Tuesday arrived and with it my third goodbye to Tbilisi. This time, though, it didn't coincide with a goodbye to Georgia. After two times fruitlessly trying to go to Svaneti, but put down by the 9-10 hours of bus needed, I found a quick and cheap way. For 60 Lari (a bit more than 20 €) you can fly to Mestia from Tbilisi on a Let L-410 Turbolet, a small turbine-propelled short-range airplane. I remember seeing this also last time, but I found no feedback online and some websites even disagreed on whether the fleet was operating or not. So I simply wrote them from Italy, they confirmed they were operating, and I booked a one-way flight.
The morning of the flight I reached the rendez-vous point, near the Rustaveli Metro station. A minivan drove us to Natakhtari, a village out of Tbilisi where there is a small civilian airfield, and after some check about the weather in the Svaneti check-in started. Of course, the presence of the oscilloscope in my backpack didn't pass unnoticed and a few alarmed men asked me what it was. I showed it, handed over the Russian manual, but they were puzzled, mostly because they probably didn't see such a device in their whole life. They asked me what it was for, and I realised it's not easy to quickly explain what an oscilloscope does, especially to a worried person with a better grasp of Russian than English. Finally, another man came, checked it out and gave his blessing. He probably eats Soviet oscilloscopes for breakfast.
Best thing in this is that, during the whole oscilloscope fuss, one of my bags didn't go through the scanner. Good job, tovarisch.
After all else was done, and the good weather was confirmed, we could board the craft.
The pilot looked (and spoke) Russian, and had a rather friendly face and attitude. He explained us the usual drill in English and Russian, and then we where ready to take off. I never flew in such a small plane before, especially never in a turbine-propelled one. I was rightly excited, and had my camera ready.
To be honest, the first part was nice but nothing special. The weather was cloudy, so everything appeared grey, and when proper clouds showed up, they were cool to look at, but not for more than 10 minutes. Plus, I though I got the short end of the stick, as I sat on the left side, and going westbound the best landscape appeared to be visible from the right seats.
Then we got close to the mountainous area and the magic began.
After almost 30 minutes of such incredible landscape, we finally reached Mestia. It's characteristic defensive towers, dating back to IX Century and called koshki, were clearly visible from above.
One thing I didn't know of such small aircraft is that because they are relatively slow (slower than jets) are much more manoeuvrable and, as such, don't need a long landing approach. This thing almost dived once we were in range of the landing strip, going from a discrete altitude to the ground in a very little time. Got surely surprised!
By the way, you cannot possibly understand how cute the Queen Tamar airport is. It's the size of a large bar and brand new. A stark contrast with the rural surroundings.
Anyway, here's another step of the trip. The sun was shining, the temperature very pleasant yet cold (around 4/5° only). It was time to reach the guesthouse, put my things down and explore Mestia with the remaining hours of sunlight.
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