Today was our second day trip and it started at 7am with a very than yesterday, the guide was more of a driver than guide. Apparently he has been a truck driver in Coventry, they must have given a collective sigh of relief when he left. There were only five tourists, so we were in a six seater car, one guy was in the front (Oleg), plus a couple who live in Dubai, the lady, Darli is from Burma and the guy from Algeria, I think his name is Mahmoud. Oleg and were chatting in Russian, everyone in Georgia learns Russian and English in school and I think our maybe skipped many of the English classes but turned up to Russian.
The sun was shining as we drove through brown and green landscapes with nearby hills. In the distance I spotted mountains. Theres a fair bit of agriculture, some cows, occasional sheep and then further away from towns I saw pigs and goats grazing by the roadside. I quickly fell asleep and Glyn later told me this was for the best as the driving was extremely scary at times, eg overtaking on hairpin bends.
had said that there was no need to wear seatbelts. I strongly disagree and everyone buckled up. I in that our driver is fairly old, still has all his limbs and therefore has survived his own driving thus far.
We stopped after a couple of hours for a snack break, there was still a long way to go. Many of the roads here are very new and theres tunnels and bridges being built. only spoke to Oleg, I think because he finds Russian easier to speak. There was no guiding being done, which is fine, as it was a long journey and when awake Im happy staring out of the window.
However, Glyn was not happy. The was playing R&B party tracks and Britney Spears. He kept turning it up and with each turn, he wound Glyn up further. Darli was loving it, singing along to Britney and doing car seat dances.
First stop was Kutaisi, I dont know much about it or why it is a place to stop and I still dont know. Our guide isnt the easiest to understand and talked about his time in Coventry. We parked in the
centre for 15 mins and took photos of a beautiful fountain decorated with stylised golden animals and a church. Olegs English is better than our guides, so I was hoping he would have a better idea of what was going on but he didnt appear to .
Filling up with gas on the way, the pump sounded like a circular saw through tough metal. Everyone agreed that this was a new sound for us all, Oleg cracked a joke and the ice was broken between us all.
Our first proper stop was Prometheus Cave located by Kumistravi village in Tskaltubo municipality which is 250 km from Tbilisi. It has 22 halls, but tourists get to see 6. Its 1420 metres long and has loads of stalactites and stalagmites. Its a good job the cave is big because the tour group was massive. was in English and Russian, but I could understand neither.
Its a Karst cave and part of a larger cave system united by a river. It became a tourist destination in the late 80s when a 1km pedestrian way was built inside. It was originally named Kumistavi cave but renamed Prometheus Cave in
2010 as the legendary protagonist was chained to the mountains somewhere near here and tortured by a raven. It has nothing to do with the film of the same name from the Alien franchise, but one of the formations looked like the Alien and some of the fatter stalagmites reminded me of alien eggs.
Our next stop was about an hour further away, Martvili Canyon. Our left us after saying the boat ride was around 90 minutes. We had lunch first and started to chat more. Mahmoud works in Dubai as HR admin for Radisson hotels. Darli also works in Dubai for M&S as a manager. She was saying how great it is to work for a as its only 8 hour days and 2 days off per week; how much we take for granted. I recently got a new job thats 37.
