2013_09_08 Sunday: Ducho - Omalo - Hike Day 2

Today was a Long and difficult day that presented several unforeseeables.

Before leaving I went to get some water with the Georgian "hotel manager". It was quite the hike just to get that. The guy is 64 y/o looks like a 100 y/o and walks like  20y/o..

At 9:10 we started hiking. It took us 5 hours to reach the summit 2925m (about 900m altitude gain) that felt like a whole lot more. Close to the top we ran into Neta and Alon (a nice Israeli couple we had met two days before) who were riding horses.

At the top we had a spectacular 360 degree panorama, with snowy mountains to the north.  Right before the top we ran into a 70y/o shepherd that was barefoot!

We then walked along the ridge with sharp slopes on both sides. The view during the entire walk was fantastic. Yet at some points a little bit scary. 

The main problem occurred when we reached the forest. The four folks we hiked with were faster and didn't wait up (boo!). Since trails in Georgia are, simply put, not marked at all, we couldn't quite figure out how to head down through the forest. The slope was very steep, the hour was getting late (18:00, gets dark at 19:30), and we couldn't even see what was beyond the trees as there were too many. So we weren't completely sure where to go exactly. We decided to head down and cut straight through. After an hour we reached a road. As we did we saw the other four Israelis and they had just gotten on a jeep. Later we learned that ours was a shortcut, which is why we managed to close the gap on them.

After 10 hours of hiking and with additional 5km in distance and 300m incline left, the situation wasn't pretty. Then again, it was a substantial upgrade from the thought (at various points) of spending the night outdoors (Argentina anyone..?).

Anyway, we saw a guesthouse, and we asked them for ride back to Omalo. They were very kind. 

We moved to a new hostel, adjacent to the previous one and fantastic compared to it.