November 30: Borjomi to Akhaltsike
We had been trying to arrange a visit to Vardzia for what seemed like years: deal after deal had fallen through, and, coupled with my professional frustration with the situation here (institutional life here is challenging), I was slowly going mad.
It was a great relief to get into a car early Saturday morning, and head south.
We stopped at Borjomi and drank of the sulfurous waters, nothing like the Borjomi water you get in bottles. As I sipped at my warm cup of joy I wondered about all the things that might be in my water. Wilson made plans to bottle vast quantities.
A few more hours down the road we arrived in Akhaltsikhe, a very depressed-looking town with a large Armenian population. We found a hotel, White House (when we asked for this place in Russian--biyely dom--people looked confused and said oh you mean White House. I don't understand what this means, except maybe that English is replacing Russian). We settled in, had a greasy lunch, and hired Volodya and his Niva to take us to Zarsma and Sapara monasteries.
We slammed along 30 kilometers of the worst road I have ever seen in Georgia. Above is a smooth stretch: the rough parts were too violent to make a picture possible.
Right in the center of the picture is Zarzima, a tiny dot on the ridge, which is a beautiful 13th century church and now a working monastery.
The belltower used to be the gateway into the monastery, but it is now a chapel. There are several very small churches in the complex: one is right next to the bell tower. We crunched around in the snow, stood in the freezing interior and gawked at the frescos. Monks collected in the church, a priest walked around us fumigating, and the monks started chanting a service.
We went outside after a while, conscious that to the monks we were in the way.
In the porch of the main church was this interesting doorway. Across the lintel are old Georgian letters.
And all over the buildings, little bits of carving stuck here and there.
My secret goal of this trip was to return to Sapara Monastery, a place I had visited last year, and a place that I keep thinking about. The monks there were very kind to me last year and I hoped to set up a retreat with them for this year.
The monastery is located high up on a mountain outside Akhaltsikhe, up 12 kilometers of bad scary road. It was mostly mud and we slid around the whole way up to the church: MN says she was as scared as she has been here, terrified that we would plunge off the road into the canyon.
And she was in the back seat.
The light was failing as we got there, and I took very few pictures. I raced past the church, perched on the edge of forever, and found Father Saba. He remembered me after a bit, and we ate a splendid meal with the monks. They are in their great fast before Christmas, so they don't eat fish, milk products, or meat. The food was fantastic though, and they invited me and Wilson to come stay with them for a few days and learn how to cook.
I can hardly wait.
November 31: A Trip to Vardzia
It was dark when we got back to the hotel. We went to bed fairly early and I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of a disco right under my bed. It eventually went away.
A greasy breakfast after dodging the flood in the hall and we were away, to Vardzia.
The landscape along the way was spectacular, with huge cliffs of stone floating in and out of the fog. The region is basically treeless now and parts look like the moon, bare and rocky, except that there is always some sign of human presence. People have lived here for a million years, literally, and hardly anything is untouched.
For a long way towards Vardzia the valleys are terraced, a superhuman accomplishment. Depressingly (funny how often that word gets used here in Georgia: that's probably why I like it here so much) these terraces are not being used any more.
Halfway to Vardzia, is a really beautiful castle, Khertvisi. It looks like something out of a movie.
The road got worse and worse. We climbed up into a narrow stony gorge, with the road hugging the edge of a cliff, and then we saw it: like a termite-eaten rock, Vardzia.
Seventy percent of the construction has disappeared, mostly due to earthquakes.
But what is left is amazing.
A city in rock, high up on a cliff face.
Room after room, with benches, shelves, and in the refectories, tables, all carved out of stone.
In the upper left hand center of this picture, you can see the old apothecary, a room with many small niches for holding medicines.
Here is a staircase leading to the next level.
A few monks have moved back into Vardzia and we brought greetings from one of the monks at Sapara to one of the monks here. They have set up a few caves as houses, with wooden floors and small stoves.
The main attraction at Vardzia is the church in the center of the complex: it is covered with frescos from the period of King Queen Tamara.
Here is a section in the narthex of the church: it was too dark in the church for the digital camera, so I used the film camera.
There are other monasteries in the cliffs around here, and it would be great to come back in the summer, camp here, and spend a few days exploring the hills.