Test drive Jeep Wrangler in Georgia
Georgia is a country where age-old traditions and modern trends are surprisingly combined, shepherds huts in high-mountain pastures and sparkling skyscrapers in cities
Beep beep! Fa-Fa! The horns of the traffic signals on the Georgian roads never seem to go off. Every self-respecting genatsvale considers it his duty to honk at any maneuver: he went to overtake - pressed the horn, decided to turn - one cannot do without it either. And if you meet friends or neighbors on the street ...
Batumi amazed with the variegated vehicle fleet. Here, in an amazing way, on the roads sparkling lacquered executive sedans and solid SUVs coexist with old right-hand drive Japanese women, thoroughly rusted Soviet Zhiguli cars and ancient GAZ-51 with peeling cabins covered with a fourth layer of paint. If you are lucky enough to stand behind such a car fossil somewhere on a narrow winding path, then that's it. Even the forced transfer of the climate control to recirculation mode does not help.
Our route lies in the city, which, thanks to its mineral water springs, is known all over the world and is a kind of visiting card of Georgia, its brand - Borjomi.
Having shown the wonders of acrobatics, I climb into the new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Despite the fact that part of the road to Borjomi is a dashingly twisted serpentine, I do not regret choosing a car. This is on the past Wrangler, especially its most extreme version of the Rubicon, driving the narrow and winding paths was hard work. A tight steering wheel, rigid axles, huge unsprung and giant suspension travel, coupled with mud tires, made the driver constantly tense even when driving in a straight line. And mountain serpentines were generally contraindicated for this car - the car did not want to turn at all.
The behavior of the new Wrangler Rubicon is a different story altogether. And despite the fact that little has changed in the design of the car (it is still a frame SUV with hard axles and "toothy" tires), thanks to the competent chassis settings on the asphalt, it began to behave completely differently. The car no longer scares the driver and riders by yawing along the lane and behaves quite decently even in sharp turns, only leaning noticeably to the side. A couple of times I even had to abruptly move away from the cows that ran out into a closed turn onto the road. Nothing, the Wrangler was good.
In general, livestock is a real scourge of local roads. Well, in some godforsaken high-mountain village, a dozen or two cows will come out on the old remnants of asphalt. So after all, cows and sheep lazily strolling along the road are a common occurrence even on highways. Given the fact that lighting on local country roads is a rarity, the risk of stumbling into a carcass weighing a couple of centners in the dark is very high.
However, not only cows, but also a huge number of cameras, as well as police officers with radars, are forced to keep themselves within the bounds of what is permitted. The latter, by the way, are not hiding from the drivers. On the contrary, thanks to the constantly switched on flashing beacons on patrol cars, police officers can be seen from afar.
However, the local drivers don't seem to care about the cameras or the police at all. And if the speed in Georgia is still somehow observed, then road markings and signs for temperamental Georgian motorists are nothing more than a convention. It seems that only we and our colleagues obediently trudged behind a loaded wagon, straining uphill along a narrow and winding pass. Local drivers, not paying attention to the continuous markings and the corresponding signs, famously went out to overtake even in "blind" turns to the piercing sounds of a horn. Surprisingly, with such a careless, and often simply dangerous driving style, we saw only one accident.
The city of Borjomi, immersed in greenery, greeted us with mineral water. She is everywhere here - in a special drinking fountain located in the central park, in the turbulent river that runs along the street. I bet that even the water flowing from the hotel tap has a characteristic salty iodine flavor.
The next day we went to Vardzia - an ancient rock town located about 100 km from Borjomi. It was founded by Queen Tamara in the 1283th – XNUMXth centuries. in the sheer tuff wall of Mount Erusheti and was a fortress that protected the south of Georgia from the raids of enemies from Turkey and Iran. Hundreds of multi-tiered caves, carved into the rocky ground above the Kura River, stretching for almost a kilometer, allowed the defenders to reliably protect the lines from invaders. However, a strong earthquake in XNUMX led to a giant collapse that destroyed most of this natural fortress. From that moment on, the defense importance of Vardzia fell sharply. Gradually, hermits settled in the preserved caves, who founded a monastery in them.
In the XVI century. this part of Georgia was captured by the Turks, who practically destroyed the monastery. The surviving caves were used by shepherds as shelters from the weather. To keep warm and prepare food, the shepherds burned fires right in the caves. It is thanks to these bonfires that unique frescoes created by hermit monks have survived to this day. A thick layer of soot actually became a kind of preservative that reliably protected the rock carvings from the passage of time.
The way back to Batumi passed through one of the most picturesque and inaccessible places in Georgia - the Goderdzi Pass, located at an altitude of more than 2000 m, which connects mountainous Adjara with the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. With every hundred meters of climb, the quality of the roadway deteriorates exponentially. First, the first, still rather rare, large potholes appear in the asphalt, which are becoming more and more. In the end, the asphalt simply disappears, turning into a broken and washed-out primer - this is the real element for Jeep.
Spitting out clods of soil that instantly covered the side windows, the Wrangler confidently gnawed into the sodden soil with its "toothy" tires. At night there was a downpour that washed away the slopes and put clay mixed with large cobblestones on the road. But you can safely drive a Jeep - these obstacles are like a pellet to an elephant. Thanks to the giant suspension strokes, the SUV, strainingly waddling from stone to stone, confidently crawled forward. Even a couple of flooded fords (in fact, these are mountain rivers crossing the pass) Wrangler overcame effortlessly.
The Goderdzi pass itself was not the longest - about fifty kilometers. However, it took more than three hours to get there. And it's not even about difficult road conditions - the Jeep column coped with them without difficulty. Fascinating views of mountainous Adjara, picturesque gorges and valleys, majestic slopes covered with raging greenery, and crystal clear mountain air made us stop every ten minutes.
