Lagging Behind in Lagodekhi

I can't believe I didn't go to Sighnaghi!  What a beautiful town.  But also what a shocking surprise that there was no direct way through it.  Some hard hits for Sighnaghi indeed, running a amjor highway around the mountain it is located on.  It kind of reminds me of In the Heat of the Night (trust me, as a would-be urban planner, I can tell you with 100% assurance that the entire book revolved around the emergence of the off-ramp economy and the death of the American small town.  That was the only theme in In the Heat of the Night).

Lagodekhi and Grand Forks are really similar in that they both have building supply stores right in the downtown. 

So where I found myself was walking back along the road that I had fought so bitterly with the marshrutka driver to take me on in the first place. Luckily in Georgia there are always buses carrying loads of workers from one place to another, and the first one that passed me picked me up.  It was such a successful bus ride for me: everyone wanted to talk to me and they ultimately invited me to come work in some mine with them.  Trust me, I was tempted.  After all, I was a little exhausted and detached from reality after 9 or so months on the move, so heavy metal extraction was exactly what I, or anyone for that matter, need to stay grounded.

I actually regret not staying in this hotel, but live and learn.

But it was not to be.  Instead they dropped me off at a fork in the road and headed north, telling me to just wait, for something.  So wait I did and it was a fantastic idea because I almost immediately got picked up by a driver who told me that the marshrutka to Lagodekhi had already passed so he graciously risked not only his life, but mine as well trying to catch up to it, honk aggressively, attempt to side swipe it, and then finally get it to stop to let me in.  What a success!  A woman on board even gave me water because evidently I looked as much like a dried up sponge as I felt. 

Had he asked me if I needed a ride to Azerbaijan (or anywhere, really) I would have willingly gone.

If you've ever been to Lagodekhi then you'll know it's right on the border with not only Azerbaijan but also Dagestan/Ingushetia.  Not only does this make it dangeous but also insanely beautiful.  As it was nearly 5pm I decided to not go to Azerbaijan just yet but rather soak up the ambiance of being immediately adjacent to a zone of conflict. The Georgian side was quite nice and peaceful, though I'm not sure anyone there was actually Georgian.  I stayed at a panzio where I paid 20 lari for a room and I realised my mistake of not staying in the central hotel which was a lovely cement tower with a cow tethered to it. 

Aside from all that I ate a great salad of tomatoes and cucumbers with sunflower oil.  The sunflower oil actually tasted like sunflowers!  This is what I have taken away from the whole experience of  being in Lagodekhi.  I also ate/drank a litre of kefir and dodged a couple of taxi drivers who were aggressively shouting "Azerbaijan!" at me.  So you know, pretty standard.