Chiatura & Jvari Etseri, Georgia

Lenin & Stalin from pebbles, Chiatura

Local children in an old car, Jvari Etseri

Lali picking tea (she knows so much about village life!), Jvari Etseri

Svaneti, June 2007

Bottom: One I forgot to include yesterday - a strikingly realistic graffito of Ioseb Jugashvili on the wall of a house in K'ala.

Middle 2: More from the hidden little spring-fed pond near the pass above Ipari.

Top: A final look at Ushba and the pond before moving on. This was the last day of the walk, getting us to Mestia, Svaneti's capital.
Jeff did part of this section on top of the horse and her load due to bad foot blisters, but the addition of his weight didn't slow her down one bit though it must have been quite uncomfortable for him, stirrups not even visible. In the end I couldn't make her slow down even to my fast walking pace, and gave Jeff full control of her speed, which was the right answer to the problem. In Mestia he and the gear continued to Etseri by car, while I got onto the Nightmare and rode her the remaining 27 km to Etseri, some of it galloping, some in rain. Was I sore after that? You bet I was.

Some miscellaneous photographs from around Georgia, details starting from the bottom on up:

- Stalin
- A granite sculpture near Kazbegi
- The wishing tree near Motsameta Monastery - each rag on it is someone's wish. A fairly common sight in Georgia
- Nodar and his cousin sampling wine mid-process, Samegrelo
- A log cabin where I spent a night after the mountain crossing from Ladreri in August 2005
- Some badly preserved critters, Mestia, Svaneti (the skin is from a bear)
- A local resident of Ladreri, Svaneti

More Venice tomorrow.