"You're doing great, Squirrel!" my travel partner, Chris, calls encouragingly. My nickname has become laughably ironic. I am horribly nauseous and far from my normal hyper self.

We navigate past another crude sheep pen. Three chickens watch us from atop a rusty, broken stove. We must be a sight: a guy in flip-flops and a wretchedly hungover girl, hiking in the Caucasus Mountains. Chris had forgotten proper shoes. I'd forgotten to stop drinking grappa the night before.

Mercifully, the mud puddles and the menagerie of animals to pet keep our pace up to Gergeti Trinity Church on the slow side of leisurely. Grappa or no, slow is advisable. While the 14th-century monastery, at 7,100 feet, is the goal, the 1,400-foot climb itself offers unforgettable encounters with rural Georgian life.

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." -- Sir Edmund Hillary

With a population just shy of 6,000, the tiny base town of Stepantsminda is just a few miles from Russia's southern border, in the region of Kazbegi. There are two bars and one traffic light. Cows wander the streets like stray dogs. Thatched-roof homes dot the hillside up to Gergeti, wood smoke puffing from their rock chimneys, and local children trot past on sturdy ponies.

Leaving the dwellings behind, we climb through small thickets of trees and steep grades of open hillside. Despite my wobbly condition, I agree to take the tougher, shorter hiking track straight up the mountain. Reaching the monastery in just over an hour, we find a hidden corner off a second-story wall and sit with our feet dangling off the edge.

The steep faces of snow-covered Mt. Kazbek are a stark backdrop to the verdant hills and the vast blue sky. Save for herds of wild white horses, the entire expanse is empty.

The wind carries the smell of smoke, grass, and wet earth. I stretch my fingers out, trying to touch the slow-moving clouds. We never do tour the monastery. We just sit on that stone wall, wrapped in silence.

"My hangover is gone," I eventually announce. "It was the best one I've ever had."