MO2W #36 - CYCLING TO THE ANCIENT CAVE TOWN UPLISTSIKHE

In the last episode we cycled up the Abano Pass, which at an elevation of 2826 m above sea level is Georgia's highest drivable mountain pass. After reaching the summit we decided to set up our tents here and enjoy the view. The next day we were ready to roll down and explore more of what Georgia had to offer. So when we woke up today in the morning it was kind of clear and just clouds like on the bottom of the belly. Now the whole thing changed and as you can see you can see nothing. It's just cloudy. While rolling down unfortunately the thick clouds blocked a lot of the visibility and as a result we couldn't get any scenic views. Somehow I also had a bigger boulder somewhere and created a snake bite puncture in my front wheel which needed to be patched before we could carry on. All this way we came up like last two days in the darkness. It's quite nice to see it now in the daytime. Eventually we reached the bottom again and by the time the clouds also had cleared up and the sun was shining again. So reached the bottom of the downhill and now we just turned off from the main road and we are here on this quite kind of nice open field of land and we're gonna camp here and make a little fire to cook on this. Love it already. So we just camped here. Had a little bonfire last night and now we are heading towards Gori this direction because there are some ancient kind of cave cities. So we want to check this out. So let's go. So we are now on some sort of fantastic road going uphill towards Tianeti. It's perfect weather today. It's kind of cloudy, a little bit chilly but if you cycle it's fine. No wind. Yes I made it to the top and welcome to Tianeti municipality. Straight into a downhill. So we're cycling uphill and some dogs just discovered us. Perfect. But now we got used to it so we'll just chase you away. For ****'s sake. But not all dogs are interested in chasing. Some just want to be friends with us. Like this little fellow here who decided to follow us at the end of the day and then decided to actually stay around our camp during the night. But apparently he sent some other animal nearby as he was barking quite a into the pitch black forest. Christoph then checked and saw also something moving. Something big. But even though we searched we couldn't see anything and the dog remained kind of the only one perceiving another presence. So we ignored and just fell asleep. We decided to actually head back to the last village because the dog that followed us yesterday looks like way way way too clean. So probably someone is missing his dog. Come. So we left the dog now behind in the village where he is actually belonging to and now we keep cycling towards Uplitska. Apologies if I don't pronounce it correctly but it's difficult. So the weather has changed from cloudy to cloudy and rainy but we are on our way to Uplitska and it's about 60 kilometers, no 70. 70 kilometers from here. I've just spotted a kind of shortcut on the map. Not sure if it's a good idea but let's try it. If we choose this road we've got 5.7 kilometers to go. If we choose the proper road we have to do 14 kilometers and a little climb in between. So easy choice. And here the landscape actually looks quite nice. Now just before reaching the ancient city of Uplitska we stopped at a restaurant to treat ourselves with some nice local food. While Christoph had some chicken dish I ordered myself my favorite Georgian food. Acharam khachapuri which is an oval shaped fluffy white bread stuffed with cheese and topped with a fresh egg. Absolutely delicious. Filled with food we are now going to check out the cave city. Very excited for this and it gets already interesting here. Nice rock formations. So and here we are now in the ancient cave town Uplitschiche which is one of the very first urban settlements in Georgia. The town dates back to the first millennium BCE and was an important religious and political center of the kingdom of Iberia. It had literally everything you needed. A large hall for religious ceremonies, living rooms, a bakery, a pharmacy and so on. Due to its location it was also an important stop on the silk road trade route. After it was destroyed by the mongols in the 13th century it was subsequently abandoned and today this place is a UNESCO world heritage site and is open to visitors where it offers a unique glimpse into the past and the way of life of ancient Georgians. But somehow it became also a place of endless selfie sessions, interesting rotating camera angles and of course our four-legged furry friends. So we're going back to Tbilisi now and we are very lucky today because we have a very strong tailwind so it's gonna be an easy ride. So we are slowly entering Tbilisi and as you see obviously traffic is getting more busy. So we left the main road and we are going now very steep towards the Tbilisi sea. That name is a little bit confusing because it's actually an artificial lake serving as a water reservoir but it's also the lake where we actually started our journey together in Georgia and we will now camp our last night here before Christoph is going home back to Germany.