Houses of Tusheti: eco-construction
Tusheti is one of the most unreachable mountain places in Georgia.
The road to Tusheti is one of the most dangerous roads, which BBC called one of the most challenging one to take in the whole Europe. To travel there, we started from Kahetia (Chateux Chapitaux), which is unusual place to start travel to Tusheti. The easiest route would be to start from Tbilisi, since it is very well connected to many surrounding cities around it.
Road Pona village — Kvareli (Kahetia)
We started from Chateoux Chapiteaux, with the initial plan to rent a car from local people, but since there is no official car rental in this region, it is hard to rent a car, and easier to order a taxi. People working at Chateaux Chapitaux can always help to find local taxi driver (uber or Yandex taxi does not work yet here). Separate text will be written about the magic forest, secret laguna, chateux and new village in Chateuax Chapitaux. More on their social media here https://www.facebook.com/chateauchapiteau
Road Kvareli — Telavi Kvelo Amalo (Kahetia)
The straight-forward way to get to Tusheti from Kahetia is not the easiest: you would need to go to Tbilisi and then from there with taxi or marshrutka (local small bus). So, we were recommended by our host from guest house new Kvareli lake to go not to the mountains, but first to Telavi (the capital of Kahetia). Separate note about hospitality of any local host is that in any house you can get wine for lunch, a lot of wine for dinner, with local cheese and melon,
and then in the morning they often suggest you chacha instead of coffee.
We were brought to the local bus station in Kvareli and from there, with marshrutka, which did not have any name in Russian or English, went to Telavi. Local winery in Kvareli, Kindzmarauli and Shabeti are quite well equipped and sell wine and organise degustation. One of the most known here is amber wine. The road from Tevali to Kvelo is smooth, through beautiful Lozani Valley, many wineries, small churches, local markets,
people, watching you passing, and sitting under the walnut trees.
The walnut and fig trees give a lot of shade, and even in August (hottest month in the region).
Road Kvelo Amalo — Upper Omalo
Road is only possible for specially equipped cars. Although if you ask about trip to Tusheti mountains from any taxi driver, it is likely, that they will accept the challenge. However, the trip is quite challenging even for jeep.
Trekking and roads from Omalo
There are many trekking from Omalo. More texts will be written about walks to Shenako, Dartlo and other high villages.
Non-extractive architecture of Omalo village
The whole village of upper Omalo (the centre of Tusheti) is built from the local stone, it is easily forming blocks and towers. Interestingly, this tradition of building houses from this type of stone has been followed for more than 10 centuries. One of them is to architectural complex of Dartlo
https://nationalparks.ge/en/site/tushetinp/toSeeInner/42
P.S.
If you need information about some pragmatic information:
Prices for getting from one place : 5 lari in marshrutka
Price for taxi: 50–80 lari in taxi.
Total number of hours for a trip Kvelo Amalo — Omalo (Upper Omalo) — 5 hours.
Total number of hours for a trip Kaverli — Omalo (Upper Omalo) — 7 hours.
