Lost in the Mountains

I've been pretty busy the last week and a half and its about to get even more hectic with school starting in less than three weeks.  Let me bring you up to date with what I've been busy with:

A few weekends ago I went on a overnight camping trip with some of the other G13 and G12s here in Georgia. Our training manager Tengo planned the trip and took us to the Khevsureti area of Georgia. This area was one of the most beautiful most unreal places I have ever seen! The mountains are so tall and numerous that you feel like they could easily be swallowed up into them. Also it is impossible to capture such a sight on camera though I did attempt to do it. I left on Friday and stayed the night in Tbilisi so I could be ready to meet our tour marshutkas that were leaving around 7am on Saturday. On our trip we saw some of the oldest establishments in Georgia. We saw Shatili and Musto….those were the biggest highlights of our trip. Shatili is this old fortress from the medieval century. It was so cool because it was like a maze trying to explore all the building because they were all connected to each other in some form or fashion. Mutso is an old fortress with more than 30 something fortified towers

Below are some pictures of Shatili  and Mutso and a Wikipedia link about each of them too.

Shatili Info and Mutso Info

Datvisjvari Pass (the area that separates Southern and Northern Khevsureti)

Lebaiskari (small abandoned village)

Shatili, an old town-museum, built between 
the 7th and 13th centuries

More Shatili pics

Anatori crypts (a dead village with the history of the Black Death)

Our campsite for the night...we hiked up to the abandoned village in the top left of this pic

Mutso, 30 medieval fortified towers arranged on vertical terraces and overlooking Mutso-Ardoti gorge

After this weekend trip I went to Lagodekhi Nature Reserve with my sister Mari to go explore the park's hiking trails and waterfalls. My friend Aaron works at the park and he was kind enough to be our trail guide for the day.

My sister Mari on our day hike

Aaron proud of his falls

Woot made it!

Georgian Easter

Georgian Easter (Sunday April 28th this year) is such an interesting experience. The whole extended family meets together at the family’s cemetery plot to have an Easter supra.  There are picnic tables between the grave sites. They start out their celebration by rolling an Easter egg across the grave and then sprinkling wine across the grave in the form of a cross.  Then the women all sit at the table and eat while the men stand around it and toast each other. After we had finished our food, we packed up and headed to the next cemetery in town where Gabro’s side of the family is buried and had another small supra. We repeated the wine sprinkling and the egg rolling as well as the toasting. Then the whole family headed back to our house where we had yet another supra. Keep in mind this is all in three hours. So much food! I feel like I have gained 10 pounds while being here. Later after the celebration I met up with my cluster mates Brenna and Aaron for “studying” but really it was just hanging out and eating more food. We then walked across the street to collect/rescue Kirk from his Easter celebration. The next few hours were spent at Aaron’s host family’s house doing dance moves, learning new Georgian words and singing to Adele.

Part of my family and I at the supra

Grave plots with picnic tables in between

Supra meal

Beautiful view from the village