Enough of the cold and mountains from Kazbegi, we're now heading south to Vardzia - 370km from Kazbegi and around 30km to Turkey. Along the way we've past by the city of Gori - birthplace of Stalin and one of the cities under attack during the tension with the Russians in 2008. Right next to the highway it is possible to spot recent build houses for the georgians who had to leave South Ossetia.
7 cars, 2 trucks, a Van and 9 hours afterwards we finally arrived to Vardzia around 9pm. The idea was to camp by the river and when we arrived to the "camp site" a few people (2 polish couples and some locals) were already having a small gathering.. We hurried to set up the tent but it wasn't as easy as it was supposed to since one of the bits was missing.. Improvising we had to :)
Joining the locals and the polish couples was the best we did since they offered us food and booze. ;) they were all very nice and after a couple toasts of chacha (a very strong georgian liquor), georgian cognac and some polish vodka the locals asked us all if we fancied going for a swim at theirs hot water swimming pool.. At first I found it very strange but then the polish explained that that area was known for having hot springs - basically those are pools with heated water that comes straight from the underground at a temperature around 35 degrees. Why not? was my thought and we all went. The pool was in a falling apart warehouse but we only got to figure that out on the next day. However, I have to say that it felt really good to go in a Hot Spring at 1am. Not too far away from here, there was also a kind of a jet stream of the same heated and salty water where we had a really nice shower on the next day..
It was the perfect place to take really cool pictures!The next morning we got along really well with one of the polish couples (Olia - the actress and Karol - the photographer) who were travelling around Georgia by Marshrutka (fully packed vans - most of them Ford Transit - driven by crazy drivers). We all went together to visit the nuns and the monks monastery which are separated by around 4 km. Some say that there was a tunnel that would link both monasteries so nuns and monks could meet in the middle to "share thoughts". This story was actually confirmed by one of the nuns but in her version the tunnel was to the village and not to the monks monastery.. Yeah, right! Not very good for a nun to be lying.. 10 Holy Mary's for you!
Once again we have changed our plans. At first we're going to stay in Vardzia only for one night to then go back to Tbilisi to watch a basketball game of Georgia against Lithuania (apparently) but the weather, the hot springs and the people made us stay for another night. In fact, it was a great evening as we decided to improvise a bbq, sticking sausages into wooden sticks and play a little like cave mans! Dzięki Olia and Karol - you guys are proper travellers!
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