Wheels, Next Round

In my life I can count on one hand the number of powered vehicles I have owned. First, a 1977 Honda Civic which my father helped me buy when I was 18, in Canada. It died the month I paid off the bank, because I failed to check the oil and its engine seized up. Bad start. Most memorable moment? Taking my then-girlfriend to my high school prom in it. Having learned to drive in an automatic transmission car, this manual one was like trying to control someone with constant seizures. All we could do was laugh, which was better than her being upset with me.

Next, a two-door Toyota truck, which I had for several years before selling it on the eve of beginning a planned seven-year biking trek around the world. Good little vehicle, and I didn't kill it. Learned something. Hiatus of several years. I moved to the UK with my bike in late 1989, aged 22, didn't drive there at all, just cycled everywhere or took public transport for the longer trips. Years in Russia, months in Austria and Azerbaijan, then finally settling in Georgia, which recently became the country I've lived in longer than anywhere else in my life.

Here... a Niva from the end of the Soviet period, because apparently those were better made than early post-Soviet. "Niva qvelgan miva" means "A Niva goes anywhere" in Georgian. This one took me and friends to Ushguli three times, once even by the back way, via Lentekhi. Pretty good! More carless years followed.

Marriage... and the need to be wheeled again. The 1999 Hyundai Galloper, big manual diesel 4x4, which I paid an acquaintance to fly to Germany, buy and drive back for us. I had agreed with a friend in Svaneti that he could drive it once, if he accepted responsibility for whatever happened when he was behind the wheel. And he blew off the top of the radiator. Took him six weeks to have the replacement handmade in Tbilisi. The car was never the same after that, and my generosity cost us far more than I could have imagined.

Having the village shop at home in Etseri, expertly run by my wife, enabled us to add considerably to our savings. And now here we are again, able to be in motion! I've just taken ownership of a 2008 Toyota 4Runner, nice big manual patrol 4x4, clean, quiet and smooth, and a beast for the off roads. My brother in law joined me from Kakheti in Tbilisi and, after a few hours' checking things out at the massive Rustavi car market, we came away with this. I had researched the vehicle type and reviews of it online extensively beforehand, and we were even to do an internet discovery of the particular candidate car's entire history, which revealed nothing alarming. The buying process took an hour or so once we were confident of my choice, and off I drove, pleased as could be in my fifth ever vehicle.

Oil change, brake pad and tire change, and I'm ready to make the triumphal entry into Etseri. A few friends will fly in and I'll take them up with me, where my wife is waiting to celebrate this momentous occasion. We will be better equipped to meet, send off, and drive our guests anywhere locally, as well as just having the freedom we've missed for a while now to just get away on our own somewhere for a bit. What a luxury, when you don't have it!

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1300 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

Tony Hanmer