Frozen Time

The concept of frozen time applies to so many aspects of this trip. We've just returned from the Kakheti region where castles abound and 8,000 year old wine making traditions live on. The surrounding mountains are multi-colored, folded masses of extruded earth- massive, frozen geologic revolt. And then there is the general feeling that time pauses when you exit the stream of constant contact with technology and information.

There is so much more to say about Georgia, but I'll limit it to a few entertaining nuggets and hopefully get one last thoughtful note about this leg of the trip after I have had some time to let it all sink in. For now, just these last thoughts: 

Food, Cont.

I neglected to add much about our dinner prep in the last post that was a shoddy attempt at sifting out our dailiness. We cook in the backcountry most days. We split the weight of carrying rice, pasta and lentils (soaking rice and lentils in a Nalgene during the day), as well as a fairly standard combo of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, garlic, oil and spices. We have pushed our limits of enjoying this mix, but it has   fueled many a mile. The market experience is, as ever, the best part of meal prep. We tend to plan further ahead than needed, but just about every route has taken us through a town with enough commerce to gain us  the delight of searching out new treats and the assurance of securing what we need. Georgia doesn't have the restaurant culture that Turkey seemed to (they were closed for Ramzan, but they existed even in the tiniest of towns). The go-to fast meal here is a danish called khachapuri that is filled with strong cheese, or beans (lobiani), or a spiced meet and either folded or encased in a personal pizza sized pastry. Dumplings called khinkali are also cheap and popularly filled with meat, potatoes or mushrooms. My favorite meal is lobio (stewed beans in a clay pot) and chvistari (a dense cornmeal lump with cheese). Georgian yogurt made from cow, goat or sheep milk is called "matsoni" and is the go-to for breakfast. Fresh fruit and veggies fill in the snack gaps nicely too and give us a satisfactory taste of summer outside the Willamette Valley. 

Transportation

Jumping off the bike and exploring the tangle of public transportation is its very own treat. We've been introduced to the Georgian road scene from the fringe, but our perspective from inside a moving vehicle has been limited. Other passengers make the habit of crossing themselves more than once after getting on the bus (granted it's a pious country), and this automatically gives the sense that your continuing existence might be in a state of tenuous fragility. Riding in the marshruktas, as the mini buses are called, is a lot like engaging in a high speed chase- the hunted end. These things catapult, pass with extreme confidence while sustaining high speeds, and seem to delight in playing "chicken" with much larger trucks. It's a giant prick joust to be honest and, well, candid. There are lane dividers on most all of the roads, but those are cosmetic and merely suggestive of traffic division. At the end of the day it's a free-for-all and the fastest, biggest guy wins. Traveling by bus through Georgia has got to be one of the world's few passive adrenaline sports. 

We have had some luck hitching rides on remote roads. Our three day trek through the Borjomi National Forest ended at a set of tracks on the fringe, miles from anything. We arrived three hours early with empty food bags, so we decided to flag down a ride to a larger town on the rail line. Success! A sand-filled dump truck driven by two grinning Georgians pulled over. The boys jumped in the back, while I bounced around to operatic Russian techno in the cab. These guys were the brand of dude you compare tattoos with, who chain smoke and drink vodka to round out a complete breakfast. Though appearing slightly surly with nicotine -stained mustaches, toothless grins and generous amounts of gut and chest hair escaping half-zipped track jackets, they were as gentle and kind as could be. We exchanged the standard limited questions about nationality, marital status, thoughts on Georgia (thumbs up!), before exchanging side cheek smooches (oh yes) and an extended over-waved goodbye.