We stayed in Georgia for 12 days. We spent less than $100. Once we slept in a tent, but mostly by people we met accidentally, sometimes in hostels. We ate in restaurants twice – yay! We’ve done 1350 km, 100% of this hitchhiking, a part from a couple of metro rides in Tbilisi. If weather hadn’t changed so badly, we would have been probably still exploring the diversity of this amazing country!
So first we went to Svaneti (Mestia and Ushguli), then to Tbilisi. On the way we stopped in Sagarejo, and from there we got to David Gareja, Udabno and Kakheti-Signagi. We had heard a lot about Georgian hospitality and friendliness before we got there. We can absolutely confirm that! On our way we met only kind, friendly and helpful people. What is more we had the impression that Georgians like us, Poles – which is not always the case. I don’t know if we just got lucky, or it was a question of our friends and families crossing their fingers for us so badly, or maybe it’s just totally normal in Georgia, but while hitchhiking it never took us more than 5 minutes to find people who took us. Sounds incredible, right? And they not only invited us to their cars, but also to their houses, tables and hearts.. When we were there our hosts grabbed guitars, danced, sang touching songs and even cried among toasts, right in the middle of the feast! And the tables! You should have seen those tables – fully packed with amazing food (which we, always hungry like while working on low budget production set, enjoyed so much!) And we simply always felt like a part of the family.
We tasted a lot of new food, such as khachapuri (something like a cheese and egg filled baked bread) or khinkali with different fillings (reminded us of our polish dumplings). Fruits and vegetables grow just like that, within reach! You can pick oranges, figs, persimmons, apples, plums, pears and of course GRAPES in all kinds. Tomatoes, cucumbers or peppers wouldn’t probably match with European Union’s aesthetic standards but they taste so much better! In Georgia people eat a lot of kinds of cheese. They use coriander very often and tones of fresh parsley.
People drive really great even on difficult mountain roads but they tend to pass other vehicles in a rather risky way and we noticed they don’t switch on indicators very often. “Our” cars had steering wheels on the left or on the right side. Some of them are imported from Japan, because it’s cheaper.
People smoke a lot, especially men. And they smoke everywhere – in bars, cars and at home. There are a lot of stray dogs. They are often hungry, hurt and look ill. Nobody seems o care about them too much. They love tourists as those are more likely to give them some food. Basically all animals move freely. Nobody is surprised facing a herd of cows, pigs or sheep in the middle of the road. It’s the driver who is supposed to adapt to animals and this situation, not the other way around. In general we felt that kind of “easy-goingness” in almost every situation. It might be a bit onerous in business, I guess, but for us it was absolutely fine ; )
Cemeteries are mostly along the road, in form of small fields surrounded by fences. The photos on the tombstones present the deceased in a typical for him situation or pose, quite often with a bottle of wine (yes, wine!) Cemetery is actually a place where relatives and friend gather to raise a glass to the deceased person and remember him.
One might not always find hot water in Georgia, but wine and chacha – always! – for breakfast, lunch and supper as well as at cemetery. Maciej as non drinker and non Russian speaker had to work hard in order to refuse drinking in a nice way (our hosts found it unusual, that one does not drink). Most people do speak Russian, English only some of them. We somehow managed to win them over though with our “choot choot govoryoo” at the very beginning. We loved their bread. Always directly from the oven. Yummy!
We noticed that in Tbilisi you can find a lot of popcorn machines – super old-school : ) We also saw many uninhabited houses, not only single buildings but even rows of them. Many houses are also inhabited, even though not fully finished yet. You can read more about architecture in Georgia in our ARCHITECTURE section.
Georgians wish to become what they call European – one can see it mostly in the capital. And we would love to tell them “No! Please remain as you are” but obviously we do understand their longing towards modern and “better” style. We could write so much more, but if we write everything, there is going to be nothing left for you to discover on your own and you won’t come here. And you definitely should!!!