Georgia to Azerbijan.

The last stretch of Turkey involved our first truck ‘stuck in the mud’ whilst bush camping. A couple of hours of hard digging ensued, my part in proceedings? To walk to the next valley and communicate our needs to the farmer with the JCB! Interesting. So with arms wildly miming our problem I believe I also suggest that we would give him a beer for his efforts (forgetting he was Muslim!). Eventually we were towed from the bog but this was the start of 3 days of continuous rain. Having a bit of a cold, and not up for the next campsite with only one cold shower between 24, I decided to upgrade to a hotel for the next few nights whilst in Sumela to see the monastery. Great decision, warm, dry, amazing locally produced cheese, butter, honey, jam for breakfast and wi-fi in the bedrooms. Fully revived it was onwards to Georgia.

Our last 14 days have been spent travelling West to East through the country where we have enjoyed the famous Georgian food, wine, hospitality, spectacular mountain scenery and cosmopolitan Tibilisi.

Our arrival after a rather push and shove boarder crossing was to Batumi where the group took over the ‘Hotel Old Ship’. This is an old, permanently moored galleon and it was excellent fun. We then had a group night out on another ‘Old ship’ turned restaurant (not joking), which was a short walk away. We were treated to the first of our Georgian feasts… I believe I lost count at course number 8! The food was wonderful, the wine flowed and we danced the night away to a strange Yamaha keyboard trio who repeatedly played ‘Venus’ by Bananarama, hilarious!

Next we headed up treacherous mountain roads leading high into the mountain passes of the Svaneti region. Never will I complain about the roads of Greece again! Our base was a homestay in the village of Mestia with the very generous Nino as our host.

Svaneti is famous for it’s defensive stone towers and snow covered peaks rising to above 4000m and is truly isolated from the developed world. We found we were accompanied by the police, or some form of military, through a lot of this area since up until 2004 it was still considered unsafe to travel through. This was no problem, always friendly, one of the police men even bought us food and wine from a local wedding he was forced to miss due to guarding us for the night and spent the night with us by the campfire before retiring to sleep in his freezing car overnight.

Now I feel that I must make reference to the protocol of the ‘Georgian toast’ since this is a business to be taken very seriously when eating and drinking with a Georgian. Firstly Georgians only ever toast enemies with beer so wine and spirits are the only drinks to toast friends with. Once initiated a toast can be surprisingly lengthy, poetic and heart felt. If you are toasted you should let others add their wishes before thanking them and draining your drink. A suitable amount of time should then pass before you are then able to propose your own in response. Unsurprisingly the group seemed to take to this new protocol very quickly!

Leaving the mountains behind for a little while we travelled down to Gori-home of the Stalin museum and a night for us in the Ex-Soviet style hotel ‘Intourist’ with a very allusive hot water supply. The museum charts Stalin’s journey from Gori church school to the end of WII and his death in 1953. We had an amazing guide who had the phenomenal ability to speak without drawing breath, I believe that she had something reptilian about her. Her commentary was great but what was missing was any attempt at a balanced portrayal of his career, taking the angle of local boy made good! No mention of the Gulag, Ukrainian famine or Stalin’s involvement with Hitler! From Gori it was then back up into the mountains to bush camp at the base of Mount Kazbecki. From here I took a rather strenuous trek up to monastery (can’t recall the name but it’s the one on the cover of the Lonely Planet). Overall it took around 3 hours in total with the last bit scrambling on all fours up through the snow. The views were amazing!

Next was onto Tibilisi for an extended 3 day stay. This is due to having to re-route the trip through Kazakstan since Turkmenistan have closed their boarders due to swine flu. This worked out well as Tibilisi is a wonderful place to spend a few days wondering the old town and soaking up the café culture. There are still protesters in town trying to oust the president, however all was peaceful at the time of our visit.

Our last stop was in the Kakheti region near Telavi known as Georgia’s wine country. We stopped at a small producer where over 100 litres of wine and cha-cha were purchased for the truck bar! It’s hardly St Emilion but it is infinitely drinkable whilst around the campfire at bush camps! So now we are in Azerbijan and our 12th country of the trip. Here we transit through on our way to Baku where we will catch our ferry across the Caspian to Kazakstan. So far we have stayed at an ancient Karavansaray and bush camped at mud volcanoes. The Azeri people are very friendly and the response to the truck is always an inquisitive look and a raised hand to wish us well on our journey.

So today we are due to catch the cargo ferry to Kazakstan. We have been told we could go today or we could go in 7 days! I'll keep you posted!