Kazbegi and Ananuri

Mt. Kazbegi and the village of Stepantsminda

At the beginning of May, Sam and I headed up from Tbilisi to the Georgian village of Stepantsminda (St. Stephen).  This is a big destination for tourists of all stripes.  It's got beautiful hiking, challenging climbing, tall mountains, unique plant and bird life and, maybe the key attraction, it's not too far afield from Tbilisi.  Minibuses go regularly, north up the Georgian Military Highway, through some striking scenery that winds up and up through the Caucasus.  Mount Kazbegi is the big landmark (and most people refer to the area just as "Kazbegi"), a 5000+ meter dormant volcano right near the Russian-Georgian border that dominates the skyline (when it's not too foggy to see).  

When we got in, we had some light rain and lots of fog, so we did the the logical thing--stopped into a restaurant and ordered some khachapuri and limonati.  (Limonati is usually translated as "lemonade," but is actually just a carbonated fruit-flavored cola.  Some of the most common flavors in Georgia are pear, lemon, grape, and tarragon.  There is a brand called "Kazbegi," but this was surprisingly not the brand carried in the restaurant we went to in Kazbegi.)

Sam, checking out our hiking route as we waited on our lunch

After lunch, our skies cleared enough for us to risk the climb.  We headed out for a hike up to the Gergeti Trinity Church.  Like most Georgian churches, Gergeti Trinity is impossibly sited.  Situated at the top of a cliff-hill with Mt. Kazbegi in the background, it's hard to imagine a more beautiful spot.  It's so pretty, it's often used as the cover model for books about Georgia (it's the cover picture for the current Lonely Planet on Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan).  

We started our hike by scrambling up to the ruins of a watchtower

We really thought we'd get rained on as we climbed

But we made it to the church!

There are some really intricate carvings and masonry on the church

Around the church were more hiking trails, but many were still closed by snow.  Others led up to some prayer spots, where people light candles and say prayers.

A blustery (but thankfully rain-free) self portrait

We waited around up at the top of the hill near the church for a while before hiking back down, thinking all the time that it would rain.  Finally we gave it a shot and ambled down another way, happily running into a group of Swedish bird watchers who were excited photographing a bird.  

As we came down to the bottom, we saw the cows hanging out right near the butcher's shop.  Cows aren't the smartest animals, are they?  (The sign by the door just says "Meat")

At sunset shy Mt. Kazbegi finally started to come out from behind the clouds for us to see (just a peek)

On Sunday morning, the sky was clear and we finally had some of the beautiful views that the area is famous for.  We spent some time walking along the Terek River bank, soaking in the pretty weather and craning our necks up for another look at the mountains.

Finally, a picture worthy of a book cover!

The sun rose, cresting over the mountains on the other side of the village

Not sure what this head is, but it looked pretty cool

One more look of the village and its surroundings

By midmorning, we had to leave Kazbegi behind.  Our last minibus from Tbilisi to Akhalkalaki leaves at 5pm, and we didn't want to miss it.  The drive back toward Tbilisi, which had been obscured by rain clouds on our way to Kazbegi, was almost as impressive as anything else we saw.  

Sometimes the landscape was almost lunar

Other times it was Antarctic

But it was always impressive

I was glad our driver didn't take any of the bends too quickly and that we didn't go careening off any cliffs

We did a short pit stop.  The women were selling homemade churchkhela and pastegh, as well as knitted socks and hats

About 40 minutes away from Tbilisi, we got off the bus to see Ananuri, an old castle/church complex.  Again, we really thought we were going to be rained on, but our luck held out and we just had a moment of sprinkles before the rain passed.

Impressive even from the road, but it gets even better inside

The walls had Georgian squiggles engraved on them

Lots of cool masonry work here, too

There's a pretty impressive reservoir below the Ananuri

It was (I think) a beautiful combination of reconstructed, still-standing, crumbling, and tumbled-down

The towers of the two churches against the friendly, thoughtful rain clouds

Everything was so lush and green

We wandered down towards the banks of the rivers by the reservoir...

...in order to take one more happy self portrait without rain

Back up in a tower of Ananuri

This was the view I was looking at

There were some incredible frescos in the church

When we'd had our fill of Ananuri, we waited patiently for another minibus to come take us back to Tbilisi.  And we waited.  And we waited.  Tons of kids showed up at the castle for a performance of some sort.  The vendors selling souvenirs outside of Ananuri wandered over and asked us if we didn't want to sit at their booths and rest some.  We waited.  Finally we caught a ride back to Tbilisi, just in time to eat a quick dinner and catch our bus back to Akhalkalaki.  A trip well worth it!

A few random recent pictures

Well, I had big plans to write a nice blog post all about our trip last weekend to Kazbegi, but got bogged down in way a lot of projects and visiting and so on and haven't gotten around to it yet.  In the meantime, here are a few random, mostly unrelated pictures we've taken recently, none of which would probably get around to getting a full blog post, but all of which are still worth sharing!

We went to Ninotsminda, the small town/village 20 minutes south of Akhalkalaki a few weekends ago to visit with some other volunteers and got to sit in on a performance of little drummer boys.

Even though the sky was threatening rain (and dropped some on us, too), we hiked out across a big field at the edge of town.

In Akhalkalaki, I bought a Coca-Cola with a Canada Dry cap.  I wish they sold ginger ale here!  I have no idea where this rogue cap came from.

Tbilisi is already bright and green, and this guy just doesn't know what to do about it.  

In an ice cream shop in Tbilisi (gelato, actually), I peer pressured Sam into buying a sundae called "Hot Love."  It was way pricier than our usual double scoop cones, but was tasty and worth it, if only for the picture

April 24 was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, so people in town all went to the church to light candles and put out flowers near the memorial.  I went pretty early in the morning (like at 11am or some extremely early hour like that), so the pile of flowers wasn't too big yet, but by evening (when I'd left my camera at home) the whole churchyard was littered with flowers.

Spring Break Armenia, Days 5-6

Day five in Armenia started off with a teeny tiny kitty.  Sam made fun of me for a while based on the way I acted, but look how cute this thing is. (He specifically referenced this comic in doing so.) Teeny tiny animals just aren’t fair and no one should be held responsible for the stupid things they say when confronted with a teeny tiny animal.  Also, yes, this kitty was eating its breakfast from a plastic bag.  No further comment.

While our guidebook had tempted us into taking some extra journeys by bus or taxi around the area of Dilijan to see Molokan villages or more churches or monasteries, the beautiful weather convinced us that a nice, relaxed, long walk was a better way to spend the day.  We stocked up on some picnic supplies and walked 6 kilometers up to the ruins of an old church called Jukhtakvank.  That one was a mouthful to get out as we asked locals if we were headed in the right direction, to be sure.  As we got up to the ruins, we saw a sign informing us that we were at the beginning of a 4-5 kilometer nature trail through Dilijan National Park that would be well marked and take us past another really old ruined church. 

We did find the ruins, despite the hard-to-say name

A map!

We could tell it would be way prettier in a few more weeks, when all the trees turned green, but the weather was just perfect

This was a very cool thing.  There was a sign next to this that said it was a nature bed, and inviting us to just stretch out and really let nature sink in, to listen to the birds, to look up at the sky, and to smell the smells.  All parks need this!

Pretty sky

We picnicked at this nice shaded table, looking out at the valley below

There was just this one questionable crossing point

The final ruined church at the end of the hiking trail

Boy was the walk the right call.  We hiked our way along, constantly remarking at our luck on the weather.  It was gorgeous out.  Our long hike left us happily tired and we made it into Dilijan just before dinnertime.  We ambled along through the remnants of a kids park/fair/amusement park and up to the rather impressive and cool World War Two monument.  After thoroughly wearing ourselves out, we headed to a nice Armenian restaurant in the newly restored old town and sat out on the balcony watching the sun set. 

World War Two monument in Dilijan

Broken down kiddie coaster 

Another view of Dilijan

The restored old town

Another look, restored old town in Dilijan

The next morning we got up early to start our massive commute back to Akhalkalaki.  We took a rickety old bus that somehow managed to get started and move to a neighboring town (40 kilometers in 60 minutes), where we managed to smell out the lies of the taxi drivers (there aren’t any buses going to Gyumri!  You’ll have to take a taxi! My taxi!) and find a bus going to Gyumri, where we just had enough time to eat some lunch before hopping on our minibus back across the border. 

Inside bus number one... it was a close one, but we made it!

In all, it was a fantastic trip (as my obsession with posting way too many blog posts about it probably shows), but it was again especially rewarding to get a chance to really speak a lot of Armenian and feel like we’ve accomplished some language learning here.  We don’t really get too much of a chance to speak Armenian in Akhalkalaki (or rather, I don’t; I guess Sam does at school).  People know we know Russian way better than we know Armenian, and it’s asking a lot to have the patience to listen to us figure out what we want to say, when we can say it without thinking in Russian.  Also, in a completely un-Peace-Corps twist on things, we really still have a hard time speaking the local dialect of Armenian and are way more comfortable with the standard literary language.  It means that even though we spent a lot of time and frustration in studying a language, I often feel like I don’t know anything in it and get really down about things.  Traveling to Armenia (where most people tend to speak a language way closer to what we studied) helped me feel a lot better about things.  So in addition to just having a great time, it was a feel-good experience that made things overall better.  Oh yeah, and Sam ate a soft pretzel.