We’d had a cup of coffee in a cute cafe’s garden, surrounded by elegant old buildings; lunched on delectable Georgian pastry at a sidewalk table, watching folks walk past casually; depleted significant portions of the little shop’s shelves to fill several bags of provisions; topped up the car’s tank and our spare fuel container… And we were now ready to leave this pleasant town of Telavi, which was the last frontier of civilization before the Great Caucasus Mountain Range.
It was but the first day of our road trip around Georgia. Just hours ago, we’d departed from the country’s capital city, Tbilisi, in a rented Mitsubishi Pajero 4×4 vehicle. It still was clean and neat inside, in contrast to the mess it would inevitably become after practically living in it for weeks.
The road north from Telavi meandered gently over smooth hills. The total surface of the potholes wasn’t by far lesser than the one of the asphalt. Nevertheless, it still was a paved road along which we rolled quickly. It was after the village of Pshaveli, where mighty cliffs took off abruptly to disappear above the clouds, that the hard way began.
Ahead of us, lay a 70-km journey until the next village of Omalo, situated in the heart of Georgia’s northeasternmost Tusheti region. This consists of a complex of abysmal gorges, sparsely populated by various Georgian ethnic subgroups known collectively as the Tush.
These peoples’ origins are not documented, but they are believed by many historians to be descendants of pagans who fled forced Christianization during the early centuries of the Common Era. They still live in largely-unaltered medieval hamlets and—bar the ongoing, slow advent of tourism—subsist exclusively on animal husbandry. We are basically talking about one of the remotest provinces of Europe, which, of course, we were thrilled to explore. But first, we had to make it there…
Hearing about a 70-km trip, one is not to be daunted when that’s to be carried out over a Western-European motorway. But this was far from the case here. These were 70 km of a narrow, excavated strip of land, intersected by fallen boulders and rushing streams, snaking perilously over precipitous slopes and next to fathomless chasms.
That is the case during the three summer months the road remains open. Now, it was September; not long before it gets definitely buried under meters of snow and begins to lose sections from landslides and avalanches.
We’d heard the first snow had fallen up there already. The forecast wasn’t promising for the coming days, either. Most locals had by then abandoned their villages for their lowland shelters; not to return until late next spring when the road reopens after extensive reparations. The dude who rented us the car advised us against risking it—we could get trapped for good. But wandering around the Caucasus in a jeep isn’t something I plan every year. And Tusheti was the exact place I fancied to go.
The first part of the road resembled a tunnel amid the lush vegetation. It penetrated deep north through a gorge whose top we couldn’t discern. After a bit, neither could we discern its bottom off the roadside. Numerous memorial plates of people who perished and whose bodies were probably never retrieved testified to the truthfulness of the claim of it being one of the world’s most dangerous roads.
We had a break by a tall, graceful waterfall and a little pool it formed beside the road. It would have been an idyllic place for a naked dip if it wasn’t freezing. From there on, the road got steeper and rougher.
Bouncing up and down the seats, occasionally banging our heads around, we steadily gained height. Our next stop was at a point we could wonder at an incredible view of the gorge we had just traveled; shortly before entering the clouds to miss the even broader views they concealed.
The cloud was getting thicker as we drove higher and closer to its core. We were hardly ten meters away when the wall of a little stone chapel appeared in front of us through the fog. That was there to mark the Abano Pass: the highest point of the road at 2,826 meters. To our bad luck—or to say “as normally”—the pass was again foggy on our way back so that we never got to see the view.
Further north down the other side, we beheld a novel landscape upon exiting the cloud. The slopes were barer of trees and bushes, yet wetter. Tall waterfalls cascaded down the cliffs all over the place. Sheep and wild goats roamed the high meadows, and eagles circled in the sky. The air smelled of freedom; the primitive kind of freedom associated with such a sheer disentanglement from civilization and its mad pace.
As if instructed by a celestial director to add to the magic, the clouds dissolved overhead. And even the sun shone briefly before plunging behind the eastern ridge. Enough light to give the river its lovely turquoise color lingered by the time we reached the gorge’s bottom to see it. Still a few km from Omalo village, we found a little byroad leading to a placid, grassy spot on the riverbank, which we named home for the night.
Taking advantage of the terminal twilight, we pitched the tent, collected firewood, lit a fire, cooked dinner… And then it was pitch dark… Time to sleep.
That was but the beginning. We had the upcoming days to discover this treasure of a destination; many more miles to cover through the secluded gorges and their stuck-in-time villages; countless extraordinary images to behold and emotions to experience… But that could be the subject of another story.
Transfer services & organized tours in Tusheti
Accommodation and Activities in Georgia
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Tusheti Photo Album
View (and if you want use) all my photographs from Tusheti.
