After my adventures in the Pankisi Valley, my next expedition from Tbilisi was out to see the medieval cave city of Vardzia, near the southwestern border. Just getting there proved to be an experience in itself.
As of 2019, there is a marshrutka that goes all the way from somewhere in Tbilisi right up to the parking lot of the cave city, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I caught one of the hourly buses from Didube station to Akhaltsikhe, the nearest city to the caves. Unfortunately, I had dawdled in the hostel that morning, so I didn’t leave Didube until noon and I got into Akhaltsikhe just after 3 in the afternoon. I intended to catch a marshrutka to Vardzia from there, but it turned out that the last one had left on the hour, just minutes before. So I bargained with a taxi driver and caught a taxi instead. Taxis are fairly inexpensive in Georgia. This one cost me ₾35, about $17 CAD.
Google Maps said the trip along the twisty mountain roads should take about an hour and a half. We did it in fifty minutes, passing tanker trucks (of which there were many) on blind corners between rock walls and steep gorges. It was utterly fucking insane, but judging by the cabbie’s face, he wasn’t even feeling angry or showing off: he just drove that way all the time. I contemplated getting religion.
Round about Khertvisi, where the road to Vardzia turns off the main highway, I decided that today was as good as any a day to die and just started taking pictures of the scenery. And what scenery it was!
Let me tell you, on the way back two days later, I took the milk run marshrutka to Akhaltsikhe. It was a much saner way to travel. As of June, 2019, it left Vardzia at 9:45 and continued all the way to Tbilisi.
Kartvelian Adventures 