Les Aventures Rorientales: Ale-Ale-Verdi

Just north of Vanadzor I ended up getting picked up by a variety of people. One was some sort of utility van where I got to balance myself in the back while we ripped around the switchbacks, one was with a dumptruck that seems to have left a pretty minimal impact on my memory, and a lot of the time I spent walking and listening to my iPod. What was great about walking was the view, which I evidently opted out of taking pictures of, and the opportunity to stop at little stores for iced tea, more ice cream, peaches, and whatever else they were cooking up.

I made one fatal step, however, in continuing along the main road. A convoy of dumptrucks roared past me and then a few minutes later came roaring back. The man in front hollered to me that the road was closed due it being washed away from the flood the previous week* and we had to detour. They brought me along with them and we drove high up into the hills on the other side of the creek. If there was a time to kill me and leave my body in the back woods of Armenia, this was it.

Oh, Gorby. You slay me.

The drivers were great, but unfortunately had no idea where we were going. They kept making wrong turns and following the wrong dirt roads. At one point when we hit a dead end and all three drivers got out to convene, I joined them and said,

“Guys, guys, don’t worry—I got this. I have an honours bachelor of arts, specializing in geography. I’ve taken a class on cartography, I can do this. Where’s the map?
“There is no map.”
“Okay, well I can’t help you then.”

And I got back into the truck to enjoy the view. Despite having a pretty strong sense of direction, the fact that there wasn’t a map (and at some points not even actual roads), made me pretty much useless. Thanks, Ivory Tower.

We finally found the main back road and went through a remote mountain town where we stopped to get water and—of course—ice cream, and then find out how the hell we were supposed to get out of this town and back to the highway. We switched back and forth until, lo and behold, we caught sight of the river below and of Alaverdi up ahead. Have you ever been to the Boundary Museum in Grand Forks and seen the model smelter display from 1919? That's what Alaverdi looks like, it's uncanny. From here it was smooth sailing to our destination until we were inevitably stopped by the police for some reason. Probably to extract a bribe. They took me as far as some sort of mine installment and bid me adieu. It was a somewhat tearful goodbye as I had really grown to like these guys.

The next group to pick me up were two young guys in a Lada. They asked to see Canadian money so I gave them two dimes, which they said were beautiful. It’s true! The Bluenose is the shit. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a little less QEII and a little more Trudeau, Pearson, and Belinda Stronach on our money to spice things up. They asked me if I had been to Army because they were both soldiers, and they referred to me as Aleksandr Velka. What a successful name I have. It is constantly opening doors in the former Macedonian realms.

The weirdest point was clearly when I was let off by the two soldiers and walked past some sort of sketchy Taj-Mahal-themed casino/strip club which was actually in the middle of nowhere. Some fat man hollered at me to come in and gamble, but I just couldn’t articulate the plethora of reasons as to why I wasn’t going to do that, not least of which I had budgeted my very last Armenian currency to get me to the border, where I would spend the residuals on peach juice and pretzels, and I didn’t have time to be developing a seriously debilitating gambling problem.

Bros.

Oh wait, no, the weirdest part was when I was passed by the exact same Mercedes SUV driven by the Lords of Armenian Internet themselves, who had made their rounds in Vanadzor and were now heading for the borer. They took me as far as Noyemberian, the last town before the crossing, and told me all about the flood. From there I started towards the border and realised I had entered the zone of containment that seems to spring up around all political borders--the vultures were circling and swarthy brigand stopped his Lada and gestured the international sign for money, so I gave the Russian word for "No" and shut the door. I was shortly picked up by a delivery truck driver who only begrudgingly acknowledged my existence. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted from anyone.

*I just knew this was going to happen. When I was driving in with the British couple and we experienced torrential downpours, it reminded me of when I was a treeplanter up North Fork in 2005 and the road washed away.