In the far north of Georgia near the Russian border, at the end of the Georgian Military Highway, lies the town of Kazbegi.  It is nestled in the foothills of Mt. Kazbek, one of the biggest mountains in the Caucuses and all of Europe.  I arrived via Marshruka (old Soviet minibus) early in the morning and went to a beautiful guesthouse with a view of the mountain.  It was operated by a really nice family but nobody spoke English .  They did however have a laptop with good wifi so we used Google Translate to have some pretty in-depth conversations.

Halfway up the mountain is a beautiful old 14th century church called Tsminda Sameba.  I spent the day hiking up to the church, through an old village, taking in the beautiful views of flowery fields, horses and cows, and a lone hang glider sailing over the mountains.  When I got to the to the church, I met Chen and Andrew (two guys from Hong Kong that were on the bus with me in the morning.   A dog from the village had followed them all the way up the mountain!  I hiked back down with them, and again the dog came with us the whole way.