Tbilisi - Ushguli, (9/9); 26th August
26th August
Shortly after leaving the guesthouse we were accompanied by a large dog. We didn’t encourage it but it followed us for about 15km ish before we decided to break to brew some coffee and have some snacks before the climb started up to Zagaro Pass. Feeling sorry for the dog, we gave it an egg and some oats which it lapped up under the bus shelter where we were resting.
The climb up was fine — well paved concrete. About 5 kms from the top we stopped to take some pictures of the glacier. At this point, two other dogs joined us. The dog which had been following us wasn’t happy, and it started fighting with the new white haired dog. It was quite distressing to watch as it really looked like they were trying to tear each other’s throats out. In an attempt to break them up, I got the bike pump and started hitting them.
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Unfortunately, the pump quickly bent out of shape like a slightly too straight banana, as whacking large dogs is not what it’s designed for. I dropped the pump and picked up a stick, but after a few more whacks the dogs stopped fighting, probably simply due to tiredness.
We decided then not to feed any more dogs or become friends with them in the future. All three continued to follow us up to the pass, however, despite our discouragement, especially directed to the first dog who joined us that day.
In started raining pretty heavily, and despite the fact that last few KMs road to the top is not paved but loose gravel, the road never got too muddy due to the rain.
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After taking some pictures at the top, we started to descend and stopped to chat with Neil, from the Philippines but living in Switzerland, and his friend, one a one month cycle of Georgia.
Towards the bottom of the pass, about 1km from the village of Ushguli, MayLyn noticed that the two stays that connect the bike to the rack had come loose — both bolts had worked loose and the wide wedding ring shaped piece of metal had come off. The annoying thing was, I had noticed the loose bolts the night before and made a mental note to tighten them, but forgot.
Without the lost piece, it would be a bit difficult to secure the rack, but not too hard to come up with a temporary fix. We still decided to cycle back up to the pass to look for the two small parts though. We dropped our bags by the side of the road and cycled up.
We didn’t find the lost pieces at the top. However, when we descended, our bags were gone. We continued to Ushguli, the white dog in tow, and discussed what to do. MayLyn went into a large hotel to get a taxi to go back up the pass to look for the bags, and I went to a homestay to see if they could contact other homestays to see if the bags could be located. The white dog which had followed us down the pass got into a fight with a huge Georgian sheepdog. By this point I was passed caring and had the lost bags on my mind so I left them to it.
Long story short, someone from the village had taken them to the hotel MayLyn walked into, expecting that a tourist had lost them. The hotel owner then saw an opportunity to make some money, and charged us 50 Lari to get the bags back. We gave them 50, just relieved to have 95% of our possessions back, but it was the first time we’d had an unpleasant encounter this trip. We later saw the white dog who’d got into two fights that day, and he was fine.
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