Our first attempt in exploring the mountains was not that successful. The car for sure is nice to drive on bumpy muddy roads, but with the current configuration it was no good for climbing the iced snow roads to the mountain.

The car itself would be excellent for that, but.. The rental company had happily equipped it with all-terrain tires, which are definitely NOT proper winter tires. That despite the fact that we told them we would be going to Ushguli and other mountain areas, which at this time of year have a lot of snow. I also requested them to equip the car with snow chains. Also, the car started having the common Land Rover problem "The Three Amigos" already in Kutaisi, meaning three warning lights about braking system. So, it had ABS, Traction Control and Hill Descent Assist all disabled due to some sensor failure, and all of those would have been needed today.

We climbed first 10-20 kilometers towards Ushguli and came across a bit steeper hill, which we ended up sliding back down backwards. We decided to put on the chains, and soon realized it was not that easy. Group of Ukrainian and Georgian people were on the way skiing from the top of the mountain, and they stopped to help us with the chains. Together we realized the car company had packed wrong size chains for us.. Too small to fit properly on these tires.

We got the chains somehow attached and started our way down. First one of the chains slipped off the tire and we continued down with one chained tire, or.. Well, thinking so. An hour later we realized the second chain had also dropped off, and happily we climbed back up the mountain to retrieve the missing chains. :P

Iryna sent a rather angry email to the car rental company, who apologized the problems and promised to provide us an another car with proper winter tires tomorrow morning here in Mestia. Looking forward to that and our new attempt to explore the area.

Otherwise we didn't do too much today, just drove around the city and visited the nearby Hatsvali ski resort for some food. The ski resort just opened today and it was still missing a bit snow, so we decided to skip skiing for today.. Also there were no ski school as it was a small resort, and Iryna would need one to survive.. :)

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Reaching Mestia over the mountains was actually not so bad as expected. The road was a paved road in decent condition, just some random ice and fallen rocks on the road. The mountain road took just some two-three hours and we arrived in Mestia. Maybe it was even easier to drive at night, not seeing the steep cliffs outside the narrow road..

Earlier today we shopped local SIM cards, 20 GEL ( Some 7.50€ ) for 10GB of data. Pretty decent compared to the roaming pricing of my Finnish operator, 13€ per one megabyte here..

Lunch was had in a strange restaurant outside the city, I guess the place was usually used for big wedding parties and such things. Now they were obviously preparing for Christmas party, and we were the only daytime guests in the huge restaurant. As always in here, one does not simply have a small snack: The portions are huge.. And good.

Before departing towards Mestia we visited Prometheus Cave near Kutaisi, it's a 1.4 kilometers long cave full of stalagmites. The cave was only recently discovered and has been open for tourists a couple of years. As it's not really a tourist season in here, the place was completely empty for us. :)

On the way we spotted and visited some random old abandoned buildings, most of them from the Soviet times I guess.. Old factories, an old abandoned sanitarium and so on. By the way, I like the car. The V8 engine sound puts a smile on my face, and I just have to use every opportunity to do some stupid offroad driving. :)

At the moment we have a minor (or not so minor, it's bear size) problem. We went out to have a dinner in Mestia, and on our way back a huge dog joined our company. The friendly dog decided to park himself outside our guesthouse room, so.. He's now happily sleeping there. Wonder if he's going to wait for us until the morning. :P

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We reached the city of Zugdidi, our last stop on proper roads before climbing up to the mountains just as the darkness fell. The next hours will be interesting on the bad mountain roads in darkness.. :)

Now a brief stop at a gas station, washing the car lights and buying some snacks and then up we go.

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Just arrived to Georgia. Just have to love a country when the passport check officer hands you a bottle of wine upon entering the country. :)

We picked up our car at the airport, a relatively old but nice Land Rover, drove to the hostel and had some small Georgian food in the city after checking in. The food is why we came.. :)

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Small stop on the way: Changing flight, meeting up with Iryna and having a small lame sandwich. :)

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We decided to spend a bit different Christmas and New Year with Iryna this year. For seven years I have been attending to CS Wintercamps in different cities around the Europe, but this time the camp was organized in Sofia which I was not that interested in, in addition to flight connections from Finland to Sofia being pretty pricey and difficult.

So, we decided to do something else and booked tickets to Georgia already in July. We will first fly to Kutaisi, pick up our prebooked Land Rover Discovery car and drive to the remote Svaneti mountain region which has been said to be the most beautiful region of the country.

Two weeks of mountains, hot springs and the best food in the world are awaiting us. :)

Now at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, ready to depart..

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