That Time I Didn't Go To Zarzma Monastery

This monastery is famous.  Google it. 

Not far out of town I realized that it wasn’t even noon yet and that I was at a pretty peaceful spot by the river.  I decided to go swimming and read in the sun until I was disrupted by wily Georgian youth playing in the water and lighting things on fire.  I got back on the road and went in the direction of a monastery, evidently a famous one, but I never actually went up to it.  I just sort of circumvented it, and kept on my way.

The higher I got, the smaller this creek got from my point of view, because that's how science works!  

As soon as the cathedral was out of sight I was met with a series of switchbacks that just seemed to go straight up the mountain.  And for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to follow them up, as surely a marshrutka or bus or something would come my way and drive me.  The only thing that I encountered was a logging truck coming down and the driver immediately stopped.  I assumed he was going to warn me or give me some clues on how to get to Batumi but all he was interested in was a light.  As I don’t smoke, he was disappointed and opened up no secrets to me.

I really should have taken this whole uphill bit as a sign to not continue.

I walked for like, 4 hours.  FOUR HOURS.  I walked uphill, with a 25kg backpack for FOUR MF-ing HOURS.  I just kept going.  I just kept thinking that yes, the longer I wait, the closer I get to the time when a vehicle going my way will appear.  Only a few cars come and they were all going the wrong way, which should have signaled to me that clearly I was going the wrong way.

My walk was a whole lot of this.

I started to think that maybe I would have to camp up in one of these lovely alpine meadows when suddenly I saw that I had reached the apex and I was going down.  I followed the road down to find two farmhouses by the side of the road and people working in the fields.  I asked, “Is this the way to Batumi?” and they indifferently gestured that it might be.  Let me tell you I was not totally impressed that they didn’t want to know what I was on about. 

So I kept walking and discovered that the incline started again, and then it also dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten, I had no water, I had been walking for hours, and it was boiling hot.  Suddenly I was hungry.  And for some reason I had passed a roadside eatery in the middle of nowhere selling shashlik and I thought to myself, “No, I don’t want to pay 4 lari, or $4 for this shashlik” because the entire day seemed to be one big lapse in judgment for me.

This is that look I give when I'm all, "No, this is a bad idea, and yet we're going with it." You know?  You have one of these too.  

Alright, so hunger and thirst, my two old nemeses, had come home to roost, and I was really stranded in the middle of nowhere.  But I just kept going, because I had too much pride to turn back, too much pride to drink ditch water but evidently not enough pride to stop me from stripping down completely naked and plunging into the first ice-cold glacier-fed creek I saw in four hours and holding my head under water to drink as much of the giardia-laced nectar as I could get.  It was magical.  Not too long after I could be seen descending on a bank of wild strawberries and stuffing my face for 45 minutes on the tiniest but tastiest of delights. I had turned into a wretched and vile animal and I loved every second of it. 

Post-strawberries, pre-rain.  That brief, satisfying but unsettling window.

Anyhow, after that little episode I was recharged and ready to walk all the way to Batumi if need be.  I looked across the ravine (I was really, really high up at this point) and could make out what I thought were houses.  It looked like a tiny village in the clouds, just above the treeline.  All I could think is how nice that village must be, and that it’s tragic I would never get to see it.

My camera can't seem to capture just how steep and long this ravine bank is. 

Then the absolute worst thing happened.  The worst.  I was on a mountain “highway” with no place to sleep and nightfall was approaching, so you can only imagine how it could get worse: rain.  It started raining, and I started freaking out.  It was that kind of rain that is ice cold and pierces through your shirt and even on the hottest day is so uncomfortable.  It started to come down in torrents and I burst out “I can’t do this anymore” and started running to find some sort of a cover. 

Village in the clouds.

I made it to under a large, leafy tree which provided momentary relief when suddenly, in the distance, I could make out a rickety old Mercedes van coming my way. A marshrutka!  At just the right time.  Things were looking up, and I didn’t have to hurl myself over the ravine after all.  

Google Maps is telling me I walked 16.6km but that is absolutely ludicrous when you think about it.  16.6km!  With a 25kg backpack. Uphill. In flip flops (did I mention the blisters I had that forced me to wear flip-flops for the past several weeks?).  In 35 degree heat with no food or water.  Then I realised that I only measured from Zarzma and not from my starting point at Adigeni, so I actually walked 20.8km.  Yes, I do think I'm better than you.