A rainy night in Georgia/Armenia

After using the Georgian tube to visit a museum, only to discover it was closed due to a national holiday (on a Sunday), we drove into Armenia.  The border crossing was not too bad, but took about an hour due to only 1 person stamping the passports (that national holiday had interrupted us again).  Still, there was Port & Whisky in the Duty Free.  I had my hot toddy sorted for around the campfire.  Which was good because as soon as we began driving in Armenia the heavens opened?  The roads in this country had not improved, in fact worsened.  We bush camped about 2 hours outside of the capital Yerevan in the rain next to someone’s’ allotment/house.

 

We arrived into Yerevan on Mon 13^th May.  It was bright & sunny.  The hostel has lovely with hot showers.  I hiked with Phil for 1 hour 40 mins to find the waterpark.  Once inside, managed to get in 1 flume ride before it was switched off!  Had to then swim in the bog standard postage stamp 25m pool.  I asked for a discount in international sign language but it did not work.  In the evening we all went to a restaurant for an Armenian feast.  The food & wine kept coming & I discovered Armenia is famous for Brandy.

Spike Hayden Teresa Rebecca Dave Me

 

The brandy is called Ararat named after the mountain in which Noah’s Ark landed.  That’s in Turkey, but we saw this from just over the disputed international fence on Wed 15^th.

 

But, before then on Tue 14^th I did a walking tour of the city with the hostel, then to a Genocide museum – never knew there had even been Genocide 1895-1915 – neither do the British Government who states the millions who died was an act of war.  Apparently Hitler was not too worried about wiping out a race as no one noticed the Armenian Genocide!

In the afternoon I walked up the Cascade steps.  A good example of unfinished business by the Russians.  Money dried up for the project in 1991.  The top steps were never completed & the cranes just left to rust since then.  I noticed this is a common occurrence in Georgia & Armenia – not just for monuments but every type of building & roads – infrastructure & superstructure really.

 

At the top was a park containing the statue of Mother Armenia.  Now housing The Victory Museum about a 1991 conflict with Azerbaijan & WW11.  I also managed a picture from within the museum of Lenin or Stalin (I can’t tell the difference yet), on top of the plinth before Armenia got its independence.  However, I could not get into the WW11 exhibition as some diplomat from somewhere turned up with loads of police in blacked out window Larda cars for his own personal viewing!

 

Our last night in Armenia was at a beauty spot called Lake Seven.  It looked a baron place when we turned up due to the rain.  Only 2 blokes fishing in a rowing boat on this massive lake.  It was the first night we had to eat in the truck.  Only 15 of us present as the other 7 had been left in Yerevan trying to get their visas for Kazakhstan.  This had been a fiasco since entering Georgia!

Anna

Dave Phil Louise

 

On Fri 17^th May we crossed the border back into Georgia.  Only for the night, to bush camp near the Azerbaijan border, as we could not cross into Azerbaijan directly from Armenia.  We discovered this field was also home to frogs, ants & mosquitos.  The Kazakhstan visa 7 found our camp in the middle of nowhere at 4am on Sat 18^th after travelling by taxi all the way from Yerevan!  At 9am we began our border crossing into Azerbaijan & discovered why we could not cross directly from Armenia into Azerbaijan!