Welsh Davids Silk Road and beyond: 8 May

In the morning the others had arranged to go and see the bottom of a glacier or walk up the valley. I decided to walk round the village and that took me four hours just wandering all over the place, even through people’s gardens when I could not find my way. The mountains above the village rise to 4000 metres while i the village are numerous stone towers (koshki) used by villagers in time of war. During the many invasions of Georgia much of the icons and religious artefacts were brought here for safekeeping as the area is quite remote. It is quickly changing as the government keeps the access road open all the year round; an airport has been built; a ski-lift installed and more hotels are being built. There was a lot of building going on which I thought was by people buying up the old empty buildings and doing them up but when I asked the landlady she said that the local people moved out of here in the 50’s and now their families, with plenty of money, are renovating the family homes and moving back into the village. It takes 6 hours by local transport to travel here, not ideal I would have thought.

In the evening Goren had arranged with the owner of the guesthouse for us to have some wood for the truck. Maybe it was her husband, but anyway, one of the men outside was not in favour of this and those who had picked up the wood had to put it back on the woodpile. There was some Georgian conversation then all the blond ladies with us were given wood by the man, none of the males on the truck were given any. In future we will send the blondes out foraging as obviously fluttering their eyelashes is very effective.