Riding in Ushguli

On Sunday 10th August after our last wonderful guesthouse breakfast we headed down into Mestia to meet our 10:00 tour to Ushguli, 2 hours away and 50km east of Mestia, deeper in the mountains.

We would have spent three rather than two nights in Mestia and just visited Ushguli for a day trip however - great news - there is a new road that has just opened up 2 months ago enabling you to drive from Ushguli back to Kutaisi in 4 hours and with the opportunity to meet a convenient 11:47 train which can take you back to Tbilisi at a reasonable hour. (The alternative would have been staying in Mestia, taking a marshrutuka to Zugdidi and then taking a 5pm train to Tbilisi arriving just before midnight.) This did mean that we had to find a driver to take us to Kutaisi. The route is not yet available on GoTrip (although hopefully it will be soon) but we found our driver Dato Kuprashvili via Georgia Facebook groups with the 4 hour transfer being 350 GEL (£96).

All of the combined meant that we were able to actually have one night in Ushguli rather than just visiting it for the day, which I am so grateful for!

We had booked our Ushguli tour with Get Your Guide for £47.86 but it may possibly be cheaper to book it directly through Budget Georgia. I am a little in two minds now about whether we could have done this journey cheaper as we only used the tour as a taxi service from Mestia in the end and there was no actual guiding/information given although we did have a few lovely stops along the way, the first one at the so-called Tower of Love, representing a story of prohibited love.

Nevertheless, the tour got us there seamlessly and we were also driven by them right to the doorstep of our next guesthouse. Our humble abode was literally surrounded by ancient towers at the Chazhashi settlement (so special!) and was called Nizharadse Tower (110.93 GEL, £30). We arrived there just after 12:00 where-as the rest of the tour group had 2 hours to explore Ushguli on their own before returning to Mestia. In our guesthouse we had a huge room with 5 beds to choose from - not bad - and a shared bathroom.

In Ushguli you can do 4-5 hour horse treks to the Shkhara Glacier for 200 GEL (£55) guide fee and 70 GEL (£19.50) per horse. As much as this would have been amazing, I was worried that 4-5 hours would be too long for Tiger, so we settled on a village tour instead, although the total price was the same (340 GEL, £94). Our horses were ready for us at 14:00, after we'd had lunch in a nearby restaurant, and we had a great 2.5 hour meander around with our guide. As neither of us can ride, the horses were tethered together and all I had to do was hold on! Tiger rode with the guide initially, and then on her own for a bit as he walked. I did feel a little as if this was just a bit expensive for Georgia but equally it was an amazing experience! I daresay that you can get a cheaper walk around on a horse if you spent a bit more time here. All of that said though, tourism is an important source of income for Ushguli so I also felt I was supporting the local economy.

After the horse riding we had a great explore of the village. It is particularly good after the tourist vans depart (after 2pm) as it is much quieter and you have the place much more to yourself. Lots of people do a 4 day hike (teahouse trekking) from Mestia to Ushguli so we also saw far more shoestring backpackers around which was a particularly nice difference from Mestia. I definitely felt as if we were lovely and remote!

Our supper was also delicious and homemade by our guesthouse although Tiger took a bit of convincing to actually try all of the delicacies!