Mestia

We had a long, long drive to get here, not because of the distance, but because of the appalling road. Mestia has one road leading to it, only built in 1935, and never improved since. Allegedly.

This road barely qualifies for the term, winding its way along the side of a steep gorge always with unguarded precipitous drops to one side. The road has evidently collapsed on numerous occasions, with repairs ranging from shoveling earth into the gap, to propping up the road with metal girders or wooden sticks, to digging new tunnels barely big enough for the truck. For some reason the Georgian police insisted on escorting us most of the way up the road, but they frequently stopped to chat with locals and had to catch up with us later.

One of the unique features of the truck is the four roof seats at the rear. They are a bit like the dickie seats sometimes found on really old cars: two metal hatches open from the roof and four can sit with their legs dangling into the truck interior. I tried these seats, and they are fantastic. You can see, smell, hear and feel everything around you, and the sheer exhilaration of being next to nature dulls the pain of being battered constantly by the potholes. I have named these seats the Nutcracker Seats, as anatomic