1st of June, 2022.
Amo (which in Portuguese is the 1st person of the verb love: I love you / Eu amo você), stops his car and tells me he can drive me to Ananuri. Yay! He has beautiful green eyes and he is a nice guy. I see a plastic toy gun on the back seat so I ask him if he has children: 2 boys, he answers. We don’t talk much because he cannot speak English but it is a short drive anyway. Beautiful and green all the way to Ananuri.
Perhaps because it is still early morning, there are only a few tourists. It is early but already hot: the sun is up and shinning!
I first go down to the entrance of the fortress to check if I need a ticket to enter. Nope! Fantastic! Such a lovely spot and for FREE! So after a quickly look around and no photographs, I go back to the parking lot to drop of my backpack in one of the small shops.
The view from the bridge it is amazing and probably the best spot for a shot of the whole complex. The interior of the Church of the Mother of God does not surprises me a lot. Even though the afrescos are pretty old, they don’t make a huge impression on me. The inscriptions around the door, the drawings and the old Georgian alphabet, all in the outside walls are super cool.
You can climb a tower (also for FREE) for a photograph of the fortress and the view. It is very tricky though. Plus, there is not a “proper” place for a photograph because the tower is not open on the top. Your best way for a good shot is through the small holes on the wall, which I suppose, used to be windows.
When I am coming back from the bridge, I hear a couple speaking in Portuguese from Brazil. I ask them – from which part of Brazil are you? They both laugh and we start to chat.
Lu and Sergio are super nice and I like them immediately. They are from Curitiba, which is the capital city of my state, Paraná, and it is located only over 100 KM from where I used to live in Brazil. They also love to travel and have been around 55 countries in the world plus almost everywhere in Brazil.
We chat for a while and it is a blast to talk with them plus to speak Portuguese. Lu is so beautiful and look so young that I can barely believe when she tells me her age. We go together by car down to the river. It is not really the best place for a shot but it worth the walk. Plus, if it is not so hot like today, it is nice just to walk alongside the river. And in the other side it looks even nicer.
I see a couple camping near the woods and I am tempted to camp here too. I could relax for the rest of the day and start my journey towards Armenia tomorrow. But should I?
Lu and Sergio go back up while I decide to stay a bit longer here, relax and make my decision. They are not going back towards Mtskheta but going further to another spot. Shame. Here is their Instagram in case you would like to check them out: https://www.instagram.com/omundoemeuquintal/
After a lot of consideration, the fact that this place and its view it is not really that gorgeous for a camping place, I decide to take my way. There is no place / fountain for fresh and free water as well, so that is another reason.
I make my sign writing Tbilisi / Koda, being the second a small town just after Tbilisi and in the direction to Armenia.
In a few minutes a Russian guy stop his car and tells me he is going to the sleeping districts of Tbilisi an he does not know where is Koda. I pass.
After a while I regret a little bit and decide I will take the next lift to Tbilisi. A few more minutes and a van stops. There are two man and a woman on it. They say Tbilisi. I get in.
