A Hike To The Golden Fortress

Hello friends, hope you are all doing well. Here I would like to share with you all something interesting. Imagine a day where you don't have anything to do in Georgia. Won't you think that is a perfect time to go for a hiking and while away sometime. This is what I'm going to share with you today. A hiking that we did when me and some of my friends were in a room at Samtske Javakheti region in Georgia. This hiking will be really fun if you have some friends with you who really love hiking just as you do. Its an additional bonus if one of your friends has a car so that you can go somewhere off road and find yourself a new place.

We all got onto one of our friends car which took us through a road that starts from Akhaltsikhe. After going for a considerable distance we turned the car from the highway into a small mud path. Unfortunately the mud path didn't take us anyway. It just took us to an dead end therfore we had to reverse our ride and then pass through a small side road that connected this small path to another such one. We were doing this crazy stuff for sometime and since the road was not good the car was extremely bumpy. At a point we decided to stop the car and get out. It's because we were going to walk for the rest of the journey. As we were walking there was greenery on both sides of our path. We could see some lovely insects and some snail colonies.There were some wild trees, meadows and a small farm land where the farmers had some hay piled up. As we were walking through this place we could see at a distance our destination which was none other than the Okros Tsikhe which in English means the Golden Fortress. From a distance it appeared that the fortress was closer and we thought that we could reach the fortress in no time. But as we kept walking the fortress appeared to walk further away from us. Walking becomes a bit difficult here as the castle is located on the top of a hill and the way that you are walking will ascend steeply and decend again inconsistently. You can't walk in such a path like the way you walk in a plain. My friends slowed their speed of walking and me either. Everyone stopped one by one as they were walking towards the hill to take a deep breath and to see how long do they still have to travel? 

We finally reached the bottom of the hill where the fortress was located. The distance we walked appeared to be close but it was really difficult to walk. Most of us were really exhausted. Now comes the difficult part of the journey as it's time to ascend up the hill to reach the fortress. You have to walk slowly at a constant speed rather than just climbing with all your energy fast. This is because when you climb up the hill fast you'll lose most of your energy and that's not a good idea. We were walking slow and steady and we could see some slippery pebble stones on our path. As we climb up a little distance most of us started to breathe heavily as everyone had wheezing :P The road up hill was made of dirt and pebbles and it was really hard climbing up hill. In Georgia the worst thing is that you can't predict the weather. I guess it may be predictable only by some special people. If you think that the day will be warm then it would be the coldest and sometimes it may even snow depending on your fate. If you think that the day will be cool then it would be terribly hot. When we planned ourselves for hiking we thought that the day would be cool so we came prepared for that wearing some pull overs to bear the cold. As we started to climb up the sun started to shine brightly which together with our clothes and our own body which produced more heat as we were walking hard made us think that whether we took a bad decision about predicting the weather. After all you can't just give up the enjoyment just for the sake of weather so we kept on hiking up. Now the castle appeared closer to us as we were moving towards it. When we approached the top of the hill the dirt road was replaced by a naturally made grass lawn. When we are almost near the top we were able to see a group of Georgian drinking and having a feast in their own way. Georgians are known for their hospitality and therefore they may invite you to join them. Its your wish to join them or not but its better not to join as you may get overdrunk and no one can gaurantee that you will reach the bottom of the hill safely. You just move on but reaching the top of the hill is the steepest part which will scare everything out of you. After climbing no one will ever want to turn back so taking all effort and being really careful we just climbed up the fortress. There was a beautiful scenery awaiting us. We were able to see a 360degree panorama view of the region with our own eyes. The gentle breeze that was blowing made us feel more comfortable. We were just chatting and having fun for sometime enjoying the beauty of the place. We had some cool drinks that we carried along with us and sitting on the top of the fortress we were enjoying our cool drink. The sun began to set and we thought it's better to get back home. As we were climbing down the hill we were again able to see the same Georgian gang sitting and drinking for such a long time. Showing no attention we just climbed down and we were able to see all the sceneries we saw when we started our journey. The grass lawn was replaced by pebbles and dirt first, then we could see a hay bundle in a small farmland, large forest trees and so on. Finally we reached the place where our car was parked, we got into the car and followed the same way back to our home. 

You will be fully exhausted as you reach the home. All that you'll do is refresh yourself, change your dusty dress up and have some refreshments. As soon as this is over you will jump into your bed and collapse. Being really tired you will sleep for hours having no idea about what happened when you were sleeping. Getting up from your sleep you will now be a bit relaxed. Then you will have a look at the photos that were taken during hiking and you will say for yourself that after all it was not a bad plan at all. You will begin to love hiking a bit more than you loved it yesterday. It was the same with me and as Georgia has many many places to hike I was waiting eagerly to plan my next hiking plan. It was really an awesome day after all. 

Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to share them below. Till I write my next article keep smiling and cheers :)