We continue to the impressive cave city of Vardzia. Up to 30,000 people are said to have lived here hundreds of years ago. Houses, apartments, corridors and stairs were carved into the sandstone here and form a sophisticated labyrinth. The drive to Vardziais just as impressive as the ravines are adorned with the ruins of numerous forts.

From the outside this “city” resembles a hill of appointments and it is hard to imagine that these caves had the same infrastructure as any other European city of the Middle Ages.

From Vardzia we are now approaching our next big goal: Armenia. Through the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, we cross no man’s land. At a river we see an ancient railway wagon, which probably served as a bridge. Hopefully nobody has to use this path any more.

We reach the Armenian border, but we are missing a document. When we exchanged the car they failed to give us a permit from the agency for the new car, allowing us to leave the country for Armenia.

So we have to return to the next city in Ninozminda and wait for a courier driver from Tbilisi to bring us the required document. It turns out to be very lengthy. The city has nothing. There are no cafes open in the mornings and the landscape has nothing special to offer.

We have to wait a day and drive around town across the fields. We reach a lake that seems to be a recreational paradise for storks and relax there until we meet the courier and can leave Georgia with all the necessary documents.