Bananas Don't Travel Well

shrine and Sameba cathedralOur Azeri visas and train tickets to Baku finally in hand, we made our escape from the sticky heat of Tbilisi and headed for the mountains. We took a marshrutka to Kazbegi, a village about 20km from the Russian frontier in the high Caucasus range. The road up is somewhat ironically called the "Georgian Military Highway," having been built by the Russians to facilitate their conquest of the Georgians. The road continues into Russian Chechnya but the border has been closed for several years so it is really a one-way track, with Kazbegi the last major town.

pork!Coming from over two months in the Islamic world, our entry into Georgia was a bit of a shock. Georgia is the world’s second oldest Christian state (after Armenia), and its Orthodox church is still going strong, so we knew alcohol and pork would be fair game here. But we weren’t prepared when we emerged from the customs hall for the sweaty, hairy, shirtless taxi driver with a large beer belly, who reeked vodka at us and wanted $20 for a ride into town. We took the $1 marshrutka (the Russian name for minibus taxis) instead.