Upward, Inward: Adjara
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The August camping holiday with my wife continued by us turning to the interior of Adjara for a bit. We realized that we could go and stay anywhere the 4x4 could take us, and this was a part of the country neither of us had seen independently much, so, time for a change from the coast.
The road up towards Khulo is so much better than the last time I was on it, more than 10 years ago, that I hardly recognized it. Not only is it paved, but there are even fisheye mirrors posted at hairpin turns to show the driver what is coming! I was seeing these for the first time in Georgia, although I am told that they are to be found elsewhere too, where needed. They are absent in Svaneti, likely simply because our risk of rockfalls smashing them there is much greater. So their presence here also speaks of this risk being much less too.
The paving even extended through most of the villages we toured on our excursion, pointing to a much better level of road infrastructure here than in Svaneti. Tobacco leaves were out drying, obviously an important cash crop here.
I had looked up some key tourism sites in advance, online, and we detoured to several of these. The most impressive ancient arched rock bridges, not insignificant in size, were easy to find, as were several fortresses, also of many centuries’ age. Although parts of this road remind one of the equivalent in Svaneti, following a river and passing through villages, its higher quality and the lack of watchtowers remind that you are now elsewhere.
Everywhere we went, the tourist scene was dominated by Georgians, of course, with a few foreigners who live here or who have been able to enter sprinkled in. But numbers from abroad are catastrophically down, due to restrictions from The Virus, and Georgians who can are rediscovering their own country with little other choice at the moment, not to their loss.
We had thought about going as far and high as the village of Khulo, but in the end didn’t get much farther than Keda, as side trips took some of our time and we needed to find a place to camp for the night. Asking in Shuakhevi, we were directed to a designated camping spot not far away, and went there.
There were picnic benches set up, and a new building with toilets and shower stalls. This however, had not had its water turned on yet, though the doors were unlocked. Instead, the toilets were overflowing with unflushable waste, and the place was going most sadly to ruin before it had even been finished. This was very disappointing and disheartening. Merely a drying-up of funds, possible given the national and international economic situation, or those funds having been diverted sideways into pockets for which they were never intended? I had no idea.
In any case, there was space for the tent, a hose nearby for water, nice white noise from the river to help drown out road noise; in short all we really needed for the night. We had the gas bottle to cook with, our own food and bedding, and were fine, alone again. The air was much cooler than below on the coast, which added to our comfort, and there seemed to be no mosquitoes either.
Next morning, it was back down, with a short midday beach stop in Batumi on our way home. But The Virus was reportedly making new headway there, so we did not want to stop for long, keeping our distance from other bathers. Instead, passing our favorite camping spot of the whole 10-day holiday near Ureki, we looked at each other, and I turned the car around to return there for a final night. Morningstar thorns from Hell or no, it couldn’t be beat, and we again had it all to ourselves!
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with nearly 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
By Tony Hanmer