A word of caution, half in jest

June 4, 2017, later that first morning

Part Three

Continued from Georgia Bound

We slept a few, quick hours in our comfortable room at Lvovi Hotel on a quiet side street near downtown Tbilisi. (As I searched the internet for the Lvovi Hotel, I noticed the logo is a rose. Of course!)

We woke at 8:30 to indulge ourselves in the Lvovi large breakfast spread with local fruits and vegetables, and other Georgia fare. Lia had said they would pick us up at 10 to begin our first day’s adventure. My internal clock, which of course had to be ignored, was trying to remind me that it was just after midnight, home-time. But the sun had risen over Tbilisi hours ago.

We walked out into the bright morning, and pink roses greeted us on both sides of the narrow street. I hadn’t seen them when we arrived in the dark.  

A white van arrived and Lia and Elene jumped out, all smiles and enthusiasm, introducing us to our driver for the week, Misha. We had no idea where we were going each day. Our trip had been planned out for us in advance, thankfully. I read over the itinerary, but it meant nothing to us, since we were unfamiliar with all our destinations. We were free to trust our planners, without expectation. We simply needed to get in the white over-sized Toyota van each morning, Bruce in the front seat, with Misha behind the wheel on the right-hand side, and off we’d speed to the next adventure. 

I’m going to pause right now for the benefit of anyone who might have admired our first photos I shared on social media, and immediately booked a flight to the Republic of Georgia. I need to stop you right now and issue a warning. 

Yes, by all means, visit Georgia! It is a stunningly beautiful country, and her citizens are hospitable, funny, generous, and loving people. Before our trip, I read that Georgians consider visitors a “gift from God,” and we were treated as such, as loved and treasured family members. 

My half-in-jest warning comes about the driving. Do NOT rent a car and drive yourself. I repeat, Do NOT attempt to drive yourself around Georgia. Do not rent a car and try to navigate the roads on your own. The roads in Georgia are filled with cars manned by drivers like Misha. I will write more in future posts about dear Misha, our driver, tour guide, and translator with whom we spent many hours. I even told him I would be writing about him and his remarkable driving. He was pleased.

Misha used to drive a sports car. I suspect Misha still has a little sports-car-driver left in him. Misha is a friend of the family, or related my marriage. He was not a blood relative of our Georgian family. As I wrote in the first post about our trip, Misha replaced our first tour guide four days before we left on June 2. His fee was $700, compared to our first tour guide’s fee of $1300. Don’t miss that little story. 

Misha’s speeding and whiplash stops and starts, even in downtown between traffic lights, and passing when oncoming cars were uncomfortably close, in my humble opinion, seemed to alarm no one but the Americans in the van. Or at least one of the Americans. The one in the back seat. As we were darting in and out of traffic, I noticed Lia and Elene were not phased. Although seat belts are not required to be worn in the backseat in Georgia, I wore mine whenever possible, as we three girls rocked all over the back, hanging on to anything bolted down, trying not to land in each others’ laps around curves.  

Beginning the next day, Monday, and for half of our trip, Misha, Bruce, and I were on our own, exploring the ancient sites of Georgia, a small country of 26,911 square miles of vastly different climate zones and diverse geographical regions.

 At first I thought Misha’s driving was an anomaly. Then I noticed everyone drove like Misha. Other cars pulled out in front of us as often as Misha cut others off. And the truly amazing thing was, I witnessed no road rage. No one was offended when Misha almost ran them off the road. And he didn’t get mad when others did the same to him. There were no angry horn blasts, no ugly faces, and no obscene hand gestures. Everyone seemed to respect that some drivers were more in need of getting to their destinations first. I wonder if stress-related heart disease and blood pressure ailments are less in Georgia. 

I’ll get back to my story, but first I needed to introduce our new friend Misha, and get this public service announcement out, in case friends are approaching rental car counters somewhere in Georgia. 

Instead, you might want to hire Misha to do your driving for you while you are visiting Georgia. We are living (operative word here being living, as in surviving) testimonies that he successfully drove us around for six of our eight days and hundreds of miles, and succeeded in bringing us back to Tbilisi alive and infinitely better for his friendship. As we parted ways on our last night with Misha, I hugged him tightly with much love and many tears.

Now back to our story. The warning could not wait.

Part four, coming up Georgia’s Patron Saint Nino