That was a long weekend...

Day 27: July 11th, 2011


Went to Svaneti over the weekend, which is a small town/city in the north western area of Georgia. The town itself was charming and pretty tourist friendly compared to other places in Georgia so far. The venture up to Svaneti was made by a night train from Tbilisi, which was hot, muggy and long. From Zugdidi we had to take a marshuka up to Svaneti which took another 5 hours. Marshukas are 8-15 people vans that aren't pleasant to be in when it's warm and dusty and full. We arrived in Svaneti around 1pm and after having a bite to eat we went on a hike up to the nearby Glacier. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, and the the view at the end was gorgeous. Saturday was spent doing this 'day hike' up to this cross on one of the nearby mountains. It was hell. We couldn't find the path for the longest time, then once we did we realized we had in fact crossed the path at the beginning. Saturday was a very long day....so was yesterday. We were supposed to have a flight from Svaneti to Tbilisi (to take an hour) but the flight was canceled...so we had to get back on a marshuka to Zugdidi, then since the night train was full we had to take another marshuka back to Tbilisi. Over all about 10+ hours of traveling yesterday by marshuka...then we got to sleep on the floor/random couches back at the Peace Corps office. It's been a long weekend...I probably won't have internet access until Thursday if not later, so no updates for the next couple days. Photos will be posted in Amsterdam when I can use my own computer.

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