A while ago I and my friends went to the seaside for a weekend. Unfortunately, the weather was not good for swimming, so we decided to find some other ways to entertain ourselves. Kolkheti National Park always got my attention from photos, even those featured in textbooks in school. So we finally decided to go there. We were staying in Shekvetili, which is 20 minutes drive from the entrance of Kolkheti Park.
You need to go to the administration building to pick and book a tour for yourself. Of course, it is always better to call them in advance. We wanted to have a boat ride on the river Churia through Paliastomi lake.
It was a rainy day and almost all tours were canceled. But we were really desperate and finally, convinced the teller at the administration over the phone that we’d take a four-person motorboat, even if it would be raining. Usually, there is an option to take a bigger boat for 30 people, but it doesn’t operate in bad weather.
Consider, if you are not by car, there is about a kilometer walk from the administration building till the point at the lake where you can take a boat. It’s quite easy to get there. Signs are everywhere, but the road itself is not the best, especially in rain. There are a lot of puddles on the way.
We got our safety jackets on and took off despite a slight rain. There were quite big waves, but our ranger convinced us there was nothing to be scared of.
Our ranger was not that chatty, but he was very knowledgeable and would happily answer our questions.
Normally the ride is about 40 minutes. They take you through the river until you reach a picnic spot and they offer you to stop there for a quick bite.
But because it was a bit rainy day our ranger offered us to continue the ride through the river and get to a small island where his friend lives with five dogs. It is a very pretty place, especially in summer.
The deeper we went into the park, the greener it got. We finally parked next to the other boat which belonged to our ranger’s friend.
Although it was really beautiful in this jungle-kind of looking place, also it was full of extremely hungry mosquitos. It was almost unbearable without repellent on our skin, you’d walk, you’d run and 20 of them would still be biting you at that moment.
We went to chat with the guy from the island. He lives in very poor conditions and barely has food for himself, but still somehow feeds five dogs that keep him company on the island.
Finally, we said goodbyes and returned back to the starting point of our trip.
All photos are mine in the post.
Kolkheti National Park on Google maps: https://goo.gl/maps/pRxcXJG5sRUZonxk9
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