The mosques were replaced by orthodox churches and vodka and wine were offered instead of "chai". Georgia was the first country in producing wine and the Georgians are proud of it, whenever you are invited into a house you pretty much are expected to get drunk, I sometimes had to decline the drinking offers using cycling as an excuse... they all got dissapointed!
It was also interesting to see their reaction when I told them that I was from the basque country, (there is a theory that relates Basque laguage to Georgian which all of them seem to know about) they would smile and call me brother in most cases. Despite basque being my mother tongue I have to say that Georgian sounds completely different.
However my favourite part of the country has been a region called Svaneti, located on the caucasus mountains bordering Abkhazia, Russia and South Ossetia. The stunning mountains have made up exceedingly for the loss of the Pamir route, also the weather has been really warm for this time of the year and we've been able to enjoy the beautiful autumn colours surrounded by +5000m snow clad peaks. We also have been invited to some georgian homes where Veronikas russian has been very useful, without her communication would have been very limited as English is not widely spoken.
Once we left the mountains we returned to the valleys where busy roads filled with dangerous drivers awaited for us, my speedo clocked 9000km in Gori, a town famous for being Joseph Stalin's birthplace. The locals still admire him despite the atrocities that were carried out under his mandate.
Now we are in Tbilisi taking rest and updating our blogs, I'm getting on really well with fernando and veronica and for now we'll continue together towards Armenia, they have a blog in spanish which they update more frequently than I do and with more detailed info about the trip: http://viajarenmtb.es/
Video:
Georgia ENGLISH from lander on Vimeo.
iruzkinik ez:
Argitaratu iruzkina