Ski lift survival in Mestia

On Friday 8th August, we had an early start for our trip to Mestia where we were going to stay for 2 nights. On the sound advice of the Wanderlush blog, I had booked a shared transfer booked with Budget Georgia which cost us a total of 147.69 GEL (£40) and included a 10% wanderlust discount - it would otherwise have been 80 GEL each. From our hotel it was an 8 minute walk to the Budget Georgia office at 5 Shota Rustaveli Avenue. As we were due to be leaving at 8am we got there for 07:30 and really the town was not quite woken up yet and super quiet. We met 3 girls with backpacks waiting for a Tbilisi transfer. Their transfer turned up first, then it was ours. I wasn't quite sure what to expect (I presume if more people had booked on the same day we may have had something bigger?) but we had a car all to ourselves.

The journey time should have been around 6 hours but for us was a seven and a half hours as our car broke down shortly after leaving Kutaisi so we had to wait a bit in a petrol station for a replacement car!

We did stop at several petrol stations for toilet breaks and somewhere en route for lunch! The journey was quite windy (as expected) but Tiger was ok by looking out of the window and laying down to sleep.

So in the end we left at 08:00 and arrived in Mestia at 15:30. The thing that was really surprising though was how much cooler it was in Mestia and it was raining! Apparently this had not been the case just a few days before, but for us it was actually quite refreshing. Also, thankfully the rain didn't last too long.

The driver took us straight to Guesthouse Data at Ushba street 26, our home for 2 nights. This was 200 GEL (£54.90) for a "cottage with garden view". Such a cute wooden cottage with a totally lovely view of the valley! There was chill out space in the main house where we had breakfast each day, and in it was a kitchen with a fridge and a small freezer compartment we could us. They even washed our clothes free of charge!

Having unpacked we headed down into Mestia, which I did remember from my 2012 trip but then it was covered in snow! There was an amazing adventure playground right in the centre which was just perfect for us. After we were done with the playground, we headed to dinner at Cafe Panorama. Tiger wasn't anywhere as impressed with the mountain view as I was - it was all about the cat who we then fed fish and my fish head!!

On Saturday 9th August we had the day to enjoy in Mestia so our day began with a delicious guesthouse breakfast at 9am.

As we didn't have any specific plans, our guesthouse owner had suggested that we go up on the cable car. This seemed like a good idea so we walked to it which wasn't too far but was a bit of an uphill walk. It didn't even quite dawn on my when I saw the sign for the "Hatsvali Ski Lift" that it wasn't actually a cable car until we got there and my heart fell through my boots! I have never in my life been on a ski lift and it looked utterly terrifying. I was quite literally a 99% no, but I wasn't relishing disappointing Tiger, equally I didn't want to die!

Thankfully, as we were standing at the cash desk, I had finally conceded the point that if we were go to go, we'd have to find some other grown ups as there was no way I'd be going on the ski lift with just me and Tiger. I think I'd have had a panic attack! Luckily two absolute sweethearts from Colorado, Rita and Daniel, who were on holiday with their grown up kids and their partners took pity on us and said they'd take us up so we bought our tickets (25 GEL, £6.90 just for me as Tiger was free). I have no photos to show of this as I was scared stiff!! They were so lovely though and spoke to me all the way up. I did spend a lot of time telling Tiger to "sit back and hold on"! Thankfully, we made it, and the second section was actually a cable car and far less scary.

At the top there was a great cafe and also an area with some lovely horses. I wasn't quite sure if I could manage the ski lift going down either but Rita and Daniel also took us down - total legends. Via the walk down, we popped into Museum and then had our dinner at Cafe Laila right on the main square which great, and ended up meeting the Americans there too!