BY JEFF COMPTON
The drive from Zugdidi to Mestia is 90 miles of twisted mountain road. Some through small towns and villages, some snowy, some icy, and some just plain old muddy. All told it takes 5 hours of pot hole dodging, rock slide swerving, livestock weaving, and assorted pee and view breaks. We make it to the Svan inhabited town of Mestia. We are high in the Caucasus mountains. The town now attracts some skiers, but the old stone guard towers and fortified stone homes still dominate the landscape.
We sleep that night in a small wood cabin that is remarkably well insulated and warm. It’s snowing and the sun is setting. We have a short but challenging drive tomorrow to the remote village of Ushguli, Georgia’s most remote, and one of the highest elevated inhabited villages in Europe. It’s 30 miles away, but the pavement stops where we are now. Best guess is that it will be another full day of driving ahead.
It’s February 2020 and we are driving the outskirts of Tbilisi, Georgia. Our border paperwork is in order for crossing into both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Tehran, a wishful goal, is 1200 kilometers away. For a month we traveled the snow covered switchback Georgian back roads through small ethnic villages and
long forgotten soviet era cities. Access to the internet is rare, and if found, painfully slow. Old school news programs on the ancient televisions in our small rented rooms are in languages we have no chance of understanding. This is how we travel. In an age of information overload we are out of touch and happily unaware.
Unfortunately on this day, we can’t ignore some news that’s been dominating the TV screens. Our best translation is that a health crisis is happening in Iran. Land borders we plan to use soon, are suddenly and without warning, closing. A new and deadly SARS like virus is killing people in Iran. As much as we resist letting news reports dictate our moves, we slow our drive toward Matsimi and the Azerbaijan border. We find a pleasant heated room in Sighahghi, “The City of Love” and map out our options over a few bottles of qveri aged Georgian red at Pheasant’s Tears Winery.
Hell-bent as we are to cross another border, continuing on is ruled out. Iran, at this time, has the highest death toll outside of China. People fleeing the country are crossing borders and heading our way. A quick decision of retreat to Tbilisi is our wise first move. Early the next morning we drive away from the border and return to the capital city. We secure lodging in an old Italian Courtyard apartment on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue just a block from the chaotically stimulating Dezerter Bazar and Politika, a dark, chill, and subtle subverse dive bar.
We decide to book flights for a return to the USA, a home we left in 2017 to begin full time world travel. We still have friends and family there, as well as health insurance. It’s a logically sound idea, but a bit sickening to contemplate a return to a home where we don’t want to be. Fortunately there’s a problem processing our complex multi airline itinerary, and our credit card is declined. Looking for any sign that this isn’t the right choice, we are actually relieved. After clearing our minds we decide instead to buy tickets to Western Australia. The complex multi airline itinerary to Perth is easily processed and the tickets are bought.
It’s March 2021 and we are living on the rugged Western Australia coastline. Our home for this year is a small cabin overlooking nothing but brown Australian bush land, white windswept sand dunes, and the deep blue Indian Ocean. It’s been a Covid free year here. Perhaps due to geographic remoteness and extreme lack of population density. Perhaps it’s due to the almost constant fresh Indian Ocean sea breeze and bright radiating sunshine. On the television here we watch places where we once lived and visited struggle with loss of life and loss of normalcy. We watch talking heads and politicians posture for headlines and soundbites. We watch global medical systems straining under tremendous pressure.
Instead of living this nightmare, ours days pass with fishing, gardening, walking, dreaming, and loving. By contrast, what could have been is unthinkable.
Fate brought us to this beautiful and safe refuge. Our previous life was one of random, off the map turns and impulsive plane ticket purchases. Fate had a hand in those moves too. There’s no other way to explain how we got there and no other way to explain how we got here. Whether in the jungle, on a mountain, lost in the city, or deep in the desert, fate keeps us safe while it plans our next move. Our trust in it continues while we watch and wait.
THE END
