armenia |
Written by sophie et jeremy |
Thursday, 01 October 2015 |
We enter Armenia through the deep and green Debed canyon without any particular hassle except the 60€ we are asked by the customs for the temporary importation of the car (or anything else). Our first visits, Haghpat and Sanahin monasteries give us the trend : souvenir sellers talk to us in french and we see tourists buses everywhere. There are armenians visitors too, and jeremy is being applauded by a crowd of policemen after passing an improvised climbing wall on a monastery what all of them failed. We take a detour to the highs of the canyon to spend the night (and encounter a hail storm), and later the next day we got lost on very rough roads but offering very rewarding views of the valleys. After a short stop at Sevanavank monastery, overlooking Sevan lake, we make another short stop at Yerevan in order to get our visa to Nagorno Karabakh (in a record breaking 30 minutes). The drive south follows the border with Turkey and give a direct view on mount Ararat, lost symbol of Armenia, now on the other side of the border. Some monasteries top up our counter, including Noravank, nested at the end of a spectacular gorge, and Khor Virap, located at the foot of mount Ararat. During a stop at the ruins of Selim caravansary, at the top of a pass, we meet a polish couple, living in Georgia, fans of our 4WD. We share advices and a meal offered by a group of armenians whom none of us knew 5 minutes before. After that, we drive few kilometers of one of the worst track, categorized as a secondary road by our map. It seemed to us that the armenian road network is the worse of Caucasus! The next day, the GPS sends us to a muddy cow track where the car skids a lot, what amuses Jeremy and scares Sophie, before arriving at Tatev monastery, fortified at the top of cliff. On the way we see a couple of abandoned churches and the interesting site of Zorats Karer, sort of a local Stonehenge. Finally, we arrive at Goris, surrounded by hills, with its troglodyte old city. We meet there one of Sophie's workmates, who invites us for dinner in the french-armenian hospital. The dinner is home made, so is the blackberry liquor... |