We should probably have seen more of the high Caucasus by now. The rainy trip to Kazbegi didn’t really count and for some reason we didn’t go to the famous Svaneti valleys. So when the book said that the walk from Xinaliq to Laza was one of the best in the region we ditched the heavy bags in Baku and set off with the tent and the anoraks.

 

A local wheeler dealer in the northern town of Quba told us it was better to walk the other way - from Laza to Xinaliq - as the soldiers patrolling the Russian border near Laza had arrested a few folk lately and it was much better to walk South, away from the border rather than towards it. He gave us names of some families who had put up travellers in the past and drew us a map of how to find Shamil’s shop.

 

Shamil’s shop was pretty much where it was supposed to be and as promised Shamil did indeed know somebody who had a four wheel drive Lada that could take us up the rough road to Laza later on that day. Six of us piled into the tiny car and it turned out the guy who squeezed in next to us was, Misha - the person we were supposed to ask for when we got to the village.

 

Despite his somewhat ‘traditional’ relationship with his wife (meals, teas and cleaning were demanded with a shout while the male folk sat round the floor on cushions), Misha was the friendliest and most traveller savvy host we’d had so far. He eventually understood our apparently crazy request to pitch our tent behind the house rather than sleep in the family bedroom and insisted that we stay an extra night in order to attend his nephew’s wedding.

 

The wedding was a three day shindig and as we sat down with the male members so of the extended family to enjoy the ‘night before’ feast they explained that 3 cows and 5 sheep and been killed for the food that day and at least the same number again would make it from the field to the kebab skewer the following day. Helen, being a Western woman (and one who could speak Russian), was aloud to sit with us men folk and as she was the traveller’s designated toast maker her vodka glass was seldom empty for long...

 

Her hangover was bad. But on seeing the view from the tent - huge waterfalls spilling over hanging valleys covered in velvety grassy pastures and bright mountain flowers -  she made it out of the sleeping bag and over the hill for dip in the cold streams. Clean but slightly sunburnt we arrived at day two of the wedding. This time however we were sensible enough to blend in with the two or three hundred folk who had arrived from other villages, dodge much of the poisonous Azeri vodka and enjoy the weird dances/mating rituals performed by the local men from safe distance.

 

Its worth knowing that almost as unique and the funky chicken ‘lazginka’ wedding dance is the ‘lazgin’ language spoken only by people from this small area. Just 20km away in the Xinaliq valley they speak Xinaliq  - another completely different and independent language.

 

The guide with the horse who was supposed to take us to Xinaliq didn’t show up. He seemed fine when we met him at the wedding but now it was the next morning and his daughter was reporting to us that he had a “sore eye”. Luckily, one of the 15 people who had slept on Misha’s floor had a horse and was apparently walking in the Xinaliq direction. He didn’t speak much Russian but Namir, still dressed in his wedding suit, led us up through the clouds to a mountain top summer encampment of shepherds and their families. His wife served us eggs and bread inside their tent/yurt home.

 

The decent down out of the cloud revealed Xinaliq village perched on top of a small hill at the junction of two wide valleys. The guide book had already described the village that had “changed little since medieval times” pretty accurately so the impact was slightly lessened but then surely its always better to experience a cow pat cemented wall up close rather than just read about it in a book.  The name we had been given for Xinaliq was Zaur and on the track up to the village the man on the donkey trying to find signal for his mobile phone turned out to be Zaur’s brother. It wasn’t until after we’d left the family that had fed us so well and made up such comfy beds that we learned we had turned up a completely different Zaur’s house. I think its safe to say that the welcoming people of Laza and Xinaliq earned this wee mountain excursion the title of best bit of the the trip so far.