Gveleti gorge

I rode the last 15km in Georgia of the fabled military highway, right up to the Russian border. Way back in time there would have been a single track between villages, then a cart track for merchants and somewhere in the early 1900s a road was built. The current post WW2 iteration of the road has two tunnels, is straighter than the old one, but it's not enough. This highway is the only connection between Tbilisi, Armenia and Russia. The truck traffic on this road is substantial and they barely fit when they pass each other, there are no shoulders, but there is a cliff and a mountain wall.

As a cyclist I am not going to share two tunnels with these trucks. I find a way up an embankment and go along the over grown old military road, hewn into the rock, the truly fabled one. Below me the Chinese, of course, are building the fourth version of this road. Will this be the last? It's super streamlined along the riverbed and through the bottoms of mountains. Up on the old old road it's quiet and I enjoy the special feeling of this venerable road overgrown with bushes and grass, hardly recognizable, in the end nature wins.

Gveleti gorge is a popular spot for a short hike and there are some people on the trail but I was lucky to have the waterfalls to myself.Read more