The Caucasus wasn’t really on my radar until Sarah took a meal in a Georgian restaurant. The word Khatchapuri – best described as a Georgian cheese pie – entered the lexicon of our household. Her mission to trace the pie to its source began to take the form of an obsession that went far beyond a dangerous calorific intake.

I like cheese, but there’s a limit to how far I will go for it. So a little research beyond the menus was needed to sell me to this mountainous spot on the cusp of Asia. But I was soon drawn to its history of clashing empires and a mythology based on dragons, giants, and heroic quests. The happy packs of wild dogs and the psychopathic nature of its drivers went unmentioned in the literature…

David the Builder airport, Kutaisi, Georgia. 1.30am.

Disappointingly, there were no signs displaying the unlikely name of the airport. It references one of the nation’s favourite sons – an empire builder from the Middle Ages rather than a brickie you might meet in the local pub. For what it’s worth, the fabled city of Colchis, where Jason sought the Golden Fleece is often identified with Kutaisi.

Our apartment owner, Mischa, picked us up. He was cheerful and drove safely. At the time, we had no idea how novel this was. The décor of his spacious apartment was mixed and uncompromising – cornucopias of fake fruit, elaborate kitsch ornaments, and plastic coffee beans broke up the yawning spaces. But nothing to actually eat or drink. We went shopping at 2am. The two young assistants were warily hidden in shadowy corners of the supermarket; the cashier smiled when we thanked her Georgian-style with a madlobt.

In the morning, we took the bus to the 11th Century monastery at Gelati. I sat down next to a grizzly old fellah with a long straggly beard. He looked vaguely homeless and shot me a cryptic glance. When we arrived at the site, he turned out to be one of the resident priests. Sarah sniffed out the ancient tomb of David the Builder. I scanned the impressive murals inside – half expecting to find Damien glaring out from a quiet corner. Outside, a trio of men strummed lutes and sang beautiful haunting folks songs.

We lunched in a restaurant that overlooked it. The menu was packed with cheese dishes. Our Khachapuri was enough to feed two. Before it arrived, we ordered a Caesar salad to help fill us up. It was also enough to feed two. It came with two types of meat and lots more cheese.

Greetings are rarely effusive here. ‘English or Russian?’ is a question commonly asked. The older folk meet us with inscrutable gazes. This detachment towards outsiders perhaps reflects the mutual suspicion of foreigners from the Soviet era. Or conversely, the fear of the onrushing outside world now that the capitalists have broken down the gates.

Cows, like dogs, wonder everywhere freely. The dogs are all tagged and neutered and seem completely trusting of humans. For two weeks, a happy affectionate dog was rarely an outstretched arm away. Sometimes we felt bad about leaving them, before watching them move off to the next table without a backward glance. The idea of owning a dog now seems slightly perverse.

Day 3

Before we set off to Gori, our marshrutka driver became enraged with one of his colleagues. (Marshrutkas are vans that operate as taxis over short or long distances.) With no clues given by the alien language, we could only observe the body language as the larger man snarled and pushed his slighter rival out of his territory. The latter retreated, his tail between his legs. Our driver channelled his simmering aggression into his driving. The grumpy gruffness of the men over 40 needs no translation.

We saw our first dog on a lead; a pampered slave doomed to only dream of roaming the streets freely with his thousands of emancipated cousins.

We visited Stalin’s museum. Very few signs in English – very few facts in Georgian. It would have been interesting to hear the translated gist of the tour guides. From their tone, the mass murderer was involved in many funny stories. Six pictures accounted for the 20 million or so victims. Jolly, serious, handsome, and heroic seemed to be the pictorial messages depicted of Old Joe. Along with romanticised paintings of his earlier life, the museum grounds contained his personal train carriage, his entire family home, and a thousand fawning gifts from rugs to vases on which his smiling inspired face was emblazoned.

We met a German guy, Thomas, over coffee outside the Museum. He recounted his past work as UN observer in South Ossetia and how the nearby Russians are stirring up trouble and shifting the border. Nobody in the outside world seems to care. He seemed starved of proper conversation. Now married to a Georgian woman, he confessed that his head was now too full of Spanish, French and English to fit in another language.

On the way to our guest house, we made two local dogs delirious with the remains of a sausage. Sniffing further riches, they followed us for the next three blocks.

For sundown, we visited the old fortress on the hill.

Khachapuli for dinner – a beef stew made with green plums. Very rich, herby and nourishing. Sarah looked happy with her borsch.

Other guests popped out of the shadows of the large sprawling guest-house. Friendly chaos amongst the packed bookshelves and the aged expensive-looking hard wood furniture. Our landlady reminded me of her Croatian equivalents – her kindness largely concealed beneath a stern veneer.

Not for the first time, breakfast was plentiful but difficult to stomach in quantity. Lots of hard boiled eggs, dodgy porridge, and salty cheese; little in way of juices, plain bread, milk or honey. I siphoned some of it off for the dogs to avoid looking ungrateful.

In the morning, we headed for the troglodyte cave town of Uplistsiche. Inhabited up to 5,000 years ago, this pre-Christian site was sanctified in the usual way: a church sitting atop the caves sold relics and candles. On the way, our driver shouted at Sarah when she tried to engage the defunct seatbelt. He angrily snatched it from her hands as if her gesture was a personal insult to his skills.

Day 4 - Tiblisi

We took a marshrutka from Gori to Tiblisi. It only took an hour due to him driving like the clappers, which turned out to be Georgian cruising speed. With my travel-card existence at home, I had forgotten how dangerous non-rail driving can be.

The city reminded me or Prague or Budapest despite being 4,000km further east. Lots of international tourists gave it a stag-friendly feel. Irish football shirts on men of a certain age were filling the quarter in readiness for a European qualifier. All seemed delighted with the low prices and high quality fare. The ancient spot-lit fortress on the hill provides one focal point; elsewhere fading buildings from bygone eras perch at the top of precipitous cliffs. Taking a post-prandial stroll could be spectacularly fatal.

Dinner alone in German-Georgian restaurant as Sarah had a bad tummy. The trout in a creamy mushroom sauce was great but lonely without vegetables. ‘Service with no smiles’ was the title of my first TripAdvisor review. Nobody met my eye, bar the trio of musicians who were possibly chained to the bar.

Terrible night’s sleep. I dreamt I was a dentist with a full roster of clients waiting impatiently. Even in my dreams, I am not a dentist. Woke up in a cold sweat.

We are staying at Hotel Jerusalem in Bethlehem. To remember how to get home, I just thought of the Bible. We have a balcony big enough for us to relax in the sun without crowding each other. A nice spot beneath the looming statue of Mother Georgia on the hill who stands proud, full-breasted, and armed with a sword and cup of wine. She stands alongside the old walls of the city fortress. A surreal mix of East, West and Medieval.

It is more accurate to describe the legendary Georgian hospitality as mythological. I now realise how dissimilar these two words can be. An exception to this is George, our receptionist at the hotel, who appears to run the establishment single-handedly though he occasionally phoned Mr (or Mrs) Big when serious decisions loomed. A sepia-tinted portrait hanging in the lobby suggested the former. In the musty-smelling reception, George can be found wrapped in a pink blanket late at night. This morning, I broke the shower. It was a calamitous five minutes due to it being a very powerful piece of work. George stalled the watery carnage temporarily by switching off the water supply after I sought him out wearing a small towel to protect my modesty. He got soaked for his troubles, but didn’t seem to bear a grudge.

Yesterday, I took a picture for a couple. Afterwards, the man raised his first and cried: ‘Long Live Ukraine!’ I’m not sure if he was making a point to me or just unable to restrain his patriotism. His girlfriend looked embarrassed.

We had an excellent lunch in which we injected some rarely served vegetables into our diet. I had a stew heavily involving aubergines – Sarah had a cauliflower soup that didn’t stint on the cream. We ate outside beside a pianist who many people photographed enthusiastically without thinking to tip. She was very grateful for our own contribution and applause. A Russian trio were equally appreciative. On leaving, I smiled at the man. He responded with a meaningful look that was literally full of mean. The smile of a man who is about to fight you to death in the amphitheatre. It may have been a status thing: I had only one woman with me, he had two.

Later, we were tempted into a fancier restaurant than usual by a slick young man with a smile and all the answers. He gave the impression he would one day go far in an unrelated field. I had a succulent creamy garlic chicken; Sarah countered with a trout. We finished off with some chacha – a Georgian brandy. Churchill allegedly liked it more than the French version. Stalin sent it to him by the case-full.

Sleep was short-lived due to a neighbouring tourist talking loudly from the early hours till dawn in an endless monologue just loud enough to keep me awake. Before this, my dreams conjured up Sally Gunnell, who talked me through her athletics career in an atmosphere of mild eroticism. I was concerned that I hadn’t washed, but also suspected that she liked it. Later, Penelope Cruz flashed me unexpectedly. In another episode, I realised I had travelled two days back in time. I tried to ring my friend Jake to warn him that something mildly disappointing was due to befall him. I forgot what – so didn’t bother.

In the evening, we took the train to Yerevan. Third Class.

In Stepantsminda, we found a guest-house with a view and a friendly hostess. We rejected the first landlady due to her cold manner and the various rules pasted up inside the front door. One gave a police number to call if anyone was sighted smoking an e-cigarette. We said we’d be back in ten minutes. She said: ‘but you haven’t asked me the price yet.’ You can’t price a lack of welcome.

No meals were included at the second, which sent Sarah into a temporary hanic. The Lonely Planet claimed there were no restaurants in town and she envisaged us living off scraps from the fast food joints near the centre of the townlet. But the Lonely Planet was speaking untruths. There were many more restaurants than mealtimes.

Our hostess, Tamari, offered us coffee from the large glittering kitchen at our disposal and later gifted us wine when she spotted us drinking our own. If we had walked in with a pig, she would have happily roasted it for us.

The next morning, we took the direct route to Gergeti Trinity Church. The ascent appeared to require a steep climb up the rocks – safe for the rational able-bodied, but the steepness and the unsighted drop just over the ridge scared me. We had made the mistake of thinking there was only one way up. The church was reputed to have held the cradle of Jesus and the tent of Abraham. It was also said to be the mountain upon which Prometheus daily had his liver ripped out by an eagle sent by Zeus as punishment for gifting mankind fire. (This may account for the surfeit of liver on Georgian menus. He was a titan after all.)

In the church, the usual waxy smell melded with the mumbling supplicants stretching out their hands, while a man with a sheep on a rope hoped to charge us for photos, and the devoted fearfully crossed themselves with superstitious zeal. In this more photogenic of spots, my camera chose not to work. The longer and winding path back proved far more enjoyable than the climb.

The previous night, we shared our wine with two New Zealanders wending their way home after several years in London. Being antipodean, they are going via Turkey and Georgia. He is a nice lawyer, she researches cures into horrible diseases.

I was almost devoured by a giant bear-dog this morning while seeking sunshine in the back garden. Happily, it was on a chain that almost broke as the beast leapt towards my throat. Tamari was by my side, nervously and fruitlessly trying to coax it tame, while equally prepared to administer the last rites. I wasn’t wearing my glasses so initially thought it was a very large statue. I chose instead to read my book on a small patch of sunlit lawn around the front.

Later, we came across a cow-dog, which was expertly and very firmly guiding a small herd of cows to pastures new. It resembled a mongrel Saint Bernard who had gone over to the other side, or one of the mean older dogs in White Fang. We waited quietly at the side of the road till they had passed.

Crazy drivers are as much a staple in the Caucasus as the parallel world of dogs. The most pointlessly life-threatening was he who drove us up through the high passes to Kazbegi at an average speed of around 20mph faster than felt safe. Sarah and another woman had a word with him during one of the breaks. Sarah used Google Translate to show him something pithy and terse like ‘Please drive more slowly’. He laughed as if it was the strangest thing he’d ever heard.

The driver on the way down was so much more restrained that we found ourselves enjoying the staggering views of the High Caucasus. On the way up, we had imagined becoming part of the view. But back in the outskirts, some incident too minor to understand or explain riled the driver so much that he began to rant and drive in the more usual psychopathic national manner. Happily, his destructive tendencies were reduced in effect by the close city traffic. Obviously, this only incensed him more, but there’s only so much damage a man can do to his passengers when accelerating into small spaces. Some might argue this point, but it’s relative to taking a blind corner at 70mph around a cliff edge.

The prize perhaps belongs to our final long-distance driver who fetched us from Tiblisi to Kutaisi shortly afterwards. Sarah was initially delighted to see his vehicle had working safety belts. Although she was aware that he spent much of the journey phoning his friends, I didn’t alert her to him sending texts, checking emails, and watching videos during the low periods when his friends weren’t picking up. One video described how to construct a barbecue in your garden; the other featured some men pushing a car off the side of a hill. He watched that one twice. I took pictures in case our journey ended up in court. In response to these provocations, Sarah drank wine or beer whenever it was available to buy during the loo breaks – something that seemed to amuse, surprise and disgust the locals.

She believed we had a good chance to die on the roads of Georgia – a belief she supported by texting her friends from our potential last resting point on the journey up. At the same spectacular viewing point, young enthusiastic women swarmed around us touting hang-gliding excursions from a nearby peak. Our nerves were too frazzled to take them seriously. Perhaps they thought the journey up had hardened us to near-death experiences. Over dinner the previous night, I had described Sarah’s worries about the drivers as ‘a bit melodramatic’. This proved to be a mistake. She was quite firm in her rebuttal.

A few days earlier, we had tipped our one calm and safe long-distance driver the equivalent of 50p on top of a fare costing no more than a couple of quid. He was completely non-plussed before almost dissolving into tears when he realised we were neither mistaken in our intentions nor clinically insane.

Otherwise, our return to Kutaisi completed a gentle symmetry for our trip. We dined at the restaurant of a thousand dogs, met a French couple who thought Brexit was a splendid idea, and a well-travelled Hamburgian who charmed us as we worked through the gears of the food and wine one last time. That night in our pleasant, friendly family-run hotel, I found myself unable to read beyond a paragraph of my book. My weary but contented body finally gave in to the accumulated exhaustion.

A Fortnight in the Caucasus

Ascent of the Caucasus