Travel from Ukraine to Georgia by car. Part 3 of 5. Mtskheta, Borjomi, Okatse Canyon
Continuation. Start here:
In the morning we leave Tbilisi and drive to Mtskheta. We take pictures, enjoy the view, and go to Borjomi. A simple town in the mountains, smacks of the Soviet Union. They took the real Borjomi from the source. There are many who wish, with mugs, glasses, bottles and even 5-8 liter bottles. Queuing day and night. On the way back, we stopped in Borjomi to get water at 1 am, and there were still people there. There are two sources: one with cold Borjomi, the second with warm. We walked around the Botanical Garden, bought jam from cones (we haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else). And in the evening we went on. On the way we ate at a cafe. We decided to spend the night in tents. When we were driving from Borjomi, we were looking for a place, but it turned out to be quite difficult to find. Now slopes, then stones, then trees. We found a more or less normal clearing in the village of Akhaldaba (between Borjomi and Khashuri). In the center of the village behind the bridge near the river.
You can drive by cars. They lit a fire and watched the falling stars for half the night. Surprised there were no mosquitoes. At night it was +15 (750 meters high). In the morning I took a walk in the village. Local fishermen were fishing on the bridge. When I passed by, they themselves started talking, like how they are resting, where are you from? And at the end they gave a bag, I open it, and there are apples, pears, cookies. It happens like that. And there are many such examples, well, they are hospitable, what can you do. We go further towards the sea. Between Khashuri and Kutaisi there is a village where they sell round dark sweet bread (more like a roll). These stalls stretch along the whole village, there are a lot of them. Both right and left. This bread is sold only here! And it's VERY DELICIOUS! It costs 2 lari (20 UAH). Try it for sure! We bought one to try, and then we were very sorry that there were so few. Then we go to the Okatse canyon.
In the beginning, though, we got a little lost, went to the village of Ghvedi, went wrong, returned, reached Khoni, and then there are signs along the road: Okatse Canyon. Ask the locals. The road to the canyon is excellent, the canyon (suspension walkway) was opened in 2014. There are still few tourists. This is another place you should definitely visit! It's unforgettable! You drive up to the beginning of the route by car, then walk along the concrete path to the canyon (2 km). At the beginning of the path there are tourists with tents. Good place, cool, forest. The trail is not smooth, up and down. The canyon itself is 1 km long. There and back will be 6 km. Important: children under 10 years old are not allowed to enter the overpass! Many with children were not happy that they did not write about it anywhere. We tried to persuade the guards to let our 6-year-old through, but they didn’t. But when we got into the canyon itself, we understood why children weren’t allowed and were even glad that they didn’t let ours through. Entrance is 5 lari (50 UAH) per person.
In order not to walk 2 km to the canyon, you can take a taxi-jeep. It costs 20 GEL, but I don’t know whether there and back? And from a person or a machine? After the canyon, taxi drivers offered to go to the waterfalls, but we didn’t go, we were already late, today we need to get to the sea and we don’t know where we will spend the night. And it's already 5 pm. In a couple of hours we reached Grigoleti and finally saw the sea. We decided to go to Ureki and look for a place for a tent there. And we found a great place! Who cares: in Ureki you drive towards the sea, reach the sea, turn left and drive along the beach almost to the very end of the village (called Magnetiti) and look out on the right for a forest with a tent camp. Car entry 2 GEL, tent 5 GEL per day. Cars are available near the tent. From the tent to the sea 30 meters. The sand on the beach here is special, black, magnetic, healing. They say it's the only one in the world. Read on Google (sand in Ureki). We spent two nights here.
The village is dirty, the housing is old, everything is somehow poor, new cottages are being built, but there are still few of them. Reminds me of something like Rybachye in the Crimea. Machines are mainly Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia. There are very few Russians, and no Ukrainians were seen at all. As soon as we arrived, they asked how much housing would cost for seven, they said from 150 GEL per day (1500 UAH). You could probably look cheaper, but we wanted to be alone with nature. We went to a local restaurant with live music in the evening, got a lot of pleasure, and even ordered and danced “You are me pidmanula”. Hall applauded! And then the Georgians answered us with their dance. A visit to an average restaurant in Georgia for all of us for seven cost an average of 70-80 GEL (700-800 UAH).