The Caucasus

The Caucasus mountains

Today we embarked to the central bus station for the marshutka that will take us to Kazbegi, specifically to the town Stepantsminda. The marshutka itself was another old shouldn't-be-on-the-road type. Most of its passengers were middle-aged women, the elderly, and a small group of teenage girls who were singing an encore of Georgian pop songs for much of the journey. The only other apparent foreigners on the bus were a young British couple, in fact, the only passengers who bothered using a seatbelt.

The journey itself was about 3 hours with the last portion of the trip being through mountainous terrain and something that used to be a paved road. The hostel was about a half-hour walk from the bus drop off point uphill through half of the village. The hostel itself was lovely however the same cannot be said for the village which had definitely seen much better days. Aside from the broken and busted road that looked like an earthquake had hit it, and horse and farm animal droppings, another worry was the mud caused by the seasonal rain since the morning. Getting our legs caked in mud we gave them a quick clean, got changed to our climbing gear, and set off for Gergeti Trinity Church, which was located at an elevation of 2170 metres with a wide-angle view of Mount Kazbegi.

Kazbegi

The weather was quite overcast and rainy which meant that after a steep 1.5 - 2-hour climb up the harder but quicker hiking track up the hill, our views were unfortunately limited. Aside from this, the air was mountain crisp and chilly and church surroundings provided a nice escape from the hectic chaos of Tbilisi or the poverty-stricken street of Stepantsminda. With one side of the hill being a steep and muddy descent, the other one used by hikers still covered with patches of snow and ice, and dusk and darkness slowly approaching, we decided to pitch in with a few other hikers and take an offroad taxi down into the village. The taxi itself was a right-hand drive Mitsubishi Delica, with offroad customisations like a raised suspension, large tires, and a 4x4 gearbox. It handled those battle-torn and cracked roads like a pro, with some particular turns enough to give stomach butterflies. Worth every lari, especially as we were down in the village within a half-hour and before night set-in.