Sometimes, a nice adventure happens when you start from point A and just keep walking in a random direction for hours. This was what happened to us. I and my friend Kirill decided to climb a mountain to visit Tabori Church (Tbilisi, Georgia), and then came up with a circular route (using Google.maps) with a return to the city. There were no sightseeing places on the way but... we just wanted to see what's there. On that day, we found a new friend, a dog that accompanied us all the way, ended up on a serpentine road immersed in fog, and visited a gloomy suburbs where numerous dogs tried to attack us... A great day! :D
Tbilisi on Google.maps
Our route around Tbilisi, Georgia: Abanotubani - Tabori - Shindisi - Sololaki
By Tabori Church, we tasted fruits of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) which grows in abundance on the mountain slopes, drank water from the spring, and met a kind mongrel that followed us.
We expected to see relatively wild places on the route, but, in the end, we walked along the road all the time.
The golden pre-sunset haze turned into a twilight fog soon.
After a couple of hours of walking, we entered a village Shindisi. The hostility of dogs knew no bounds.
Our dog leading us
Fortunately, our four-legged companion seemed to be attractive to local dogs in terms of love affairs. A frightning Great Dane jumped out of gates seemed to not even know whether to try to attack our mongrel or have children with her.
The village looked empty and gloomy so we wanted to leave it as soon as possible.
Along the way, we discussed this and that, from the reasons why the dog went on the road with us to cryptocurrencies, what and when to buy. This conversation didn't distract me from taking photographs. Some people are suitable companions for a photo trip, and some are not. My friend Kirill is one of the first.
The dog seemed to tell us which side of the road is more convenient to walk and where to cut off the path. But this changed at some point. The mongrel often stopped and waited where we would go, sometimes trailed behind us - obviously, we had gone too far so she didn't know where to head.
We left Shindisi and it seemed that Tbilisi was about to appear on the horizon. But the horizon was not visible, and the road did not end.
The road wounded in a serpentine, water rustled at the bottom of gorges. Probably, without fog and darkness, there were beautiful views there. And although they were not visible, although our feet were tired after several hours of walking along the steep road, although we fought off dogs, for some reason there was a happy feeling that we could not find a better road.
Finally, we found a nice place to relax. We bought cheese pies (khachapuri) and Coca-Cola at the roadside bakery, and we didn't forget to feed our devoted friend.
The dog was happy with our company. We talked to her and stroked her, and, when I whistled to call her, she ran hopping and wagging her tail - it seemed that whistle was the biggest sign of friendship for her.
When we went down lower on the road, the fog disappeared, and night Tbilisi emerged beyond the edge of the highway.
We were worrying about parting with the dog. But everything was solved easily: we came to the area where we had met her and sat down to smoke. And when we turned around, we didn't see the dog - she was back home to sleep, obviously. She wasn't a homeless one - well-fed, without a chip in an ear, she wanted the same as we did - a walk with good company.
I took these images with a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on the road Abanotubani, Tbilisi - Tabori - Shindisi - Sololaki, Tbilisi on December 17, 2022
