“Georgia 🇬🇪 ~From a Cottage in the Woods, to Martvili Canyon, and Scenic Tsageri to Ushguli, and Back to Tsageri”

• June 9, 2021
• By Pen
• 2 Comments

I had it in my mind to find a cute, romantic cabin in the woods, for our two-night stay, during our visit to Martvili Canyon. (thoughts become thing) This Canyon was high on our “must see” list, for the many stops we have planned. As it would turn out, we couldn’t find the cottages we were looking for; called “Martvili Canyon Cottages,” but at the Canyon entrance, Daryl asked about accommodations and a man who worked there, said to follow him as he drove in his car. He knew of a place where we could rent. We followed him to what looked like a regular guesthouse. The guy we followed, left, and we were motioned to drive into the yard through the property gate, then we followed a woman down a narrow road, into the woods. She led us straight to these cute cottages! (all of this happened with, like, five words of English between us all).

We had WIFI for several hours, then it went away, but WIFI, since leaving Tbilisi, has not been very reliable. Last night, while still on the coast in Kobuleti, the owner there gave us his phone to use as a hot spot so I could work. That was so nice.
Tonight, here in the Canyon, we have the place to ourselves. Dinner and breakfast of Georgian cuisine are included for $25.50/night. (or so we thought) 🙄

We will visit the Martvili Canyon tomorrow, and we are less than a mile, away from the entrance.
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What made searching for lodging this afternoon even more interesting/strange and a bit crazy, is the place we were led to, is apparently the same property (cottages) we were trying to find, after arriving into town, and finally giving up on. Funny coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences. Hmm 🤔  Ha! Two different names, but clearly the same place. ⬇️
No, it is not easy to find places in Georgia. 

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While we are enjoying Georgia, we continue to juggle bad roads, (construction), bad maps, (poor direction; always confusing) and rain. Some locations, we must have sunshine (this canyon is one of those). If there is rain, the boats (rafts)? don’t operate.

⬆️ Sunshine today and tomorrow, YAY! 

We checked the maps this morning, and it indicated Martvili Canyon was closed. Since tomorrow is also a sunny day, before more rain comes, we hustled our way over here; changing from other plans. BUT, when we drove by the Canyon entrance, it was open! WTH?

⬆️ Maps indicates the Canyon to be closed today. We showed up in person, and saw that it was open. 🙄 We then pulled into the parking area and verified with live humans, the Canyon will be open tomorrow. We got a yes. (we hope so).

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Oh for the love of travel!
BUT, in the mean time, today, we had fresh air, the birds were singing, plenty of sunshine, and we can see the river below our cottage. We had a beautiful drive over here from the coast, today. (no road) construction, Lots of farmland, with free-range cows and pigs in the road. ⬇️ 

What are those wooden contraptions around the necks of those pigs? My guess? Given that pigs root with their noses, (big time) and can destroy yards and gardens. It looks to me like these free-range pigs can’t dig very well when the bottom of the wood hits the ground. My uneducated guess, based on my years raising pigs.

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Exploring Martvili Canyon

Martvili Canyon used to be a bath place for Dadiani family. This would be a family of royals; reign of David Dadiani’s father ~Levan V Dadiani; r. 1804-1840. Now people visit the canyon to enjoy the scenery, its waterfalls and take a raft trip in the river, with its deep green color.

Martvili is located in Samegrelo region of Western Georgia.
On its highest hill, there is a Monastery. The site upon the hill where the monastery stands today, was used in ancient times as a pagan cultural center and was a sacred site. There once stood an ancient and enormous oak tree that was worshipped as an idol of fertility and prosperity. Infants were once sacrificed here as well. After the conversion of the native population to Christianity, the ancient tree was cut down so as not to be worshipped, anymore. A church was originally constructed in the late 7th century upon the roots of the old oak tree and was named in honor of Saint Andrew, who preached Christianity and converted the pagans across the Samegrelo region.
The main Martvili-Chkondidi Cathedral (Mingrelian: Chkoni translates to “oak”) was reconstructed in the 10th century after invasions that destroyed the prior church. Preserved in the church are frescoes of the 14th to 17th centuries.

Not my photo, but here is a picture of the Martvili-Chkondidi Cathedral (it was closed to viewing).

There is a trail called Dadiana. It is nicely done and shaded, which was great. Days are very hot, when it’s sunny. Nights are very cold. 

By 2PM, we were done visiting the canyon. We took a ride in a raft and got some pretty photos. After that, we walked the trail. It’s a very small area, and part of the water route was blocked off by a rope, though we saw plenty of water to float there, in, so that was confusing. We would have loved to have gone further, as it was very pretty. The boat ride lasted only 15 minutes and cost $10 pp. We knew it was a small area, but this was REALLY small, and unexpected.
We returned to our cottage, thinking we could take a nice nap through the hot part of the afternoon, B U T, I saw the person we needed to pay for our two nights. After giving him the cash. He told us he needed more money. Come to find out, through the usual struggle of  language, the rate we were told was “per person.” We were never told per person when we agreed to the “total” cost for our stay, so the $25.50 was really $50 for a room that was boiling hot during the heat of the day and freezing at night. We had two hand-towels to use to shower. It was cute, but definitely rustic and basic. It was not worth $50, without A/C or a mini fridge. We paid for one night with the added per person fee, then I told the guy we would pack-up and leave within 10 minutes, as $50 was too much money, and we did not agree to that amount. 

We then pointed our map app towards our next stop; “Ushba” to get some great photos, and the map said it was 48 minutes away. BUT, when I clicked on the “start,” the map said there was no way to get there!” Ha! 

Bare in mind, I created our desired visits, based on what places in each country are worth seeing; sometimes recommended by the country tourism, themselves.
To be honest, nothing surprises us in Georgia any more. We can’t figure out if their tourist season has started or not. It’s after June 1st, but there are many places closed, including hotels. They may have been hit harder than most, through the lockdowns. We also feel like in these remote areas, the prices for food and lodging are very high, for what we get.
There were “super tours” for $20 pp in the canyon, and we got hounded a bit over the tour, we did not hesitate to turn down. If they could have told us where the tour went, it would have been better, but English is very limited here. It’s a very small canyon. We walked and floated it on our own. Why would we pay $40? We felt desperation from the tour guides.

So, we set our sites on the next, next stop, of “Ushguli,” which would be a 4.5 hour drive away, and we knew we would not get there, by dinner time, starting as late as 2:15PM. We decided to go for it, and hopefully find a place to stay and eat; close to half-way, though quite remote. 

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We drove till dinner time, and made it as far Tsageri, a small village, and we got lucky to find a nice guesthouse with a big room, balcony A/C, and food. $40/night, including the food. Daryl said he much preferred staying here (photos below) than in the cottage where we could see through the cracks in the walls. Ha! (the cottage was rustic, I do have to admit)
Hotel for one night in Tsageri
Tsageri municipality is distinguished by its beautiful nature and interesting cultural and historical monuments. Cliffs, valleys, waterfalls and amazing views, create a great impression on the viewer. The mystical and legendary Khvamli mountain is very popular, as it is where the mythical “Prometheus” was chained.
The Mythical Story on Mount Caucasus:

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Also today, I bought airfare for our next county visit of Ukraine 🇺🇦; departure on July 1st. From there we hope to get into Belarus 🇧🇾, then Lithuania 🇱🇹  and Estonia 🇪🇪 but it’s still challenging to plan too far ahead. For now, Ukraine is the focus.

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Some Scenic photos from our drive between Martvili and Tsageri ⬇️

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Tomorrow, we will drive the rest of the way to Ushguli, to visit an ancient site. So far, the road was decent, and scenic, getting this far, but we know how this can change.

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Today was a day which definitely did not go, according to plan. We drove three hours to our destination of Ushguli, from Tsageri, on another terrible road; got within 20 minutes of our goal, when a recent mudslide completely covered the road. In the pouring rain, we had no choice but to turn around and spend another three hours on the same horrible road to return to Tsageri and hope we could get a room at the hotel we left from, just this morning. We felt deflated.
20-minutes before we made it back to the same hotel, we got a flat tire. Now we really felt deflated! ⬇️ 

The good news is: it had stopped raining, we had returned to pavement before the flat, and we had a spare. The bad news is, we had no car jack. (thanks Avis). Within minutes, thankfully, a friendly local pulled over and with his car jack, and with his help, we were back on the road in no time.

We then made it to the hotel and got the same room for two more nights, and a delicious dinner, soon after. Very agreeable, after such a long day. We recommend Khvamli 2002 Hotel!

Daryl will get into the tire shop, tomorrow, to get the flat repaired, and switched back out, before we hit the road again.

We checked with the owner of the hotel and he confirmed the road to our next stop was okay, and much better than what we tried today. After that, we will make our way back to Tbilisi, as the road issues in Georgia are for the birds and we are so over the struggle. 

One thing is for certain, here in Georgia. The scenic beauty is really something to see. It’s so green, and there are many trees and waterfalls. However, I would recommend waiting about four years to travel here, because the roads should be finished by then.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos from our drive, today.

A museum in Tsageri. One of the Georgian Tower seen here. 
The name of this portion of the river, in this area, is called ”Horse River.”
It got its name back in ancient days when Mongols were terrorizing kingdoms and they came in to Georgia. Camped by the river one night, a flash flood occurred and many, many horses perished during the surprise flooding. Nothing was mentioned about how many, if any, men died. 

I told Mr Terrific it was his turn to get out and move rocks out of the road! 🤣

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⬆️ We tried so hard to make it 

⬆️ The saying goes:  “As the crow flies”….. wouldn’t that be nice?