Borjomi, home of the fabled fizzy water so beloved of Lenin and also actually quite a nice place.  After Kazbegi was essentially rained off we were keen to get some hill action. The wonderfully well organised website of the Borgomi Kharaugli National Park promised us marked paths and shelters scattered across pristine woodland, alpine meadows and forested valleys.  

 

The weather at last held as we headed up the first leg of our 3 day trek.  We climbed up and up through ancient pine forest swathed in lichen until we came out above the tree line for breathtaking views over seemingly endless forest down the valleys towards Armenia.  The first shelter was exposed but had a stove and soon warmed up. The next day up and over the hill was enhanced by a mid-morning tipple of chacha - the local 65%proof fire water, provided by a farmer and his two teenage sons.  We drank the chacha from a cow-horn cup and chased it with sweet halva and salty bread.  We made toasts to the good weather, healthy cattle, fresh air away from the cities and a happy future for all. Our immediate future was indeed quite buoyant as we bobbed up the hill and over a ridge.  From the north side of the hill we could see a white gash along the horizon. It was the ever snowy peaks of the Greater Caucasus. The whole of the country lay out before us, it was quite breathtaking.

 

After another couple of days in the hills we made it to the tiny village of Marelisi.  A pretty name for a pretty place.  Unlike Kazbegi this backwater was on its way up. It wasn’t just that the sun was shining - the population of the village was a lot younger than Kazbegi’s, young families had chosen to stay and settle there rather that escape to the bigger cities. Like a scene out of a Gogol’ short story everything there was blossoming and fertile, hens were walking about with clutches of 20 chicks, the trees were heavy with fruit and the rivers with fish and frogs.  At night the village was lit by a thousand fireflies.  Marelisi’s proximity to the park has brought tourists and the park authorities have built a wooden chalet style guest house.  Our hosts kept us fed and watered as we rested our legs and explored the surrounding waterfalls and medieval flour mills... After two days, our cash spent and clean clothes few we begrudgingly caught the train back to Tbilisi.