Lungfish Travel

The past week since leaving Mestia has been spent lazily working my way around the central region of Georgia and trying some of the excellent wines available within Georgia. I've also managed to find my way into some excellent traditional Georgian restaurants (typically cheaper than foreign stuff anyways). That being said, I figured I would share some of my experiences with you with a quick intro corse o how to ingest like a Georgian. The most common things Georgians seem to ingest are khinkali (a type of dumpling) and wine. I'll start with khinkali. Khinkali is typical eaten with your hands and the thick dough surrounds a delicious meatball and its dangerously or juices. Georgians make eating this contraption look remarkably easy. In fact if you look away only for a second, you're likely to look bak to see only a pile of dumpling ends (the part you hold) sitting on a neat pile on their plate. So how do you eat a khinkali? First, you add liberal pepper to your chosen variety (meat is the most common, but cheese and veggie do exist), so the taste blends nicely overall. Second, you hold the little part of the dumpling where the edges have been pushed together (best done after letting the meatball sit right side up on the plate to allow this bit to dry and become fully graspable, the last thing you want is the slippery dough slipping from your hand and getting a steaming hot meatball in the lap). Slosh the meatball a little to get a feel for the amount of liquid you're dealing with (this is very important, you dont want to underestimate). then, holding the meatball rather high in the air you make your first bite at the dough holding the dumpling together, but you don't chew or swallow, instead trying to hold the rapidly crumbling mess together with your lips while sucking the juices from the sack (if this is sounding like some sort of uncomfortable sexual reference that's because it is, and there's no real other way to describe how awkward eating these is). Odds are you'll have to tip the dumpling to some awkward angle to let remaining juices gather before trying again to empty the dumpling of anything likely to scald your face. Now comes the hard part, because I guarantee there's still hot liquid ready to turn you Ito the late Harvey Dent the minute you mess up. The dumpling is too big to fit I to your mouth in one bite, and biting at the slippery dough is awkward as hell, but these are really your only options. The more dough you bite, the closer the meatball comes to flopping out of the khinkali Ito your lap, and at one point you are forced to make the awkward attempt to finish your losing battle in one go. As you manage to finally get the remainder of the useless mess you hold in your hand into your mouth, you breath a sigh of relief as your friends roll around on the floor laughing at you. At least it's their turn next. How do you drink like a Georgian? Well, assuming you haven't been drunk under the table during the course of dinner, you drink lots of wine, quickly, preferably with a chase of chacha (think of the vilest cross between whiskey and tequila your taste buds can handle). I guess what I'm saying is if you travel to Georgia, make sure you bring friends you can laugh (and drink) with.

It's been a little while since my last post, and my parents are starting to get on me to update my blog. Right now I'm sitting in beautiful Bagan (look it up, you won't be disappointed), munching on some watermelon and drinking tea (something I seemed to have picked up in Turkey). I have a couple posts from a while back that I'm going to put up right away (one from Georgia, and one from Bangkok) and a couple more which I should be working on for the next few hours. I seem to be having problems uploading photos onto my iPhone, so more uploads may have to wait until I meet my girlfriend with the 'ole iPad in November.

In the morning clouds, the rainbow reflects the colours of the first perfectly. From the lush greens fading to yellow, orange and red with the shortening days. Violet and blue flowers stare out at you from the drying leaves littering the forest floor. And where the rainbow fades back into the clouds, the white reflects from the brilliant glaciers that straddle the tops of mountains like cowboys attempting to tame a raging bull. At the risk of offending my family and friends, Svanetti seems to do Canada better than Canada itself. Since arriving to Mestia less than a week ago, this brilliant change has taken the lush green forests and started to turn them into the fiery hillsides of autumn and fall. My only regret is leaving tomorrow; too early to witness the final transformation of this beautiful place (hopefully the colours will catch up to me elsewhere in Georgia before I leave). I've spent the past two days hiking from Mestia to the town of Iprari, towards the better known city of Ushguli. While not seeing Ushguli is a shame, for the sake of other things, we packed in a day early and returned, but not before seeing some of the most stunning mountain scenery imaginable. Mountains look as if Raphael himself has painted them into the land so the sun catches them just right, or so that the clouds curl and fit into the jagged edges of nature in the most pleasing way possible. If this sounds crazy, that's because it is. Our first hiking day we wandered past striking Svan villages with their truly unique defensive towers and lush fields with teenage boys careening from place to place on horses an old men swinging gleaming scythes to rip hay from the nearly inaccessible hillside and pile into into huge heaps drying in the sun. The night we stayed at a delightful guesthouse, with more amazing Svan food and a jug of the finest homemade wine I have tasted yet. Unfortunately, one of the israeli girls (the israeli and the polish seem to have found this paradise before anyone else) in our group fell ill and half our group returned to Mestia to recuperate. Fortunately, this liberated a British friend and I go we're short on time to hoof it past our second days destination and land in Iprari one day ahead of schedule (albeit more than a little tired). The second days hike was gruelling and we found outselves lost more than once (I am convinced locals move marker stones to misguide tourists, making a local guide all the more valuable and needed). Fortunately through all the scrambling we made our destination, a reported 35 km (when I looked at the map I saw 30, but another groups guide insisted it was 35) and 2 mountain passes away, just as the sun started to set. The gruelling hike is now over as I lay on my bed in a guest house in Mestia, but I'm sure by tomorrow my legs will happily remind me of just ow crazy that was. It was fortunate we made our destination on time, because last night was a terrible thunderstorm that seems to have washed away some nearby roads. Still the trees happily soak up the remaining sun before fall finally sets in.

Today I hiked up to the glacier at mount Ushba. This entire valley continues to amaze me. It's like I've stepped right into my very own fantasy novel with old ladies running around making cheese, colourful butterflies, cows absolutely everywhere and not a single fence that remains unbroken. The mountains surrounding this place are all delightfully (and dangerously) snow capped and mineral water springs from the ground through hollowed out old tree stumps. The trees are still green, but you can see more than a hint of red, orange and yellow in the hills as fall starts to creep down from the mountains. It's like living a dream (despite the frustrations from yesterday). Today I decided to take a hike up to the base of the glacier at mount Ushba (the mountain that sits most imposingly over the valley). The hike starts wit a stroll through rolling farmland including a nice chapel and mineral water spring (when you say mineral water here, the people all give the thumbs up and thump their heart with their hands). Then you start to climb. Up and up you go looping around a beautiful set of waterfalls only to cross above them on the steep hillside. The path ends at what I would call a dusty glacier, with opaque turquoise waters rushing from a giant crack at the base of the ice. There's no denying it, this place is cool. I'd love to go higher to the peak, but honestly I'm not prepared (it requires serious rock climbing) and the news that two climbers perished there a couple days ago doesn't help. Tomorrow I'm going to try to sneak down the valley past the guesthouses whose owners I have (quite possibly) offended and make my way for the Capitol of this area (Mestia).

Crossing from Kars into Georgia turned into somewhat of an ordeal. First off there is no real "way" into Georgia from Kars. Every guide or online help tool I read suggested something either ridiculous or oddly vague. This was, it turns out, because the method used to cross from Kars to, say, Tbilisi is either ridiculous or oddly vague. Your first problem? It's not called Tbilisi (already somewhat hard to pronounce) in Turkey. In fact, if you say Tbilisi you're only likely to get blank stares. Instead you must call it "Tiflis", which I suppose is the turkish word for the city. Second there really is no direct bus. Instead, you have to take the first dolmus of the day to ardahan, and you'll need to make absolute certain that the driver knows you are going to "gurgistan" or you'll be dropped in the wrong quadrant of the city. Once at the otogar, you'll be told to wait. Not speaking turkish like you do, you'll have no idea where to wait or how long to wait. Actually by this point in the morning you're probably thinking about food first, but there's not much on offer and you don't really want to stray too far lest you miss your only bus to Georgia. What you're eventually given (ask around at the far right end of the terminal) is a ticket that says Akask (again a turkish version of the real name). So you hop on a dolmus (this one has no destination indicated) as directed by the bus company. This dolmus isn't taking you to Akask, instead it's taking you to a village somewhere near the border. Here you hop on a hug bus (there might be 5 of you) and are informed that they are going to try to take you across the border, but don't have a proper license to do so. Great. Luckily, once you reach the border, it seems they haven't checked the license and once you are through customs you jump back on the bus to Akask. Now. If you didn't speak turkish, odds are you don't speak Georgian (Russian will get you by), so now it's time to try to find a mashrutka (Georgian for dolmus) to Tbilisi. Once you figure out hat the supermarket across the street has a money changer and ATM (at the back corner, I had to get a mashrutka driver to show me) getting money and paying inside the small autogar across the street is no big deal. Once in Tbilisi, free wifi abounds so finding your way to your hotel shouldn't be too hard (aided by the handy English announcements on the metro). Now you're officially in the Georgian capital ready for a change of pace with pork and wine abound.

Kars wasn't my favourite town, despite meeting some truly wonderful and interesting people there. I was left with the feeling that maybe I had missed something when exploring, but its more likely that lingering pains from Ararat just made me grumpy. The mosques in the town are fairly interesting, and the old converted Armenian church was quite the gem, but really the most stunning experience I had here (which blows everything else away, literally) was Anni. Anni is an old Armenian Capitol per he'd near the border with - you guessed it - Armenia. I hitched a ride out with a lovely Belgian couple (French comes in handy in the strangest places) and we explored the dusty brown ruins set under a vastly colourful and expanding sky (think Alberta). I will let the pictures I took do most of the talking here. The ruins were both massive and gorgeous, if a bit windy. The massive structures themselves were only marred by some (understandably) unsightly metal frames used to hold some key components up (earthquakes being the main culprit for much of the destruction here). Next it's off to Georgia for a change of pace and hopefully some good adventures. I'm getting much too close to a burnout for my own good, hopefully the 25th comes soon so I can put up my legs in Bangkok.

I'm not sure what exactly led me to the top of mount Ararat. I do know a good part of it was pure stubborn determination, but I'm still not sure if that's a good thing. I also know that for one reason or another, I was truly tested while on the 5137 meter tall mountain of biblical fame. The trip started with a rough landing in dogubayazit in a hotel where even I dared not use the toilet (a hole I. The ground would have been much more preferable). After firing an email to my tour company asking for more details (I had none), I immediately set out to explore the lovely ishakpaşa palace. The palace features wonderfully intricate carvings an stunning architecture that make this remote-ish town worth the trip even before you consider the stunning views of mount Ararat. Dogubayazit has somewhat the feel of a frontier town for reasons I can't exactly place, but the unfinished buildings and sit feel of the town definitely make it feel like new growth. As time past and the beginning of my excursion drew closer, I began to worry about the lack of a response from my contact at the company, so the day before the expedition was set to leave I made a frantic phone all to the only number I could find over what seemed like the worst Internet connection for the job. Fortunately I managed to get the name of the hotel I was staying at and "send help" across the line. So later that day my guide and one if his uncles showed up at my hotel to give me a briefing. Everything seemed to be alright, so the next morning bright and early I was picked up in front of my hotel and we were wisked off to the base of the mountain in a van full to the brim with tents, propane tanks, and food for the upcoming trip. The ride (which seemed to take forever) was along an old road that hasn't seen maintenance in quite some time (so a bumpy one). The first day, what I had originally understood to be an hour and a half walk to our first base camp turned into a five hour slog through the morning heat. But as we finally approach base camp 1 at 3200 meters, the sky started to close over, and sure enough, within minutes of setting up my tent, our group was hammered with one of the freakiest hail storms I have ever encountered. The driving winds whipped the (luckily) small pellets to speeds where the occasional one would cause a welt through a rain jacket and a fleece mid layer. The temperatures dropped and after the hour long storm we were left to dig our tents out of an imposing layer of hail and ice. Luckily the afternoon sun managed to melt most of said ice away before nightfall but the temperature was still scarily close to zero, meaning a cold night in my ultralight sleeping bag awaited me after dinner and a round of drinks (imposed on me by the unruly group of polish adventurers that made up the bulk of the group). Fortunately said drinks were the last I consumed before the end of the trip (our guide pointed out that they could be dangerous at higher altitudes). The next day I woke up o a bit of a queasy stomach (uh-oh) and prepared for our acclimatization hike to 4200 meters and back. Unfortunately, my stomach problems seemed to increase at altitude (no mom, I didn't experience any of the other symptoms of AMS). By the time we'd spent some time at base camp 2, my stomach felt ready to explode, but my lack if toilet paper mean the most physically painful 2 hours I have ever endured as I descended to the first base camp. By the time I'd arrived I'd already consigned myself to death by burst appendix on the lonely mountain. Luckily, at supper two of the ladies with our group came to my aide with wonderful western medicine (much better than the Pepto I'd been popping) that made my sleep that night almost bearable. I woke the next morning fit as a fox and ready to climb to the next base camp. Fortunately the medicine seemed to have worked its magic (and happily would continue to do so for the remainder of my stay on the mountain). We had a rather pleasant and uneventful climb the second day, but once again as we neared the end of our now routine daily hike, a wicked dust storm picked up. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the 4200 m base camp was so rocky and exposed that I had to spend the better part of an hour building a wind (and horse) wall to keep the wind (or errant horses) from bowling over my tent. The view though, was incredible. Even from a third of the way up the mountain, the scenery below was so far away it looked as it had been aster out on some invisible wall with a giant putt knife. I can honestly say the beautiful view had been so far on of the few comforts I'd had on the trek, and something I retreated to whenever I felt things were getting crazy. My nerves were also starting to flare up in anticipation of the next days summit attempt. The night was cold. I ended up wearing my jacket and long johns to sleep and added a liner and bivvy sac to the sleeping bag inside my tent just to stay warm. Our hike was to start at 2 am with breakfast at 1, so naturally I woke up at midnight to take down my tent so it wouldn't blow away in the next storm (I was sure there would be one knowing my luck so far). I started the trek cold. I'd left a little too much time between the morning buzzing around preparing and our start time so I'd lost any energy I'd managed to build before we even started. We walked incredibly so. To avoid sweating and the associated freezing we walked an excruciatingly slow pace. In fact forget freezing from sweat, I never warmed up to begin with. One of the members on the tour company had neglected to sen me a packing list so I missed a couple of would be additions to my bag (its ok though I hear they were having a baby so I can cut them a little slack). My real issues and the culmination of my mountain troubles when we came to the snowpack that covers the top of Mount Ararat. While the day before the summit had been free of any clouds, on this fateful morning the mountain saw fit to through a full blizzard at us while we donned our crampons and resumed our slow journey up the mountain. The combination of extreme wind, lack of appropriate clothing, and slow pace made the -15 degree summit (promised to be no colder than -10 by my guide) feel what I felt was closer to -25. Usually this isn't a problem, but at the snow pack I swear I was slowly freezing to death. We slowly made out way up the light sloping path through the wind and the hale with frequent stops to wait for lost group members. When we finally reach the top, the cold disappears, swallowed by the mountain's worth f adrenaline kicking into my blood stream, so we high five and celebrate and take pictures (change my camera battery...) before the cold returns twice as edgy as before and we're forced to once again retreat down the mountain. At this point I am the coldest I have ever been, and that includes the night it hit minus 57 on a cold winter night in Edmonton. Just when I think we are home free the call comes down the line that we lost the old timer again and we would have to wait (in his defence he is 73). For me, this is not ok. Sitting and shivering on an unprotected slope are not good for my health. By the time someone finally taps me on the shoulder an tells me we can go, I've started to rock back and forth shivering wildly, and I'm convinced the irrational behaviour of extreme hypothermia are right around the corner. You can imagine my frustration when we walk 20 yards downhill and immediately escape most of the cold and wind that had been causing me problems. Through my frustration, I do understand though that this is the point where things start to get better, so I ask politely for some tea (from a thermos, which was apparently required gear, but I never got that list remember?) and make my way down the mountain at a much healthier pace which has me comfortably warm before I even know it. The rest of the trip down was fairly uneventful. Needless to say I was relieved to leave mount Ararat behind me, and it may be a while before I attempt another peak over 5000 meters (especially not shoulder season unless I'm really prepared). A quick meal and Hamam later and the only lingering reminder I have of my challenges on the mountain is the kickback of stomach problems from all of the medications I had to use to keep various things in check on the mountain. Next I'm off to the northern town of Kars to see the apparently makes tic ruins of Ani.

Sunrise and around Mount Nemrut

Sunrise and around Mount Nemrut

Stone heads at Mount Nemrut

A human religious archaeological site dating back to 9000 bc (the oldest one known) at Gobekli Teppe

Urfa

The Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep

Gaziantep an getting dragged into a traditional turkish dance

Foodporn

Hatay