Dikhashkho

A few weeks ago a few of us visited Cody and Stephanie at their house just outside Vani. They live in the village of Dikhashkho. I set off Friday after school and met Carl and Matt around 5 in Kutaisi. From there, the plan was to catch a marshutka (about an hour ride) to Vani and a taxi into Dikhashkho. Kate also came, but since she came from Tbilisi she didn’t get in till around 7. We decided to wait for her so that she wouldn’t have to make the journey by herself.

When Kate arrived we went to catch our marshutka. There was one problem…they stopped running to Vani around six. So, we looked around for a taxi. Stephanie called to see how we were coming along, and upon hearing our situation, told us that a taxi should be around 20 lari. We found a group of them but were not able to negotiate lower than 35, probably because it was getting late and they knew that they were our only option. We finally settled on the price with one of the drivers, and he smiled and nodded when we tried to ask to make sure he knew where Dikhashkho was.

Off we went, leaving Kutaisi around half past 7. After about an hour drive, our driver started looking at us and making gestures that seemed to say “where do we go from here…” This was confirmed a bit later when he pulled over to the side of the road and looked at us with a frustrated face. None of us had ever been in this part of Georgia, so we had no idea where to go. And it was pitch black out.

We called Stephanie while our driver tried to wave down cars. Eventually Stephanie was able to find a neighbor to tell our driver how to get to the village. Since there aren’t street signs in Georgia, this didn’t help much. We drove around for at least another half hour. Every few minutes our driver would look at us, throw up his arms, and yell something not happy in Georgian. There were a few moments when we though he was going to drop us and leave. But he didn’t. And finally, after going in a huge circle, we ended up on the right road. We drove past a family of Georgians who waved us down, and it ended up being Zaza, the man that Stephanie put on the phone to help our driver.

When we arrived at their house, we invited the driver in for food and wine. He refused, but I could tell that he was pleased with the offer after the stressful drive.

The rest of the weekend included beef stew, pizza, and supras with Zaza. It was fun.

I also played Fallout for 8 hours on Saturday, only to end up in the radioactive area (I’m blanking on the name), with 1 charisma point and no way of leaving without dying…it was dumb…I haven’t played since.