very similar accident I would have about two months later in France. I did hurt my ankle a bit - it felt soar for the next 2-3 days, but nothing too bad. Anyhow, considering that this (and catching a bit of a cold) were the worse things that happened during my entire trip - fine, whatever.

The path was really very nice, based on my experiences with Svaneti, I expected nothing less.

I thought I would make the 9 kilometers to the glacier in half an hour or so, only that the closer I got to it, the harder the going got. I caught up with a guide leading a smaller group of Russian hikers, he scolded me for riding there. Ok, whatever, there were still 5 kilometers to go and left the bike next to to a rock, unlocked - there was hardly anyone around (or so I thought).

After an hour, I reached the glacier, it was even more spectacular than the one next to Mestia. There I met a group of Czech hikers.

The Russian guide caught up with me, he decided to make some push ups while his group was taking selfies.

On the way back, I was stunned to see a large group of somne 50 German tourists, followed little later by double as many Taiwanese tourists - and suddenly had a bad feeling about my bike, whether it would still be there. Yes, it was - even though the Germans "joked" about having sold it (ha-ha). Well, my timing was quite good, when I got to the glacier, we were like 15 people, half an hour later, 150 people would have been mingling there.

Back in town, pretty much at the same spot I had fallen, something weird happened - yet again. Two stray dogs came, I had some bread that I threw to the larger one, it devoured it in one bite, then hurdled another piece to the smaller one. The larger dog charged at the smaller dog, biting it in the leg - the smaller one ran away whining loudly. Needless to say, this was not my intention - it just reminded me that we were in a somewhat wild area.

I visited the church one more time, now it was completely empty. It had something magical about it.

Now back to the white stray dog. It followed my after me feeding it. To enter the church, though, you have to climb a ladder, which dogs do not (usually) do. However, in the yard of the church there was a gate, which was at times opened. The German shepherd recognized me from the previous and came to greet me. Somehow the white dog entered the yard and now charged at the German shepherd - a vicious dogfight erupted, which the German shepherd promptly lost. Somehow we (the monks and other visitors) managed to hush the stray dog out of the yard, while the shepherd was whining. The cruel rules of Mother Nature...

A bit shaken, I left the church and now was on a hill with many guard towers. To my surprise, I saw a sign here in Georgian, in Hungarian (why??), Turkish, Romanian and Russian (at least that is what I think) - advertising a film called Dede - and this can be viewed in Mestia. I made it a point to watch it - more about it later (this same day). But what about having the sign in English and German? Whatever.

There were more beautiful views from the middle of town.

I shoved my bike down the hill (was very steep) and walked between the alleys. I spoke with a young girl who spoke broken English, she showed me her small puppy. This time, luckily, there were no mishaps with other stray dogs.

Wow, I am having a hard time pasting in my Ushguli photos, as you can see.

So, it was almost 3 pm by the time I had left town, now it was a nice ride downhill, well, the bumpy road was not always a pleasure, but overall, I made good progress. I had to pull my breaks quite often, especially when the road construction crew blocked the passage for about 15 minutes.

Remember the church I wanted to visit on the way up? I was at the base of it at around 3 pm, so figured I might hike up to it. It is called Kvirike and Ivlita Church of Kala (also referred to Lagurka or the Church of Saints Cyricus and Julitta - feel free to pick whichever name). I hid my bike and started a very steep ascent, which lasted about 45 minutes. Alas, my efforts were in vain, as it was locked tightly. I thought of trespassing, climbing through a 2-meter high wall, but as it was on a rocky area, and me being somewhat clumsy, I thought it might not be a good idea. So I just enjoyed the nice views.

It was around 4:30 pm that I got back to my bike and I got a bit worried, seeing rather dark clouds - but imagined these would be held back by the mountain ranges I was surprised to see one more couple, originally from Brazil, riding uphill, well, they knew they could no longer reach Ushguli that day and I told them some of the places I had seen, where they might be able to retire.

![From Brazil - but biking "just" in Europe, en route to Asia as well](https://bikerbalazsmedia.blob.core.windows.net/blog/2024_georgia/3e5d9-biker2.jpg "From Brazil - but biking "just" in Europe, en route to Asia as well")

My piglets came greeting me again...

Now came the ascent, I had some major switch-backs ahead. Now the thunder started closing in on me, the previously faint rumbling got louder and louder. I was still in denial mode, after all, I was looking for the nice roll into Mestia after the ascent. Them, all of a sudden, it started coming down, "it" referring to a heavy rainfall, just in case you were unable to figure out. I put on my rain coat and cursed myself for spending so much time in Ushguli and then for the hike to the church, but then I could not have known, it had been nice weather the past three days. A couple of buses overtook me earlier - I could also have tried stopping them. Could have, should have. A small pick-up came, the very first vehicle since the rain started, I put out my hand and it stopped. I threw my bike on the back and I was now again on seat 1A, cramped next to the driver and another person. No, not 1C, it was indeed 1A, as it was a right-hand drive car. Anyhow, the wipes were racing to keep the window somewhat clean of the water. I was surprised just how much more road was there to go, it would have gotten quite late had I made on two wheels (and that in rain, no, thanks!).

The two Georgians reminded me that they would appreciate if I could honor their kindness by some monetary means, so I handed over a twenty-Lari note, which is about €7.

The thunder subdued by the time we reached Mestia and I returned the bike in one piece. I checked if there was a transport back to the south that evening, but buses do not depart during the evening, nor the night - my information was incorrect. So I went back to the hotel where my stuff was and booked a room for one more night, cleaned and dried up.

Now I found the movie theater where the film Dede is shown, thought I would be the only one at 9 pm., How wrong. There was a big group of hikers from Slovenia (if I recall), who were lined up for tickets. You have to know that this cinema shows this one movie - and that five times a day! It is more of a room with chairs and bean bags - with a larger and an overflow room, as I had arrived quite late, I got a spot in this overflow room. As I found out, the movie had gotten a special price of the jury at the Karlovy Vary film festival in 2017 - and I understood why. It was great seeing scenes shot in the wilderness I had ridden on. There are multiple scenes in the church I had found so fascinating and some of the guard towers I liked were also "starring". When I entered the cinema, there was a 3-year-old girl, I played with her, it turned out it was the director`s daughter. I approached her mom after the screening and posed quite a few questions.

The story itself is a love triangle, where the parents of a beautiful girl want her to merry the neighbor boy, but she is in love with his best friend - and the she confronts her parents. This causes a huge upheaval in town. When the girl says no to the neighbor, he calls his friend (the girl is in love with) for a hunt in the mountains, wants to kill him, but commits suicide. The village people are not sure if they should believe the suicide story or accuse the lover of killing his best friend. The "tribunal" takes place at the church I liked so much - and there were many details I enjoyed thoroughly. If I remember, it is a more or less happy ending, but then when someone is dead, it cannot be really happy. The director lady told me all the supporting characters were from Ushguli, they were really motivated, but then they would start drinking and forget everything they would have needed to.

Before falling asleep, I thought I had seen so many wonderful things in Georgia that it would be hard to add on, so I bought my ticket for Tuesday from Kutaisi. Now all I had to do was to get back to that town. I was a bit sad that the trip was nearing its end, but then also was glad to be back home soon.