stepantsminda

the next day, i met up with the three people from the day before. the malaysians had a rented car, which we took to a monastery an hour away from tbilisi together. the two guys returned back to the capital, while me and uyiun started hitchhiking deeper into the mountains.

the first car brought us to the ski town gudauri, where i was tempted to stay because of the georgian lift prices. a guy took us five minutes further to a better waiting spot, from where we caught a ride with a super nice chap. he not only drove us all the way to stepantsminda, but also made a stop for us to visit a beautiful mosaic memorial and explained to us the whole history of georgia.

also, we fed about 1000 stray dogs. i don't know if i have mentioned this here already, but i bought a bag of dog treats in turkey and i keep it on me at all times, just in case.

driving into stepantsminda was something else. the mountains surrounding the town have giant prominences, mountains as far as the eye can see. i haven't been to nepal, but uyiun confirmed that you couldn't tell the difference if you had to.

we checked into our hostel for an amazing 15 lari (~5€) and went for a hike up to the holy trinity monastery before dark. the way down was buried in thick snow, so we just decided to take a shortcut and slide down the snow through the forest, which worked surprisingly well. because the day had been so inexpensive, we even treated us to some nice georgian wine along the daily pasta.

the next day, it was already time to leave again. after a bit of starting trouble, we caught a ride with the most daring driver in georgia, and later got into a car with a bunch of guys from tbilisi, who took us all the way to the hostel. 10/10 experience, will definitely revisit.Read more