Mestia - Kutaisi, 1-3/X; 30th Aug -1st September
30th August - 1st September
After leaving Mestia we cycled to Salome’s house in the in village of Chuberi, along the valley of the Nenskra river
Salome is Armin's girlfriend. We met Armin in Krygystan -- Salome had joined him for his travels starting in Iran through to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and flown back to Georgia from Kyrgystan, with the intention to join him again from Mongolia. Armin had then put us it touch with Salome -- our route through Georgia was largely planned on the basis of his recommendations.
The three days here have been very restful. Salome's mother has been cooking amazing Georgian dishes of khachapuri, fried fish, many many cakes for the family and also for the one year commemoration of a death of a villager.
We took a walk to Salome's cousins house, and along the way he picked us up in his car, and drove us to a spring where naturaly carbonated mineral water is flowing out the ground -- it tasted like it had metal in it, and I realised this was the same taste as the spring coming out a tap from the campsite next to the Garam Chasma hot spring -- but on that occasion, I had spat the water out not knowing why it tasted so strange!
The cousin's dog was following us the whole way -- but he never got in the car, always running behind it. Salome's family's dog also went away for a couple of days, and turned up in the evening on the first night -- obviously this was completley normal for the family. I do think the freedom afforded to these dogs is largely because there are so few cars going up and down this valley, so they are free to roam and sleep wherever they please. I read somewhere that this used to be how dogs lived in the UK too, before the rise of cars as the main form of transport (not the article I read, but this blog, 'stray dogs in the UK', describes the same)
In the evening we exhanged stories with Salome and it turned out Lukas, who we met one day out of Khalai Khumb and was heading back to Switzerland for the end of August, had actually left Geneva with Armin 16 months ago, had cycled together until their routes diverged, and were one day away from meeting up again around Dushanbe when we met.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |