Kazbegi

We took a two hour marshrutka ride from Tbilisi to Mount Kazbegi and made the trek up the mountain to a church on top called Tsminda Sameba.  I think you can see the church on the top of the further away mountain...

 Now you can see the church, and that's where we headed.  

 We hiked through a village until it ran out and then followed Ahneka's memories of a previous hike up to this church... they were at times a little uncertain, but as long as we were still going up we figured we couldn't go too wrong.  

 When we ran out of road we just started following cow tracks that ran along the mountain.  

 This dog started following us in the village and we just couldn't get rid of him... He followed us all the way to the top!

We about killed ourselves, but we made it!  I think it was a two to three hour hike, but we were proud of ourselves!

 Cows at the top of the mountain.

 Looking down to where we started.

 There were so many lovely wildflowers!

Tsminda Sameba

 This is the holy water fountain.  

 Heading back down the mountain.  

 We got back down to the village after what seemed like roundabout wandering... at one point I was sure we wandered into a Mary Stewart novel and would soon accidentally stumble onto someone doing something underhanded...

We found a little restaurant and has something to eat (I will say this was probably the worst Georgian food), and Ahneka was feeling altitude sickness.  By the time we found the marshrutka she was feeling very sick, and soon lost her lunch in the parking lot!:(  She felt better after that, and we patiently waited for the marshrutka to fill up.  We were all the way in the back and a couple of men with their liters of beer in hand settled in next to us... elbow to elbow!  We were both feeling tired from our hike, and the sun, and altitude, and the trip down the mountain with crazy Georgian drivers is anything but relaxing.  

There was a stretch of road that was under construction and there was only on usable lane, so the traffic was creeping through the gap between the drop down the side of the mountain and the construction equipment and piles of dirt etc.  Our driver tried to go through a gap at the same moment that the track hoe was pivoting and it crunched right into us, pushing us to the edge of the road!  I was sure we were just hanging off the edge and the window next to Ahneka was broken!  We all managed to climb shakily out that window and onto solid ground.  

 It wasn't quite hanging off, but certainly too close for comfort!

 Our marshrutka with the smashed windows.  We waited on the side of the road for a couple of hours while people argued in Georgian all around us, until finally another marshrutka came along and we were, thankfully, on our way back to Tbilisi.  

Looking down from the road on which we were stranded.