Packed early, and upstairs for breakfast. Bread, eggs and jam. Then onto the coach. This was a much better air-conditioned coach driven by a Turkish driver. We set off to the monasteries at David Geraja, these were dug out of sandstone caves and decorated with frescos etc. The drive was 2 hours in total over some very rough roads.

On the way we stopped at a fruit market, and bought some apples. Later going through one village, the police tried to stop us, but the coach driver kept on going.

The area around David Geraja was very barren, and a bit like the moon. It had been used by the Soviets in the past to train troops going to Afghanistan. We started with a picnic lunch in a new partly built concrete build which was to be the visitor centre and were soon greeted by some dogs.

We started a climb up above the Lavra monastery to the ridge above. This ridge looked over into Azerbaijan. On the ridge, there were other monasteries cut out of caves in the sandstone. These had frescos, but unfortunately had been damaged by the Soviets, (shelling in their war training), and by graffiti. This ridge would have made an excellent paragliding location.

The Lavra monastery. This was founded in the 6th century by St. David and has now been re-occupied by notoriously fundamentalist monks who take great exception to noise and inappropriate clothing.

Walked back to the coach and piled back on the coach and re-tracked our route along the narrow dirt track back to the main A302 Tbilisi – Sagarejo road. On the way back we passed some carts with the hay harvest.

The trip to Telavi was 3 1/2 hours. We stopped by the roadside on the way to purchase some bottled water and some Churchkhela, which were made of grape juice which had jellified on a string of nuts.

We arrived at Telavi in the Kakheti region, known for the wine growing. This town appeared to be in a valley, and our coach took us up the side of the valley to our accommodation.We we split into three groups, staying in different private houses next to each other. All the meals were in the main house in which we were staying. The house was very smart with wonderful wood floors. Our bedroom overlooked the valley, and in the night you could hear all the dogs barking to each other.
We had a quick walk into town and bought some bottles of beer to drink before supper. Quite a long walk down hill and back. Supper was at eight, it was a Georgian style feast where more and more plates of food were added to the table as the meal progressed. There were stuffed aubergines (walnuts), cheese, salads, stuffed peppers, BBQ lamb and port, coleslaw, bread stuffed with cheese. Wine (which was cloudy as was all wine in Georgia). During the meal we had our first of many power cuts. It was so beautiful, there was not a light to be seen, other than the most gorgeous moon I have ever seen,no light pollution anywhere.

The American, Ray, told us of how he’d blown up his $160 car with homemade explosives he had brought home from work. He and his wife Marilyn were chemists.