Out Before You Know It and No News is Good News

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Wow, wow, wow! Can't believe I'm in another country and have to tackle another language / alphabet / exchange rate!

The road out of Tbilisi was as roads are out of capitals - quite uninspiring. But from Marneuli onwards the road cut through a beautiful valley. Add to this heavenly blue skies, puffy white clouds, a gentle tail wind, a mild temperature (finally below 30C - yay) and you have a perfect cycling day. Although I had actually planned to stop near the border of Georgia and Armenia I decided to cross instead. In fact, this part of the country, on the Georgian side anyway, felt a little like Kurdish Turkey. I am sure I spied a mosque and felt suddenly very self conscious about running around the countryside in my shorts and singlet. When I stopped near the border to make sure I was on the right road (never any signs just turn offs into who knows where) the usual question of where are you going was asked. Armenia was my response which was then answered by a hand gesture indicating that my throat would be slit going there followed by peals of laughter. Maybe they were Azeri.

Sad to say goodbye to Georgia but happy to explore a new country especially one that has a big sign saying WELCOME at its border. And welcoming indeed it has proven to be. Firstly, there are many gold-toothed smiles and everyone, when I say I'm from Australia responds with "Ah Sydney/Melbourne". And the generosity equals (if not surpasses) that of Georgia. On my first night I asked a woman who was selling fruit by the roadside if she knew of anywhere I could sleep. She said I could sleep at her house. Well that was accommodation sorted very quickly! In the meantime she ploughed me with fresh figs and hazelnuts. And at her home (which was a 5km bike ride away in Ayrum) her daughters and husband made sure that my plate was never empty. Frankfurters (yes meat I know but what could I do but eat them? Plus, some would say they're not really meat), tomatoes, cheese, bread, whole walnuts preserved in syrup (yum!), cognac. I felt like I was going to explode. Thankfully they accepted that I simply could not fit another thing in.

The following morning I was also given a lunch pack of bread, cheese, tomatoes and those energy giving walnuts. This certainly sustained me.

The above I wrote on the 9th of September. I never did get back to the computer to update the blog. Very naughty of me I know. All this time I’ve been having such wonderful experiences, seeing fantastic sites and meeting exceptional people and I’ve not let anyone know! Rest assured though all is well.

So, you may well wonder, what happened exactly since Georgia? In a nutshell, a lot. To expand a bit more though it kind of went like this (sorry if this is repeating the above)…

Armenia was (is) such a wonderful country. I cannot say that there was one day that I didn’t enjoy (oh, except for the days that I was kind of laid low with a kind of cold /tummy bug but that came at the end). The people from day one were exceptionally hospitable - even more so than the Georgians which I didn’t think was at all possible. Day one saw me invited to spend the night with a family after enquiring if there was anywhere to pitch my tent. Day two likewise. Day 3 a restaurant owner enroute to Vanadzor saw to it that I was fed and watered sufficiently enough to make it to over the coming hills - I only stopped for a coffee and ended up having lemonade, kebap (yes back to meat eating days), salad, bread, watermelon, as well as my coffee, all without accepting any payment. On so the days went. The list of offerings from people is positively endless and truth be told, it kind of got embarrassing. No one would accept any money and I had nothing to give. I have however taken lots of photos of people who were so kind to me. I only hope now that Haypost will do the right thing and deliver them (once I get them developed ofcourse and pull ye olde finger out and actually send them (!!)).

Not only is Armenia well endowed with helpful and kind people, it is positively brimming with beautifully positioned monasteries (read uphill) and fortresses and spectacular scenery. Coming into Georgia, the landscape was wooded and green and, travelling further south it became brown and more barren looking, but still hauntingly beautiful. And as for Yerevan the capital, well, you couldn’t ask for a more cosmopolitan city. Wide boulevards, culture galore, the young strutting their stuff, all being watched over by that most gorgeous and symbolic of mountains, Mt Ararat. I loved it!

In Yerevan I had the good fortune to stay at a great guesthouse, Anahit Stepanyan’s. Great not only for its location, which really could not be beaten - right across from the Opera House, in the middle of the city, views to Mt Ararat and a stunning light-filled apartment with the most glorious paintings painted by Anahit’s father - but also for Anahit’s and her sons company and the chance meeting of a fellow cyclist, Norbert from Switzerland, and other travellers. I had actually heard about Norbert prior to meeting him. In Istanbul I met a young Australian who had cycled 3 months with Norbert in Tibet although it was only during general conversation that this came out. Norbert and I are also on the same mailing list belonging to another cyclist Steven, who I met in Goreme in Turkey. Small world really. I guess that’s what happens when you travel at my snail’s pace - you tend to run into people coming in the opposite direction - or, in Norbert’s case, they catch up with you.

Armenia does not offer a lovely circuitous cycling route. Instead, the main road out of Yerevan, or one of them anyway, snakes its way across the country and down to Iran. Not for me the same road there and back, neither for Norbert and so we travelled together, without bicycles, for a week, getting by hitching lifts, (a lot of) walking, taking marshrutkas or those a beat up old Soviet buses and taxis. And, the crazy thing is, the hospitality of the Armenian people is not limited to those travelling on bicycles. No. Everywhere we went we were invited to have coffee, fruit, offered lunch, vodka etc. One day we were even given a lift in an old Soviet motorbike with side car. No need to guess who got to sit in the sidecar. Not exactly comfortable, and at times a bit scary (especially when a dog decided to give chase), but a whole lot of fun!

We also got to meet and travel with a lovely Italian, Francesco, for a couple of days. He kept us entertained with anecdotes on the stupidity of passengers (he works as cabin crew). And in Goris, we met a Lebanese Armenian, Marie, an artist who now resides in Belgium who we also caught up with back in Yerevan, and me briefly at the airport.

So, there it was. Three weeks plus gone but definitely not forgotten. Lots of monasteries visited, lots of people met, lot of walking done, lots of kebaps eaten, lots of wonderful experiences. No wonder Armenians always asked if this was my first time to Armenia - it would be a great country to visit again and no doubt people do.

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