Khulo

Khulo sits high in the Adjaristsqali valley on the road toward the Goderdzi pass, a small town on a shelf above the river with mountains on all sides, and its best-known feature is a cable car built in the 1980s that crosses the gorge to the village of Tago on the far side, a single long span carrying a small cabin over a considerable drop. It was built as transport for villagers rather than as an attraction and is still used that way. The Skhalta monastery, with a thirteenth-century church and fragments of wall painting, lies further up a side valley, and the road continues to the pass and on toward Akhaltsikhe.

History

The Khulo area has been inhabited since around the Bronze Age, as the Thilvani menhir and the Kaloto altar show, and the town, once called Khula, was a market on the medieval road from Samtskhe-Javakheti to the Black Sea. In the 16th century it passed with Adjara into the Ottoman Empire, when most people of the region became Muslim, and it was the main settlement of Upper Adjara under the Khimshiashvili family; in 1829 a Russian force under General Osten-Sacken briefly occupied it and sacked the family's residence. Floods and avalanches in the 1990s and 2000s drove another wave of people from the mountain villages, and the district was set within its present borders in 1965 (Wikipedia, Khulo).

The main sights

• The gorge cable car - a single long span across to Tago village.
• Skhalta monastery - a thirteenth-century church up a side valley.
• The upper Adjaristsqali valley - mountains on every side of the town.
• The road toward Goderdzi - the continuation over the pass.

When to go

May to October; the pass beyond closes in snow and the valley road can be difficult. A day from Batumi, though the drive is slow. The cable car runs to a local schedule.

Practical notes

The cable car is old, utilitarian and not built for tourism; some find the crossing alarming and it stops for maintenance without notice. The drive up takes far longer than the distance suggests. Facilities in the town are basic.

Nearby

Keda is west down the valley; the Goderdzi pass lies east.

Key facts