Tusheti is one of Georgia’s most remote provinces, hidden deep in the Caucasus Mountains on Georgia’s remote northeast border with Daghestan and Chechnya. It is a place of wild, natural beauty where a few villages cling to the heights, where medieval castles, defensive towers, and pagan shrines abound.

The inhabitants are a hardy people who continue to live as their ancestors have done for thousands of years, albeit with the addition of a few modern conveniences like solar panels and cell phones. They spend the summer months with their flocks in the high mountains, before driving them down to the lowlands for the winter, in a tradition known as Transhumance.

The region is only accessible for about four months of the year (June to September) over a dirt track that is ranked as one of the world’s most dangerous roads, and it is certainly not for the faint-hearted.

Our adventure to Tusheti starts in Tbilisi (the capital of the Republic of Georgia) with a drive through the wine-rich valley of Kakheti (more later). In the small town of Valiscuri, we meet our driver, David, and transfer our luggage from our guide, Georgi’s car, to a 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser. The dangers of driving this road are such that only local Tush drivers can take you there safely.

As we start out, a small sign reads “Omalo, 72 km.” “That’s only about 44 miles,” I say, “Can’t take that long!” Famous last words!

Two hours later, after wending our way up the mountain through a multitude of narrow hairpin bends and switchbacks (we stopped counting at 100), with waterfalls cascading down the steep slate cliffs on the left side of the road and the sheer drops of thousands of feet into the valley below on the right, we arrive at the Abano Pass (9,350 feet), built in 1978 by the Soviets. There are still high banks of snow along the road, evidence of the almost 14 feet that fall here over the winter.

It is now raining and hailing heavily; within a matter of minutes, the dirt track is transformed into a muddy morass with large potholes waiting to swallow up the unwary driver.

From here the road descends into the valley through more hairpin bends. Only now the rain has turned the road into a running stream. Next to it, the glacial blue river has become a muddy, roiling torrent, breaking through its banks, tossing giant tree trunks and other debris around like twigs.

From time to time we see other four-Wheel Drive vehicles but generally, there are few other cars until suddenly there is a traffic jam – five cars stopped on the road in the pouring rain. The problem? The bulldozer, which is supposed to maintain the road, has tipped into a sinkhole. There is nothing to do but wait until a digger can be summoned to haul it out.

Our driver, David, is on the phone to the digger driver, telling him that the problem is at “Biblioteca.” It seems a bit out of context until our guide explains that every one of the hairpin bends and curves has a name, used as a reference point by the drivers – their own mental map!

Eventually, the digger arrives, rescues the bulldozer, and we continue to the end of the valley and up the next mountain. At times David gets out of the car to check the road before driving over it. As the rain continues to pelt down, there is a real risk of landslides. For the same reason, notwithstanding the incredible photo opportunities, he only will stop to let us take photographs if he is sure there are no risks involved.

As the back wheels skid in the mud and veer towards the abyss (there are no guard rails anywhere), we send rocks flying over the edge of the cliff. But we have the utmost confidence in David, a quiet, taciturn man of little words, who navigates the hazards with aplomb. He tells us that sometimes he drives this route two or even three times a day. For him, it is all in a day’s work. For us, it is a massive adrenaline rush!

Seven hours after leaving Valiscuri, we come to a beautiful alpine meadow filled with yellow buttercups, wild irises and other wildflowers. Above it, through the clearing mist, five watchtowers cluster on a crag – the medieval towers of Omalo, in the heart of the Tusheti Protected Area at 6,600 feet. From here we will start our exploration of Tusheti, one of the least-known areas of Georgia and the world.

IF YOU GO

Eka Tchvritidze at Wild Georgia organized out travels to Georgia.

For a taste of what it means to drive on this road, see the BBC 2012 series on the World’s Most Dangerous Roads, narrated by Jessica Hynes and Hugh Bonneville (of  Downton Abbey fame http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pp7ps

See http://www.allegriaphotos.com/Recent-Additions/Republic-of-Georgia/ for more images of Georgia.

 

 

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