Rider

fall, 2010

Excursion to David Gareja is finished and the group goes to the parking. We go to our camper, everybody else go into minibus. They left their campers in Shignaghi, as the road to the monastery is a not an asphalt road. Our camper is 4x4, so have no problems in driving it. 

Tomorrow everybody will meet at Georgian-Armenian border. But now we are looking for a place to overnight.

We decide to take other road than the one we came to. We are on a mountain plato, on about 900 m altitude. Further from the monastery and from higher mountains, more and more landscape looks like a steppe. And around us, nothing to see, no houses, no evening lights, no electrical mast. One big steppe. And stillness. Like this I imagine Mongolia. But now we are in Georgia. It’s wonderful to see, how in such a small country like Georgia one can see so different landscapes – steppe, forests, high mountains, see and mineral springs, and even desert. Everywhere in Georgia you can enjoy breathtaking views.

This night we’ll spend in Georgian steppe landscape. Super place. We stopped next to the road. No traffic. Nobody.

We take out chairs and table from the camper and sit to enjoy surrounding beauty. A jeep is passing by. It is slowing down. We see foreign tourists in auto. They go to visit monastery. We nod each other and auto continues its way. A bicyclist is passing by. A Polish. He looks very tired. We invite him to pitch a tent next to us and to joint us for the dinner. He refuses, as tomorrow he has to catch a plane from Tbilisi.





From far, somebody else is coming. It’s coming not from road, but from steppe itself. A rider! We are looking like at a moving picture - the horseman and the steppe around him. It’s a cliché, but anyway its splendid to see.

Finally we can distinguish horse and rider separate. It’s a teenager. He is hundred meters from us. He is sitting confidently on the horse. He watches us curiously, but do not dare to come closer. We wave him to come closer. We are also curios to find out what he is doing here. I try to speak with him in Russian. He hardly understands me. I offer him beer. He refuses categorically. Asking, what he is doing here. As I understand, in the near valley he has cows and he came to milk them. I ask if we can buy some cheese. He doesn’t understand me. We say goodbye and he rides away.