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caucase

Traveling to the Caucasus mountains has been in my mind for a while.

I missed it on my way to Africa in 2011 because of a late start from France, and cold and snowy conditions when i arrived in Turkey in October 2011. Since then, i have been waiting for the chance to go there. 4 years later, i made it possible.

Time has been set to 2015 autumn, which i think is a good season to visit the area, and, i hope, not as touristic as late spring or summer.

The mean of transport will be new : the mountainous tracks of Caucasus will be the test ride for me and my newly acquired land cruiser. (you can see it here)

 

For the last years, most travelers had to limit their visit of the area to the 3 countries of the southern side of the Caucasus, from west to east : Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, because of the tourist-proof border of Russia and the north Caucasus. But recently, some have reported the opening to all nationals of the border between Georgia and Russia first, and between Azerbaijan to Russia too.

 

The planned route was the following :

 

 

For political and practical reasons, we eventually followed that route:

 

 

 

 



back in georgia
Written by sophie et jeremy   
Tuesday, 22 September 2015 10:05

After a border crossing in record time, we are back in Georgia. We first explored the Kakheti winery region, which is also well stocked with churches and monasteries.

gremi church and fortress gremi church and fortress alaverdi cathedral 1 alaverdi cathedral 1

 
across azerbaijan
Written by sophie et jeremy   
Monday, 14 September 2015 19:53

We follow the shore of the Caspian sea to the south, the landscape becomes more barren and dotted with oil wells. Here more than the previous countries we visited are more small stalls along the road, selling anything from engine oil to honey, fruits, meat or other supposedly edible food (the one we tried tasted quite bad and we never got to know what it really was).

oil wells oil wells

 
debent and shalbuz dag
Written by sophie et jeremy   
Saturday, 12 September 2015 06:25

Derbent city, historical border between Europe and Asia, is supposed to be 5000 years old. We take a bit of time to visit the old town, helped by improvised russian speaking guides. It s circled by walls going from a hill top fortress into the sea. The walls are being renovated to celebrate their 2000 birthday in the coming weeks.

derbent fortress derbent fortress derbent walls derbent walls

 
russian caucasus
Written by sophie et jeremy   
Sunday, 06 September 2015 18:41

Roads are bad and checkpoints are numerous, but we did enjoy beautiful landscapes in complete tranquility.

44 dans la nature 44 dans la nature

Because of the persisting conflicts in this area, we have probably been amongst the first travelers to wander there for some time. As a matter of fact, policemen and soldiers most of the time don t know what to do with us and think we are lost. In anyway, they were all nice and willing to help, but only in russian language. Many the big green 4WD helped, as it created interest almost everywhere. The main drawback of traveling by car in Russia are the russian drivers, slightly more civilized than the georgian ones, but much more aggressive.

landscape 1 landscape 1 landscape 2 landscape 2

 
first steps in the caucasus
Written by sophie et jeremy   
Wednesday, 02 September 2015 06:35

4 days in the middle of the sea, eating sausages, that s long! Especially on rough sea. But we had a bit of distraction with some dolphins who came to swim along the boat. We were rather pleased to arrive in Batumi, a seaside city which attract a lot of russian tourists.

sur le bateau sur le bateau batumi batumi

We camped on the sea shore, and during the night a huge storm broke and would last for the next 3 days. Our first feeling of Georgia is thus very humid. Driving is tricky, as georgian drivers are reckless and drive rather fast and on the wrong lane, without using indicators, in dying old Lada, on rough roads in between cows and pigs.

sur les route georgiennes sur les route georgiennes

 

 
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