Our favorite temporary dog friend (October 2023)

We went back to Sveri for another round of climbing and there we met our favorite temporary dog friend: Ophelia.

She was such a wonderful dog and companion. Because it got cold and rainy we let her sleep with us in Rosinante and she accompanied us all day while climbing and taking walks in that beautiful area.

When we wanted to leave Sveri, we thought about taking her with us. But in the end we decided to leave her where she was. She had a lot of other dog friends there and the villagers fed and treated the stray dogs pretty well.

So we came to the conclusion that taking her with us would be better for us than for her.

This climbing area is falling apart (September 2023)

Racki and I went to the area around Borjomi and went for some more rock climbing.

But the rock was so loose… To me it felt pretty ridiculous to climb there.

Occasionally a whole piece of rock just collapsed under our hands. Wearing a helmet was absolutely necessary and never got hit by so many small rocks.

And it was a pretty crazy experience to climb there and somehow trust the rock to hold my feet and weight although I knew that this would sometimes just not work out. Sometimes I noticed that instead of “will this hold?” I was thinking “will this hold as long as I need it to hold”.

Although I would not recommend anybody to climb there, I’ve to say it was an interesting experience.

Meeting the Rhinogalaxos and Ani in Armenia (September 2023)

Look at him! Isn’t he amazing!?

Our friend Ani (who is traveling the world with her bicycle) had done her first Vipassana meditation retreat and after that we met in Armenia. Maybe a deep realization during the Vipassana let her create the amazing Rhinogalaxos. For sure our deep friendship has a part in it.

We spent some days together until we went back to Georgia and Ani continued her travels south.