One last hurrah

Lada Gaga's last day allowed us to add a bonus expedition to our itinerary - a drive up the Georgian Military Highway to the Kazbegi area.
The drive is beautiful, following the river and lakes north towards the Russian border. We ended up again surrounded by peaks over 5000m though fewer glaciers from what we could see. We ended up going out to Trusso Valley, seeing how far Lada Gaga could go on terrible roads and, as usual, she took us to the end - a tiny border post with Russia overlooked by yet another ruined fort.
The Trusso Valley seems to have three things to check out - (abandoned) villages, geysers and mountains. The geyser and springs left beautiful salt patterns on the ground, the mountains surrounding the valley are lushly green and there is still a hamlet or two and what looked like a monastery or convent being built. Oh, and the cows... who were still to be found filling highways and roads.
The highlight of Trusso Valley was something we'd heard another traveller talking about but then hadn't been able to find on maps or in guidebooks. We did find a stock image though... and that proved the key! We'd been told about a 'soda pool', a naturally carbonated spring in the valley. When we stopped to see the geyser at the wrong location (thanks maps.me) we saw a small pond across the river that I thought looked like the stock image we'd found. On our way back through the valley, we found a foot bridge which let us cross the river before scrambling along the (very) steep hillside to get to the pool.Read more