Caravan From Yerevan

After spending about 16 euros on a place to sleep (the only hostel in Yerevan.  If this were still 2010, despite my clever way of back-dating these blog posts even when they are being written in 2013 after I piece my shattered memories together from journal entries, emails, facebook status updates, and postcards I still haven’t mailed, I would probably think about opening up a hostel in Yerevan to cut this monopoly), I decided to get on out of Yerevan.  I felt kind of guilty too, I mean using Yerevan for just a night and then tossing it aside like an old shoe.  But I was in a rush to “do” Armenia and cross it off my list.

Artashat strip development.

Normally I’m not such a “player,” as it were, with visiting countries, ticking them off like a Contiki tour and carving another notch in my passport, but I am only realizing now that I actually had a schedule to keep to.  You may very well remember that I met one of Georgia’s up and coming rappers, Ice, and he had invited me to one of his shows where we would presumably get bottle service*.  I thought it was this coming weekend but it is actually the weekend after, so I was given about 6 days to really make myself known in Armenia and get my name going around the water cooler. 

I would hate to be Armenian and have to look across the Turkish border to see  one of my biggest symbols of my national identity.  It's a lot like living in Grand Forks and seeing Galena Mountain. 

I started by taking a marshrutka to the next town south of Armenia, which I discovered was a bit of a dead end.  The best thing about this town is that it might have actually been in Turkey it was so close to Ararat.  I walked to the highway, took several pictures of Ararat, vaguely remembered that Adam Egoyan film (Ararat) from c.2003, and then thought about waiting for a marshutka to take me south. 

How much do you know about Armenia’s transportation system and geography?  Probably as much as I did at this time.  There were no marshrutkas going south because there is a certain dead patch in the middle of Armenia and travelling through it passes a certain time threshold. Kind of like how 5 hour flights across North America are more painful that an 8 hour transatlantic. As a result, drivers would not leave for the south past a certain point in the day.  It was already noon or so, and after about half an hour of waiting with some mother and her two kids and a couple of false starts, I decided to walk.

If I could give anyone any advice about travelling n Armenia, it is to walk.  Don’t even look like you want a ride.  EVERYONE will stop to pick you up, force you into the car, and tell you it’s too dangerous to walk.  My first chauffeur was a truck driver heading south.  We made it as far as the first major hill when his truck died.  I told him I wanted to help (not going to lie though…I secretly didn’t) and he said there was nothing I could do but keep walking. 

So I kept walking.  And you know what I came across?  A bunch of old people selling water and peaches on the side of the road.  If you have any idea how obsessed I am with eating fresh peaches and absolutely reveling in the depravity of sitting in a field devouring peach after peach, then you’ll know I stopped to sample the good.  Each peach was something ludicrous like $2!  In Armenia!  On the side of the road.  I was so upset about being charged the International Rate that I stormed off, despite them chasing after me to strike a bargain.  But like I said to Azeri State Railways, you had your chance.

You know what's messed up?  Google Maps is trying to tell me I went though Azerbaijan illegally or something.  Who does that?  Who builds a road through an enclave?  Who decides to build an enclave in the first place?

*I LOVE bottle service!  When I moved to Toronto and I heard people talking about bottle service in the cluuub I was all, “wtf is bottle service?” but it turns out it is something I absolutely live for but only when I go to third world countries.  If you’re in Toronto or somewhere like Las Vegas it seems kind of pointless, but when you’re in Dushanbe and you and two American embassy workers are the ones dancing to Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” while rich Tajiks smoke shisha and disinterestedly watch this foreign entertainment and you’re thinking to yourself, “Yes.  Yes, this is it.  This is the actual highlight of my life.  This is where my life peaks!” then bottle service just naturally seems like a good idea.