Tusheti is probably the only region where I haven’t planned to go at all but due to a number of reasons like sleepless nights, unbearable heat and basically to overcome the malaise I appeared to be sitting in the minivan taking his swinging path from Akhmeteli region to Tusheti.
Road is one of the main part of the trip, if we exclude the time lost on the way from Batumi to Tbilisi. The rout from Tbilisi to Tusheti is very interesting and extreme if we consider that lately BBC recently included it into the world's most dangerous roads list.
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The road is not really that dangerous, though if you are sitting in the right wheel car on the left side of the driver and still reflexively try to push the breaks with your legon each turn and downhill (I think it’s a habitude for every driver used to left wheel), when there is a great gulf just in 20 cm from the tire and you are not sitting on the place where you can grab the wheel – your body produces much more adrenaline and all these feelings are doubled by the fact that there are memorial boards with names, dates of birth and death of the road accident victims after almost every kilometer.
However, this is all about accustoming, in just half an hour and you trust the driver, then you let go of your virtual wheel, and you start observing the river roaring down in the canyon lost in the gap somewhere underneath your door. In addition, you cannot get enough of the sightseeing that is incredibly stunning.
As we were told one Tushetian shepherd was helping the engineers in designing this road to the mountains of Tusheti and the route is developed by the shepherd. Though the co-villagers were making fun of him telling that it was not his job to plan the route - typical Georgian story.
The path, which was used before cutting up the motorway road.
The mountain slowly became bald, we left the leafy forest behind. However the stripped road has become no less fascinating. Not much was left to the pass, several already common steep turns and we were already hiding in the haze.
Hungrily breathing in the fog, remembering parents’ advice from the childhood spent in Bakhmaro and Beshumi – fog is good, we could not remember why it was good but our lungs clearly felt every breath of revitalized, fresh air. How can people get sooty from tobacco smoke here… We stopped for a while, we took pleasure to watch foggy hills and went down the pass.
Even the relief has changed and the cliffs started to show their tanned shoulders, erupted from the ground and tile rocks numbed as layers of burned book proudly wearing already pine forests.
There were waterfalls, rivers and springs every step of the way, and it wouldn’t be so surprising if not a condition that they all are used as a drinking water if it was not too hazy. Just like this, we could stop the car and water your throat, dry from the heat with icy spring water tasting different from lowland water, refresh yourself and go on your way… there is no need to worry about thirst… As I already mentioned there is water each second step.
Our trip from Tbilisi to Tusheti took five hours because we were stopping at every river, waterfall, spring and almost every beautiful flower. After all the sun, the trip and tiredness took the prevailed. We got tired and obeyed to the will of our driver we couldn’t wait for the time to be settled and rested. Soon we could see the villages stretched on the mountain slopes … Tusheti villages
