We took our time in the morning before heading into the mountains in the south that were growing bigger during the last two days. Until Kharagauli the roads were nice with low traffic except a short strech through Zestapodi and it was a realy beautiful spring day. After Kharagauli we continued on unpaved roads along the river. Throughout the valley there were sparse houses, but less than the day before where one village was next to the other. And then it appeared in front of us, definitely one of the best camping spot I came across so far, I thought... There were ruins of a small castle on a small hill cutting into the valley, making it narrower. From up there one can overlook the valley and have plenty of sun, probably even see a nice sunset. The neighboring houses were lower, so they would neither hear us nor see our fire and we would be far enough from the train tracks (where a lots of freight trains passed) to have an undisturbed sleep. From bellow it looked like there must be a road leading close enough to reach the promised spot and so we decided to give it a try. Before we took off, a police car arrived. We asked if there is a road to the castle, he said that there is something more like a path, not really rideable. We tried anyway and police followed us. In the end most of the distance was just rideable pushing with everything I, had into the highest gear. The last strech was a narrow-muddy-supersteep trail. No camping in the castle, not without dragging our stuff another 50m up on that difficult track anyway. Instead we went for sightseeing and the spot turned out to be better than I pictured it in my imagination.
On the way down we discovered an alternative spot in a side-valley close to a torrent and we settled for that one. The policeman went away after some time and a bit later two new ones returned. We went about our businesses (pitching the tents, cooking...) and started wondering after sunset if they would spend the night here.
As we were sitting around the fire and older man came to us making us understand, that we should follow him to his house. Since he insisted vigorously, we gave in and went with him. At Valodias house his wife was busy in the kitchen. At our (re)appearance she looked a bit startled (we had seen her on the way to the castle earlier). Communication was very difficult, there was no common language between georgian and russian on one side and korean, english, french and german on the other. Fifteen minutes later we sat in front of a richly set table; bread, eggs, pickled vegetables, some elaborately conserved delicious aubergines, fruits in suggar water (tastes like siroup only better) and vine, everything was homemade. The fact that we had eaten a bit more than and hour ago and that my stomach was a mess again, giving me pain from some kind of cramps made me want to cry. I bearly could eat a bite and had trouble explaining my situation to our hosts, luckily my koren friends honoured the meal with both hands and 'hmmms' and 'ooohs'.
After some time, a photo session in all possible combinations and many thanks we left to find our beds in our tents. Valodia insisted to bring us back, but he took my arm on the way down these steep roads. He seemed having had a glass or two too much. Back at our tents he did not seem wanting to leave, so we sat there for a while smoking untli two shadows approached, coming from the police cars direction. They started talking too Valodia, recognised him after a couple of sentences. The police officers were talking in what I perceived as a kind voice and finally Valodia went back home and the police, after asking what time we would leave the next day, went back too their car. We were a bit confused, the answer of why they would stay all night was; 'security', and made not really sense too us. However, tired as we were we did not break our heads over this and went too sleep.
On the way down we discovered an alternative spot in a side-valley close to a torrent and we settled for that one. The policeman went away after some time and a bit later two new ones returned. We went about our businesses (pitching the tents, cooking...) and started wondering after sunset if they would spend the night here.
As we were sitting around the fire and older man came to us making us understand, that we should follow him to his house. Since he insisted vigorously, we gave in and went with him. At Valodias house his wife was busy in the kitchen. At our (re)appearance she looked a bit startled (we had seen her on the way to the castle earlier). Communication was very difficult, there was no common language between georgian and russian on one side and korean, english, french and german on the other. Fifteen minutes later we sat in front of a richly set table; bread, eggs, pickled vegetables, some elaborately conserved delicious aubergines, fruits in suggar water (tastes like siroup only better) and vine, everything was homemade. The fact that we had eaten a bit more than and hour ago and that my stomach was a mess again, giving me pain from some kind of cramps made me want to cry. I bearly could eat a bite and had trouble explaining my situation to our hosts, luckily my koren friends honoured the meal with both hands and 'hmmms' and 'ooohs'.
After some time, a photo session in all possible combinations and many thanks we left to find our beds in our tents. Valodia insisted to bring us back, but he took my arm on the way down these steep roads. He seemed having had a glass or two too much. Back at our tents he did not seem wanting to leave, so we sat there for a while smoking untli two shadows approached, coming from the police cars direction. They started talking too Valodia, recognised him after a couple of sentences. The police officers were talking in what I perceived as a kind voice and finally Valodia went back home and the police, after asking what time we would leave the next day, went back too their car. We were a bit confused, the answer of why they would stay all night was; 'security', and made not really sense too us. However, tired as we were we did not break our heads over this and went too sleep.
