Kutaisi and 3 day trek from Mestia to Ushguli

We began our Georgian adventure with a late-night flight from Cyprus into Kutaisi. Kutaisi is a large Georgian city, but not quite as modern as the capital Tbilisi. I am glad that we started in this city and didn’t try to go after Tbilisi, or we may have been a bit disappointed. We were greeted at immigration around midnight with an hour-long line to get into the country, and after an Uber ride into town, we encountered a quiet, dark neighborhood to try and find our guesthouse.

There were two houses that matched the address we were given, both with the lights out, and there was no signage for the guest house out front. We took our best guess and chose one to knock with no response. Due to our late arrival, we did not yet have a local phone plan, so our very kind Uber driver helped by calling the number on the booking, and we quickly found out that we were knocking on the neighbor’s door at 2am! Once we found the correct door to the guest house we were greeted by a lovely old man with little English, but very excited to see us. This kindness set a great tone for our Georgian travels, particularly when we had heard many times before that Georgia is not necessarily the happiest of people and kindest of cultures.

With the late arrival the night prior, we awoke late and decided to wander around town. We had lunch at a really interesting local restaurant called Bikentia’s Kebab Place. There are no chairs with only a handful of standing tables along the wall. They serve exactly one dish, Kebab with a spicy tomato-based sauce on top served with one local draught beer. The food was outstanding, and we felt amongst locals who all seemed to enjoy the fact we found and enjoyed their popular little lunch restaurant. 

We next adventured to the river where we encountered an old cable car up to the top of a hill overlooking the city. If I have learned anything about Nate on this trip, is that he really appreciates a good cable car, so of course we had to take it. The Kutaisi cable car is well over 50 years old, a relic of the Soviet era, and a fun short ride.

At the top (in the ex-Soviet fashion) there was a run-down amusement park with some teenagers enjoying the limited rides. After descending the hill we encountered an outdoor gym with calisthenic geared equipment, which of course we needed to try. Unfortunately, I realized how weak I had become after our travels and my upper body was notably sore for days. 

The final stop of our first day was Bagrati Cathedral. Georgia has a rich Christian heritage, and it was nice to see some truly stunning churches and monasteries to vary it up from the countless mosques we visited in the ‘Stans. This cathedral was very old but had gone through a renovation. Unfortunately, the changes they made were controversial and subsequently led this ancient Church to lose its Unesco classification after the renovation. We stayed for sunset and since the church sits above the city it provided a beautiful view of Kutaisi.

The following day we decided to go see two monasteries just outside the city, Gelati and Motsameta, and to complete a hike between them. We hopped a minibus out of town that we were told would go to the Gelati Monastery. We asked a local as we got on the minibus, which he confirmed. Unfortunately, this was not exactly the case as we were dropped at the base of the final hill and we were left with several kilometers to walk uphill before we reached the complex.

Our favorite part of the monastery was the smaller church next door that was untouched by renovations or crowds and looked out over the larger church. Gelati is known for its elaborate murals of religious figures, unfortunately, the church was under renovation which made it very difficult to see these paintings. 

From here, we set out on the path that we could see on maps.me to hike to the Motsameta Monastery. We knew it would be a couple-kilometer walk, but we were told it was a popular hike. We first climbed the mountain and got a couple more beautiful views of Gelati before continuing on through the woods and farmland, making friends with some cows along the way.

As we got closer we entered a really beautiful forest and started to descend towards a rather large river. I started to panic a little because we knew that Motsameta Monastery was on the other side of the river, and we were really hoping for a bridge or we would have had to go all the way back. Well, there turned out to be a bridge, however, it was on its last legs with most planks missing and I was so scared it might break. Naturally, I sacrificed myself and went first across the dodgiest bridge I have ever seen. I held my breath the whole way, but in the end, Nate and I both successfully crossed and we made our way back up the other side of the valley wall where we reached the most spectacular of church complexes.

Motsameta Monastery is very beautiful and built over a bend of the river which is truly a stunning and peaceful place. As we arrived, there were monks chanting in the small antechamber, and I had never heard Christians chanting like this before. After taking some photos, we hiked up the hill and down a train track that is marked on the map to get a terrific view of the monastery from afar. Finally, we hiked back down to the main road where we were told we could wait for a minibus back into town. Unfortunately, this minibus information was no more reliable than the ride up to Gelati that morning. In the end, a bus never came despite waiting for 40 minutes in the cold and dark, but a wonderful local man took pity on us and drove us back to town at no charge! Another day that ended with some surprise Georgian kindness.

The next day, we headed out early to the minibus station to catch a bus into the Caucus Mountains en route to a beautiful village called Mestia. We tried to time our trip to Georgia so that we could hike with the autumn colors, and we couldn’t have timed it more perfectly! The five-hour drive was stunning as we wound through mountains and valleys colored with red, orange, and yellow hues.

We stayed at the Guesthouse Venera in the center of town, and the owners made us feel right at home and even let us throw in our laundry for free. At the homestay, we quickly made friends with the nicest and friendliest house cat I have ever met. We adopted him as ours while we were there, and he stayed with us all night!

The following morning we set out on a three-day two, two-night hike from Mestia to another high mountain village named Ushguli. This is typically a four-day hike, but due to time constraints and cold weather coming in we decided in advance that we would shorten the trekking and try to find transport up a road that made up the final stretch so that we could have more time in Ushguli, which we heard was really cute. We left a lot of our luggage at the Guesthouse in Mestia and headed out with one large backpack and some food and water in a smaller hydro-pack. Luckily, there were small villages and guest houses along the way so we didn’t need camping equipment. 

As we left town we were immediately greeted with sweeping views of some of the tallest mountains in Europe, and beautiful Mestia nestled amongst them on the river as we looked back. The first day was gorgeous, but sadly it turned out to be our only sunny day. Seeing that winter was quickly moving in I am grateful that we had at least one day like this to enjoy the autumn colors. Early in the hike, we met two nice Polish guys who were also beginning the trek to Ushguli. We talked to them for a bit, but we were moving a bit quicker on day one and didn’t see them again until the following day. After reconnecting on day two we found ourselves moving at the same pace, enjoying each other’s company, and subsequently decided to complete the rest of the hike with them. 

The first day was so lovely as we slowly wound our way further into the mountains. We alternated who took the big pack so that neither of us would get too tired and were greeted with amazing views throughout. We decided to take the slightly longer “higher route” where we would pass through the picturesque village of Lakhiri, which is famous for its watchtowers. Interestingly, all of the villages in the mountains are covered in watchtowers as apparently every old farm and house had its own watchtower because no one trusted their neighbor.

Historically, these watchtowers were first used as defenses against invaders and then later used as defenses against each other since they tried to kill each other a lot. Lakhiri is a bit of a sleepy and run-down village with barely anyone around, but the views of the watchtowers here are breathtaking. 

We finished our first day of trekking in the village of Zhabeshi, which was our planned destination for the first night. We had pre-booked a guesthouse just to make sure we had a place to stay. Essentially, all accommodations along this trek are homestays where the families have extra bedrooms. The rates always come with a home-cooked dinner and breakfast. The food at this home was AMAZING and there was plenty of it for just the two of us. The owner even provided us with to-go bags to take some leftover breakfast with us for lunch later that day. A quick note about some of the famous Georgian dishes. Georgians are amazing bread makers and have great cheese, so naturally, their best dish is a salty cheese inside of bread called Kachapurri. This dish is amazing, but we definitely gained some weight eating Kachapurri in Georgia!

The weather on the second day was not as great as the first. The great mountain views continued as we hiked up to a ski resort in the area. Georgia is new to skiing with all of the ski resorts having been built in the last twenty years. After this hike, we would like to come back and ski here at some point as it became clear that the mountains are steep and they receive a ton of snow each winter. As I mentioned earlier, we ran into our two Polish friends again and were also joined by a Chinese couple. It was a fun day because we all chatted as we walked, and took in the amazing scenery. Day two was a pretty easy and short hike that we took really slowly since we kept stopping and chatting. At the end of the day, just as it was starting to rain, we arrived at the village of Adishi, which was our destination for the second night.

We had heard ahead of time that this village was a smaller and rougher version of Zhabeshi and despite great views, we should temper our expectations and not expect much from the guesthouses. We negotiated a rate with a local woman who was, despite the light rain, outside waiting to greet us and sell us on her homestay as we arrived. All of us stayed with her at her homestay, which was definitely more basic and quite cold with a near-freezing rain settling in and lasting throughout the night! She prepared an outstanding dinner and breakfast for us the following morning, which were the highlights of our short stay in Adishi. 

The final day of the trek was by far the longest and toughest day and we decided to make it even longer. We started out early and stayed with our Polish friends for a while, but we wanted to go off-trail for a couple of kilometers to hike to the base of a stunning glacier that we were going to pass. There is also a river crossing here that can be tricky with horses necessary to cross in the spring and early summer. We thought it would be easier to cross further upriver at the base of the glacier. So, we went ahead to the glacier, which indeed turned out to be beautiful. As we had hoped, we climbed up on the glacier and managed to cross the river without having to wade through knee-high freezing water. 

The alternate river crossing worked great, however, we were now off trail and some difficulties getting back to the trail on the other side turned out to become quite an adventure. With no clear way back to the main trail without crossing back over the river coming out of the glacier, and a steep cliff that made it impossible to follow the river back down the other side we had no choice but to begin hiking up the hill in the direction that we thought could reconnect with the main trail higher up on the mountain. It was a fairly steep climb up rocks that constantly gave way under our feet, but we believed that once we were higher we would be able to traverse above the steep cliff and reconnect to the trail. This ended up being exhausting and took us much longer than backtracking the way we came. We found ourselves traversing a steep slope of slick mossy grass trying not to slip, sliding down gravel slopes, and hiking through waist-high brush where we had to use the bushes above to pull ourselves up. This was the definition of blazing your own trail, but we did it! Just as we were about to lose hope, we saw in the distance the Chinese couple that we had been hiking with. We breathed a sigh of relief that we had found the original trail again! We were back on our way and were no longer lost high in the Caucuses.

We continued up the trail, moving fast to make up for lost time, and as we gained altitude the path quickly became covered in snow from the storm the night before. We reached the highest point of the trek, and after receiving some advice from two French hikers trekking in the opposite direction, we decided to take a quick side trail to a viewpoint a few hundred meters off the main trail. Here we were greeted with spectacular 360-degree views of the Caucus range and some of the giant glaciers flowing out of them. The glacier we trekked to earlier from this vantage point looked like a giant snowboard halfpipe, which we found really cool. After a quick few minutes at the summit, we began our long hike down the other side into the next valley. 

A few kilometers before the end of the hike, we met back up with our Polish friends, as well as the Chinese couple, which was fortunate because we all had decided to skip the last day of the hike (since it would be on the road) and try to hire a ride up the road to Ushguli. In a small village called Lalkhori we were able to find a reasonable ride for all of us and arrived in Ushguli just after dark on a cold rainy night. Then, we set out to find a place to stay, and luckily the first guest house we came upon had availability for us.

For dinner that night, as well as breakfast the next morning, we ate in a restaurant that was opened in one of the ancient stone watchtowers. It was a really unique and beautiful stone building, and the food was excellent. We had planned to spend a whole day in Ushguli, which sits at the base of the tallest mountain in Georgia, however, it was raining and clouded in, so the next morning we decided to catch an early transport back to Mestia. This allowed us to have a relaxing afternoon, clean up, and dry out our hiking gear. We absolutely loved this three-day trek, and it was a highlight of our Georgian adventure! After a night back at the Guesthouse Venera where we collected the rest of our bags, we caught transport back to Kutaisi the following morning.  From Kutaisi, we then moved on to the small Soviet-era mining town of Chiatura, but more about this adventure in our next post.