Etched in my memory
As soon as I arrived in Shatili I realised I was somewhere magical. Riding up the track and watching the valley open out onto this historic village is one of those images that will stay etched in my memory forever. I couldn’t settle for just one day here; I had to enjoy it a little longer. All the more so since I’d managed to get a bed in a guesthouse set up in one of the village’s houses. It was without a doubt the least glamorous, but the most authentic.
They say no pain, no gain, and in this case the saying came true to the letter. I’ll try to explain my odyssey from arriving in Shatili to finally getting into the guesthouse. Shatili sits on a mountainside and stretches from top to bottom (or bottom to top, depending on how you look at it), so wherever you go, you have to go up or down. I came in from the top, because I’d read that the best way into the guesthouse was from there. When I arrived (after going down a flight of steps), the door was firmly shut and nobody answered. Whether it was my SIM card or my lack of skill, I couldn’t manage to call the phone number on the sign, so I decided to go down to the lower part of Shatili (there was nobody up top to talk to). And of course, I wasn’t going to leave my bike and panniers in the street… so I went down Shatili’s alleys to the bottom. Steep, uneven alleys, I should stress.
Once in the lower part of Shatili, I went to another guesthouse to ask. They kindly phoned the owners of my guesthouse for me. A young man turned up before long and said Up we go! Oh well, back up again. This time, though, I asked him to help me with the panniers: going up is always harder than going down.
The rooms had been kept completely traditional, with nothing but a bed and a light bulb to fill them. Fortunately, they had built a bathroom with a hot shower, so none of the basic comforts were missing. And as for the views: stunning!
Once I’d showered, I went for a stroll around the lower part of the village and to look for something to eat. Shatili, though small and remote, does get some tourism, so it wasn’t too hard to find some food and a beer. Still, better to drink carefully: overdoing the alcohol under this merciless sun doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Shatili is in a strategic spot. As the Georgian village closest to the Chechen border, it has had (and still has) a military presence. Here, some ruins(?) of what looks like a communications station.
At dusk I made the most of the slightly lower temperature to take a walk around. The track carries on for several kilometres into the mountains, crossing to the east of Georgia over the Atsunta pass. I have no intention of crossing it: I haven’t brought the tent on this trip and the pass takes two days. Besides, I don’t fancy pushing the bike for hours on end; I’ve read that this pass is hard going even on foot.
Still, it’s worth spending an extra day here to explore the surroundings.
Back at the guesthouse, I meet my roommates. Nathalie, a woman from Brussels who is hitchhiking. She flew from home to Armenia, and from there made it to Shatili by thumbing lifts. And Juanma, a really nice guy from the Canary Islands who is also travelling alone.
They confirm there’s a bed for one more night (just one), so I look for something for dinner and get ready for another day around Shatili.