Our next destination was Kutaisi, enroute to Mestia in the north west. Whilst on paper it was possible to get from Telavi to Kutaisi in one day, it would involve 2 taxi rides, 2 marshrukty rides about 8 hours of travelling and for everything to go asolutely right. We weren't confident so opted to spend a night in Tbilisi and travel onto Kutaisi the following day. For the trip back toTbilisi we opted to take a shared taxi. This is basically a car that leaves ...

We had figured on catching a minibus to Tbilisi but when we arrived at the bus stop in Alaverdi there was a distinct lack of action, which was a little concerning. We were soon approached by a taxi driver who iffered to drive us to Tbilisi, 3 hours away, for about $30. After our last taxi ride we were a little dubious but on seeing his taxi our doubts started to disappear. It was clean and tidy and he seemed genuine, so we accepted. This ride could not have be...