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My second day in Georgia was 4WDing in the Vashlovani Nature Reserve, out towards Azerbaijan. We didn't cross over into Azerbaijan, and there was no intent to, but one of the warnings was that if we got cut off by fire in the Reserve then we might have to exit out via Azerbaijan, so take your passport with you!
(Curious question: on most of the groups for women travelling solo, there's all manner of warnings about travelling with your passport and how it's unwise to do so, but where do you keep it then... It seems to be a peculiarly American thing for women in the 50+ age range, especially those who aren't accustomed to travelling internationally, though, so I'm particularly curious if this is common among people I know.)
But the day started with the hotel. Or, more correctly, with a pic of the hotel across the road!
The second pic is of the reception area. I don't think it was a particularly cultural presentation, just trying to present a general feeling of 'luxury'.
Our hotel was right on the edge of a cliff and had some spectacular views down the valley. I think it faced roughly south, so the morning sun was pretty amazing. The upside was the view. The 'downside' was that the bus couldn't come up and collect us every morning, so we had to walk down. Which was a perfectly fine walk to me, although we did have at least one woman with cane, and one eighty year-old who everyone kept an eye on...just in case!
The road up from the carpark (where our bus usually stayed) which we walked down every time we had to get to the bus.
Anyway, this morning, we left Signahi to drive to a restaurant/guesthouse from where we were going to meet the 4WDs. And, as inevitably happened anywhere we stopped, there were queues to use the toilet. It was kind of funny, but also good as someone commented during the trip: an entire tour run by women who understood that 20+ women in their 40s and above are not going to rush through using the bathroom. They had time built in for browsing and bathroom usage!
Speaking of browsing. Inside the guesthouse, we admired all the little handmade knick-knacks for sale. There were some lovely wooden toys, and if not for the fact that I would have had to drag it all over Europe before I actually got to my nephew, I'd have bought a couple for him.
The garden was more to my taste (of course). Outside it was lovely, art works and arches and bowers, and things growing everywhere. I got a picture of Daniel-the-lemming in a fruit tree:
It tasted like a fairly sour cherry or plum. Apparently great for jam.
Some sculptures were distinct, on pedestals, or abstract, while others were carved out of the wood already in the garden: see the squirrel and the dog?
Our drivers came with the 4WD, we each picked one (three to a car) and our driver was nice but didn't speak English at all. Apparently one of the other cars had a very helpful driver who told them all about the area!
Vashlovani Nature Reserve
We had a geobiologist talking to us about the reserve, about the different geologies in the reserve. There's so much of it that I no longer remember, about the climate type on one side of the range as compared to the other, about the land and preserving it and protecting it, about the research that he'd done on the area and the biology of the forests and plains all around us.
After about 2 hours of driving (with a couple of stops), we paused for lunch at a particular spot with a little pergola, and lunch was provided by a company that had started up to do food tours like this...just as the pandemic hit in 2020. They'd had a rough year or two of it, but now that more people were coming to the region, they were working partnerships with travel organisers like the ones who organised this tour. The company was also run by women and focused on women-owned businesses and farms for their produce - which is why the tour company went with them for this tour.
Once again, the food was amazing. Cooked chicken, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers - both of them whole, bread, cheese, and fruit - watermelon and apples... So simple, but tasty! Most likely because the apples (and tomatoes) weren't bred to be big and not bruise when tipped into a metal hopper.
And it was hot. About 30C out in the park, so we were very glad of the water and the shade!
I think we were supposed to make our windy way back to the garden where we would meet the coach, but the geobiologist took us to see a vulture nest he'd been keeping an eye on. As it turned out, it was also above an old citadel high up in the rocks. You can hike to see it, but the hike takes a couple of days and there's not that much to see.
It was so magnificent. Open sky, winding roads, hot dust, and the rocky promontories beside us and towering above us...
One of our 4WDs got lost on the way back. They ended up being misdirected by a group of British backpackers (IIRC) and ended up taking the long way back after going in the wrong direction for about 45 minutes before the driver realised they might be off-course. One of problems with the area is that there's not a lot of cellphone reception, and so we dropped in and out all day - mostly out, tbh. But that meant that there was a moment when we turned off the road and onto a paddock kind of area, and then waited for all the cars to catch up...and then realised we were down a car!
Pause for the drivers and the tour guide and the tour organiser to get in contact with the missing car, and I took a pic of the horses and the landscape nearby. Have you ever heard of caucasian horses? No, they're not the White Supremacist's preferred choice of mount, they're a horse breed that's been in these parts for thousands of years. I know nothing about horses, but apparently this is a very old breed.
They 'found' the missing 4WD, and how far off-course they were, but rather than just take us all back to the garden and wait, we ended up going to visit an old Soviet-era airfield, complete with cement hangars...or possibly bunkers.
Apparently the 'road' that we were on was also an airstrip. Concrete, rather than bitumen, but then if they were scrambling for the air, any flat surface would do. And planes - even war planes - used to land on rather less salutary surfaces than concrete.
After that, we were back to the garden, a bathroom break, and since we still had to wait for the missing 4WD to make it back, there was a short political conversation during which I briefly blanked as to which state Abbott was governor of.
Sunset from the pool/spa room:
Walk through the town to dinner at Pheasants Tears winery restaurant. Which is apparently known in the USA for Georgian wines. There was a rather small entryway and a very long table!
And once again, the food was amazing.
The menu was:
There was a spectacular wine: a Rtkatsiteli and Mtsvane blend - 50/50 no skin contact, and it was so good I would have bought a bottle...if not for the five other weeks of travel stretching ahead of me!
The book shown in the picture ngaanyatjaarra: art of the lands is an Australian indigenous one, and a small slice of home from very far away!
After dinner, we walked back up to the hotel, some of us went to bed, but a bunch of us went down to the pool. Not shown: pictures of us at the pool since one of the woman went entirely naked into the water. We'd kind of joked about it before, but I wasn't willing to do so in what was a pool for all the hotel guests and not private. But L was unabashed and undaunted. An older woman - maybe in her late 60s, early 70s, but spry and interested and delightful and friendly.
As I've said before, the women on this tour were the 'we're different and we're good with that' sort of women. Which made for excellent travelling companions.
(Curious question: on most of the groups for women travelling solo, there's all manner of warnings about travelling with your passport and how it's unwise to do so, but where do you keep it then... It seems to be a peculiarly American thing for women in the 50+ age range, especially those who aren't accustomed to travelling internationally, though, so I'm particularly curious if this is common among people I know.)
But the day started with the hotel. Or, more correctly, with a pic of the hotel across the road!
The second pic is of the reception area. I don't think it was a particularly cultural presentation, just trying to present a general feeling of 'luxury'.
Our hotel was right on the edge of a cliff and had some spectacular views down the valley. I think it faced roughly south, so the morning sun was pretty amazing. The upside was the view. The 'downside' was that the bus couldn't come up and collect us every morning, so we had to walk down. Which was a perfectly fine walk to me, although we did have at least one woman with cane, and one eighty year-old who everyone kept an eye on...just in case!
The road up from the carpark (where our bus usually stayed) which we walked down every time we had to get to the bus.
Anyway, this morning, we left Signahi to drive to a restaurant/guesthouse from where we were going to meet the 4WDs. And, as inevitably happened anywhere we stopped, there were queues to use the toilet. It was kind of funny, but also good as someone commented during the trip: an entire tour run by women who understood that 20+ women in their 40s and above are not going to rush through using the bathroom. They had time built in for browsing and bathroom usage!
Speaking of browsing. Inside the guesthouse, we admired all the little handmade knick-knacks for sale. There were some lovely wooden toys, and if not for the fact that I would have had to drag it all over Europe before I actually got to my nephew, I'd have bought a couple for him.
The garden was more to my taste (of course). Outside it was lovely, art works and arches and bowers, and things growing everywhere. I got a picture of Daniel-the-lemming in a fruit tree:
It tasted like a fairly sour cherry or plum. Apparently great for jam.
Some sculptures were distinct, on pedestals, or abstract, while others were carved out of the wood already in the garden: see the squirrel and the dog?
Our drivers came with the 4WD, we each picked one (three to a car) and our driver was nice but didn't speak English at all. Apparently one of the other cars had a very helpful driver who told them all about the area!
Vashlovani Nature Reserve
We had a geobiologist talking to us about the reserve, about the different geologies in the reserve. There's so much of it that I no longer remember, about the climate type on one side of the range as compared to the other, about the land and preserving it and protecting it, about the research that he'd done on the area and the biology of the forests and plains all around us.
After about 2 hours of driving (with a couple of stops), we paused for lunch at a particular spot with a little pergola, and lunch was provided by a company that had started up to do food tours like this...just as the pandemic hit in 2020. They'd had a rough year or two of it, but now that more people were coming to the region, they were working partnerships with travel organisers like the ones who organised this tour. The company was also run by women and focused on women-owned businesses and farms for their produce - which is why the tour company went with them for this tour.
Once again, the food was amazing. Cooked chicken, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers - both of them whole, bread, cheese, and fruit - watermelon and apples... So simple, but tasty! Most likely because the apples (and tomatoes) weren't bred to be big and not bruise when tipped into a metal hopper.
And it was hot. About 30C out in the park, so we were very glad of the water and the shade!
I think we were supposed to make our windy way back to the garden where we would meet the coach, but the geobiologist took us to see a vulture nest he'd been keeping an eye on. As it turned out, it was also above an old citadel high up in the rocks. You can hike to see it, but the hike takes a couple of days and there's not that much to see.
It was so magnificent. Open sky, winding roads, hot dust, and the rocky promontories beside us and towering above us...
One of our 4WDs got lost on the way back. They ended up being misdirected by a group of British backpackers (IIRC) and ended up taking the long way back after going in the wrong direction for about 45 minutes before the driver realised they might be off-course. One of problems with the area is that there's not a lot of cellphone reception, and so we dropped in and out all day - mostly out, tbh. But that meant that there was a moment when we turned off the road and onto a paddock kind of area, and then waited for all the cars to catch up...and then realised we were down a car!
Pause for the drivers and the tour guide and the tour organiser to get in contact with the missing car, and I took a pic of the horses and the landscape nearby. Have you ever heard of caucasian horses? No, they're not the White Supremacist's preferred choice of mount, they're a horse breed that's been in these parts for thousands of years. I know nothing about horses, but apparently this is a very old breed.
They 'found' the missing 4WD, and how far off-course they were, but rather than just take us all back to the garden and wait, we ended up going to visit an old Soviet-era airfield, complete with cement hangars...or possibly bunkers.
Apparently the 'road' that we were on was also an airstrip. Concrete, rather than bitumen, but then if they were scrambling for the air, any flat surface would do. And planes - even war planes - used to land on rather less salutary surfaces than concrete.
After that, we were back to the garden, a bathroom break, and since we still had to wait for the missing 4WD to make it back, there was a short political conversation during which I briefly blanked as to which state Abbott was governor of.
Sunset from the pool/spa room:
Walk through the town to dinner at Pheasants Tears winery restaurant. Which is apparently known in the USA for Georgian wines. There was a rather small entryway and a very long table!
And once again, the food was amazing.
The menu was:
beet salad,It was all exceedingly edible, and we absolutely stuffed ourselves full.
nadugi (cottage cheese),
tomato salad,
khachapuri (cheese braead),
eggplants with lemon, tomatoes, garlic, and yoghurt,
lobio (beans),
potatoes,
beef with veggies
There was a spectacular wine: a Rtkatsiteli and Mtsvane blend - 50/50 no skin contact, and it was so good I would have bought a bottle...if not for the five other weeks of travel stretching ahead of me!
The book shown in the picture ngaanyatjaarra: art of the lands is an Australian indigenous one, and a small slice of home from very far away!
After dinner, we walked back up to the hotel, some of us went to bed, but a bunch of us went down to the pool. Not shown: pictures of us at the pool since one of the woman went entirely naked into the water. We'd kind of joked about it before, but I wasn't willing to do so in what was a pool for all the hotel guests and not private. But L was unabashed and undaunted. An older woman - maybe in her late 60s, early 70s, but spry and interested and delightful and friendly.
As I've said before, the women on this tour were the 'we're different and we're good with that' sort of women. Which made for excellent travelling companions.
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