MO2W #38 - ENTERING THE CAUCASUS

Hello and welcome back to a new video on my channel. In the last episode I started to cycle from Tbilisi towards Stepantsminda to explore more of the Caucasus mountain region here in Georgia. On my way I saw bears under safe circumstances, got accompanied by the most craziest dog that I've ever encountered and eventually reached the foothills of the big Caucasus mountain range where I set up my tent for the night. So I finished my breakfast and as I was starting to pack my stuff it started to rain. No, no, no, no dude that's mine. Dude, that's not cool. Okay everything's packed up and I'm ready to go. The rain kind of slowed down so it could be good but maybe not. Let's see. It's super cold. I think you can see my breath. Anyways, I think if I keep climbing I can stay warm. Just my hands are cold because the gloves got wet so... So it's about 5 pm now and it's misty, rainy, foggy and cold. So I'm trying to find some sort of shelter for tonight that I can actually stay as dry as possible. So yeah, wish me luck. And so luck is with the stupid. As it got dark I found some sort of shelter. Well it didn't have any protections from the sides yet but at least it's got a roof and that's actually all I need. All right so I actually had a very comfortable night here and it's beautiful today. The sun is shining, no rain anymore and the mountains have snow on top. It's absolutely gorgeous. All right so let's pack up all the stuff and we head towards the mountains. I'm getting closer now to Goudaoui and it's absolutely beautiful today. I love the snow in the mountains. There's no wind. The sun is shining. It's like less traffic than yesterday. Wow, so beautiful. I'm now at about 1900 meters above sea level and got some snow here and I'm almost in Goudaoui. I will have some lunch break and then I have another 600 meters more to climb. Elevation, kind of like climbing up. Here in Goudaoui I decided to treat myself with acharan khachapuri, my favorite Georgian dish, before approaching the last kilometers of the climb with fresh energy. I think I'm gonna do eight kilometers more until I reach the highest point of the pass and then hopefully I can camp there. That would be awesome. I really want to camp like in the mountains at the highest point. Nice. It's just unbelievably beautiful here. I don't know, mountains and snow and sun. Absolutely awesome. I love it. All right, I'm gonna leave my bike here and check out what's up there. Maybe I can camp there. I think if so, I will have a spectacular view. Let's have a look. Just need some flat ground, that's all. Let's go a bit more up. Yeah, I think up there, there should be something. Yeah, I think that's... It's perfect. Let's go down again. Get the bike, put up the tent and enjoy the night here. Wow. This night was really cold. I had like minus 12 degrees, a lot of snow, a lot of wind. After the sun came up, the weather conditions relaxed and it was absolutely perfect weather for cycling. So I'm not anymore that far away from Stepansminda and Mount Gaspegi just appeared in front of me. Very impressive. We just checked in into this Airbnb. I'm paying like 12 euro per night, which is a very good deal. Staying two nights before I actually now go and take a shower and everything. I want to use the sun before it goes down and go up to this church, holy trinity. I'm going now to try to get up all the way there. Let's see if I can get up there before the sun is down. That would be awesome. Okay, I almost forgot how hard is walking. The way I'm following goes actually more in this direction. There's a U-turn and go back. But the sun is going down, so I think I will just go directly up now. It's faster. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm slower, but let's see. Okay. All right, so it's getting dark and I will head back to the village, to my Airbnb. Kind of spectacular path here. After another day of walking around and exploring the area, I was ready to go back to Tbilisi. But this time I wanted to choose a different route and go more off-road. Not sure if it's possible on the map, there are some river crossings, which would be kind of fatal in these temperatures. On Google Satellite, it looks a little bit different. So I'll just try. Doesn't work here. What are you doing here? He just followed me again. According to the map, there should be a bridge. But to me, that what should be a bridge has disappeared. So tricky. I will have a look a little bit more in this direction. The river splits in two arms. So there might be a possibility that half of the river might be possible to cross twice, kind of. Let's have a look. Otherwise, I'll just turn around and go this normal road back. So here the river split up in multiple arms. That could be doable, maybe. Here cars are crossing. But no way. It's too deep. I don't want to take off my shoes, to be honest, and walk through that water a couple of times. It's going to be painful. Yeah, no. Okay, I give up. Sometimes you just have to turn around. She donkey, dude. Very interesting. Those horses just walk around without any adults around. I mean, they just decided on their own to walk in a group from there to there. It's kind of getting dark soon, and wind is picking up, and it's against me headwind and cold. I just spotted an abandoned house here, and I think I will use it as a wind shelter. Pitch my tent behind. Hello, horse. Can I touch you? Nice. That's a mandolin. No, don't eat my mandolin. Hey, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. There is a rope, dude. Be careful, be careful, be careful. Good. Chill. I'm crossing now the mountain pass once more, and start now rolling down to Tbilisi again. What took me a couple days to go up, takes just now a few hours to go down again. After one and a half day, I was back in Tbilisi and head now to start preparing my plan to escape from the cold winter in Georgia. Stay tuned for the next episode. See you. Cheers. Goodbye.