Georgia part 5, Vashlovani National Park

August 22^nd – 31^st 2022

Miles: 404 (650km)

Miles total: 12’270 (19’760km)

Route:

Tiflis – Dedopliskaro – Bear Canyon – Usakhelo View Point – Mijnis Qure – Shavi Mountain – Dedopliskaro – Takhti-Tepha Mud Volcanoes – Cave Monastery Sabereebi – Mravaltskaro reservoir – Shulaveri

Heading to Vashlovani:

We leave Tbilisi and head for the deep south-east of Georgia. The reason for our return to Georgia is the much-vaunted Vashlovani National Park, which we don't want to miss visiting. On the way, we will cross the well-known wine-growing region of Kakheti, where more than half of the Georgian wine comes from.

We drive past various wineries, but somehow a wine tasting doesn't really appeal to us at the current temperatures of over 90°F (30°C). In addition, during our two months in the country, we drank delicious Georgian wine several times, both homemade and the "regular".

Dedopliskaro:

The village of Dedopliskaro is the starting point for the national park, where we get the permits and stock up on food and drinking water. During our 8-day stay in the park, we return here once, to visit also the western part of the park. Both times we stay overnight near the "Eagle Gorge", where we not only see eagles gliding through the air, but also see around twenty griffon vultures in the steep cliffs!

On the way to the national park we make a short detour to a special curiosity: the old military airfield "Big Shiraki", which was built by the Soviet government around 1950, has been doomed to decay since 1992 and is now used again as agricultural land.

You can drive around freely on the runway and between the approximately 20 hangars. Most of the hangars are closed, some of them are used to store straw or hay bales. Not much is left of the aircraft, only a half-dismantled wreck of an old fighter jet is left in the area.

Vashlovani Park and Chachuna Park:

And once again we discover a completely different side of the diverse country of Georgia. Vashlovani Park is located in the far south-east, a remote and little-visited region on the border with Azerbaijan. Beyond the village of Dedopliskaro, vast wheat fields give way to a strange semi-desert zone, where eroded wasteland alternates with steppe meadows, ravines, savannas and forests along the Alzani River, which forms the border with Azerbaijan.

A fascinating and spectacular landscape for us! But even in this dry and barren area people live with their animals, but not in summer. In the hot season, the shepherds take their animals to the mountains, supposedly to Tusheti. Only the dilapidated and primitive-looking stables and dwellings indicate the cultivation of the land. After four days, we leave Vashlovani Park and head west to Chachuna Park. In addition to a similarly spectacular landscape, another special feature awaits us here: mud volcanoes! Gas rises from the earth at two different points and brings liquid mud to the surface, sometimes enriched with petroleum or tar.

Some of the mud holes are stained black from petroleum and the scent of black gold is clearly in the air. Also, the mixture of mud and oil sometimes gives beautiful patterns on the surface of the mud holes, like marbled.

This natural spectacle is in the middle of nowhere, no one far and wide, no barriers and some very clever people even drive their cars right into the volcanic fields.

Sabereebi Cave Monastery and David Gareja Monastery complex:

Not wanting to drive all the way back from the mud volcanoes, we take the westbound off-road route. This in turn takes two days, during which we visit the Sabbebi cave monastery on the way and also spend the night directly in front of it. In order to get into the caves, a steep slope has to be mastered, then a more or less breakneck path leads from cave to cave.

The monastery was inhabited by monks from the 9th century; today only countless pigeons live there. We are amazed that frescoes can still be seen in the cave churches, however many of these show signs of vandalism and many engravings by visitors who have immortalized themselves here. This sight is also freely accessible, no supervision, but no information is available either. However, the caves are apparently very fragile and have cracks whose movement is controlled by highly sensitive motion sensors. Various such monastery complexes are spread in the mile-long rock band, most of which are probably not accessible.

Towards the end of our trip, another monastery complex is on the agenda. We have to admit that when it comes to monasteries, it's not that easy to be impressed anymore ;-). Many places of worship have crossed our path in recent months. But this complex is beautiful and unique. The David Gareja monastery complex (6th century), located directly on the Azerbaijani border, consisting of about 20 monasteries. Our visit is limited to the main monastery of Lavra, because the others are closed due to tensions between the two countries, as the present border police officers explain to us.

Not only is the Lavra Monastery itself fantastic, but it is also set in a spectacular rainbow rock landscape!

The monastery is built of stone and wood, but also consists of caves and this results in a fascinating and varied mixture that enthuses us.

Roads in Vashlovani National Park:

In order to get a permit for the park at all, it is checked what kind of car you have. They probably don't want to tow away vehicles from this uninhabited desert area :-). Our Iveco is of course granted access without any problems. We cover more than 220 miles (350km) off-road. Partly over reasonably pleasant tracks, but often over stony paths, treacherous rocky passages or through narrow stream beds.

Incidentally, we are very happy that we have an old, already scratched vehicle, because some of the paths are lined on both sides with hard, tough bushes and a glaring, long-lasting scratching noise penetrates our ears here and there. And then there are some bridges that get our adrenaline pumping. When crossing one of the rivers, we have two options: bridge or drive through the river. First stop bridge: too narrow and deep trees; we don't take. Two minutes later at the river crossing: Come on, back to the bridge :-). Now we have two options: Cross the bridge where we said 5 minutes ago "can't do it", or take a very long detour!

Overnight places and checkpoints:

In the Vashlovani National Park we often move close to the border with Azerbaijan, meet the border police here and there and have to show our permit, which we applied for in Dedopliskaro at the beginning. The overnight sites in the park are phenomenal and we have the sites to ourselves even though they are official national park 'campsites'. Often there is even a toilet available, real luxury :-). One of the places is right on the border river with Azerbaijan, where we even see bear tracks on the river bank.

One evening we stand again on one of the "official" places next to the Takhti-Tepha mud volcanoes and settle in for the night. About 2 miles (3km) away from the border with Azerbaijan. It's 10:30 p.m., just before bed time, when the lights of a car can be seen in the distance! Who else is driving around at this time? The border police, of course! They greet us in a friendly manner, check our passports and permit and one of the uniformed men then shows us his mobile phone which says: "We can't sleep here, we have to go!". Arguing is useless! We pack everything up and are ready to go 10 minutes later. We will be escorted by the border police! In complete darkness, we have to follow the pickup on off-road paths for 30 minutes until we are out of the "forbidden" zone! Apparently, there are some tensions between Georgia and Azerbaijan at the moment. The next day we meet the same guys at a checkpoint. He asks us kindly if we had a good night's sleep (using Google Translate), smiles and apologizes again for chasing us away in the middle of the night.

Onward journey:

Our penultimate night in Georgia is approaching and we spend it near Rustavi. Surrounded by rainbow rocks on a small reservoir. 

The next day we go to Rustavi, a somewhat run-down old industrial town with countless discarded factories and chimneys. At a car wash station, we change the color of our Iveco from "desert dusty brown" back to "camper white" :-). Along the Azerbaijani border we continue towards the Armenian border, until we end up at the same wonderful sleeping place where we stayed 5 weeks ago, about 20 minutes from Armenia!