Today was reserved for the community of Ushguli. We went to see two of the three local museums (one of which was a bit disappointing and expensive for what’s on display). The third one was closed by the time we got there. Walked around the hamlets and noticed that in the two upper ones, Chvibiani and Zhibiani, there is quite abit of refurbishing going on and there are actually a lot of guest houses (and an unexpectedly high number of tourists – we met 10+ or so). Not all of the guest houses seem as sympathetic as ours, though.
Wanted to rent horses to ride to the ruins of Tamar mepe (Queen Tamar) church, which is located on a hill overlooking the Enguri valley and all of Ushguli. After hiring the guide and horses he told us that the path would be too steep or whatever and that it wouldn’t be possible to go there by horse. Gna! Instead we were offered a ride to the Shkhara glacier where we’d been yesterday. For lack of options we accepted that route eventually.
I hadn’t really ever ridden a horse (other than once around a soccer field or so years ago) and I was looking forward to it now. The ride was short, though. At the avalanche we’d crossed yesterday the guide stopped and turned around, telling us that it wouldn’t be possible to cross it with the horses. Oh well, in other words, we got ripped off. ;)
Walked down to Chazhashi, the second lowest hamlet of the Ushguli community. Here there is less (re)building going on. Tracks between houses are narrow, twisted, bumpy, and dirty. The towers are mighty and strong, though deteriorating. I don’t think many of them are put to good use, and most are just rotting away slowly. Very sad.
If you ignore the satellite dishes in the backyards, this truly feels like having traveled back in time to the middle ages.
The only part of Ushguli we haven’t visited yet is Murkmeli, the lowest of the four hamlets. We’ve only seen it briefly from the road when we arrived here two days ago. It looked like it is the poorest and most rotten one.
At night we had a farewell supra in our family. It was short, fortunately, but the chacha was strong. The etiquette is very difficult to grasp, especially given the language barrier. Ours and their Russian combined only got us thus far. We never knew when we were supposed to reply to the toast, when to drink, and how much. Well, we managed anyway and had quite a bit of fun.
