Tbilisi to northern Armenia

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Trip Start Jun 12, 2009 Trip End Sep 03, 2009 Next
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  Tbilisi, Georgia
Sunday, June 21, 2009

Let's see if I can get caught up with this blog!  We started our trip in Tbilisi, Georgia.  Neither of us was wild about it, but glad to have seen it anyway.  Our Lonely Planet travel guide calls it a Eurasian crossroads, and it does have that feeling; mainly in the carved wooden balconies that you see.  One striking thing is that you can go from a pretty poor, run down,  looking street, turn the corner and literally be in a different world of western oriented restaurants, shops, etc.  The people are orthodox here as in Ukraine.  I'm used to seeing people cross themselves three times in churches (as well as passing one on foot or in a vehicle), but here I also people kissing icons three times (maybe I missed it in Ukraine?) and also kissing either the doorframe or doorknob going into church and again on the way out.

The next town in Georgia, Mtskheta, is about 14 km north and very different in just about every respect.  Much smaller, 8K people, clean air, cleaner and in better repair; a delightful place to hang our hats for 3 nights! This is the spiritual heart of Georgia.  We stayed at a small family run place, directly across from the cathedral, which was beautifully lit at night.  We also got to see it backlit during a couple of major lightening and thunder storms!  One day we hiked up to Jvari Church, high on a hill overlooking the town.  The Georgians consider this to be the "holiest of the holy" and it dates back to the 6th c.   I was in wildflower heaven on the hike up and back, seeing several that were new to me.  The views from the top are great.

Next stop was Kazbegi, a 3 hr. ride north of Tbilis; a lot of it over roads in need of serious repair; but oh, the views!  The Caucasus mountains are unlike any that I've seen; an incredibly deep shade of green, cut in many places by small streams coursing down it's flanks, patches of snow in other places and a fair amount of erosion and subsidance; not by the hand of man, but nature as far as I can tell.  The rock is quite crumbly looking in a lot of places.  Also, a good deal of the mountains that we saw didn't have trees, and no evidence of them having been cut, either.  More wildflower heaven and more new flowers!  There is an iconic church, Tsminda Sameba, on top of a hill that we hiked to one day and it was well worth the climb.  It's said that the Georgians have a knack for picking the most beautiful sights for their churches and I agree!  Although it wasn't a totally clear day, the views were still quite spectacular. If it weren't so cloudly and foggy the next day, we would have headed up to the Russian border, 11 km away, but it didn't make sense.  We did a lovely homestay with breakfast and dinner thrown in and were served quite a feast.  Also had fun talking with an English couple that were staying there.  The only downside to Kazbegi and on the way up were a lot of abandoned buidings, and a huge amount of trash thrown around in Kazbegi; we actually saw 2 old cars sitting in a stream on our hike up the mountain, along with the usual plastic bottles, bags, etc.  It's such a disconnect to be in such a beautiful place in nature, with gorgeous wildflowers blooming everywhere, a nice stream pouring down from above and then to have it spoiled with so much trash.

Georgian food is great and the people very nice and helpful most of the time; a woman doctor that I sat next to on the bus going into Mtskheta helped us find the place that we stayed. Unfortunately, the daily demonstrations for the last couple of months are really hurting the tourist business.  The people want  president Saakashivili to step down, but he won't leave.  The demonstrations aren't violent, but of course it's best to steer clear if one is going on.

Yesterday, we crossed into northern Armenia, another beautiful country.  Lots of mountains, but these are tree covered for the most part.  We are staying with a great family in Vanadzor.  They served us coffee and fruit when we arrived, and invited us to join their barbeque which was delicious; there must have been about 10 of us all together. We had pork, chicken, potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes and hot peppers, all done over the fire. Today we visited a cute town about an hour from where we're staying.

The Armenian's are also very nice people and such a wonderful variety of faces here, even more so than Georgia, I think.  I'd highly recommend both countries as great places to visit.  The only downside is that it would be  harder if we didn't know a little Russian.

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