The 5000 Project

The bus stopped on the border nearing midnight, thankfully (although I knew beforehand) visas were available on the border, just a simple form needed to be filled in and $10 paid for a 21day tourist visa. No photo needed for the application.

I arrived in Yerevan, the armenian capital at 8am – quite a small but joyful city – I befriended an iranian guy on the bus, and we decided the first thing to do was to find a bar and enjoy a nice cold pint of beer or 2, after spending too long without beer in iran. We walked through the main street trying to find a dodgy looking bar that might sell cheap beer, we admitted defeat and sat down at a yuppie bar, as all bars in yerevan look like yuppie bars; to our pleasant surprise, however, the beer was still dirt cheap at ~$1.50 a pint.

After a few day-pints, I parted ways with my buddy and roamed the city for a bit before meeting with my couchhost, her apartment was located right in the centre of the city – perfect location, excellent stumbling distance from the many hipster basement bars that were scattered around the city centre; my host ensured I enjoy much of the armenian youth lifestyle in yerevan, I was sufficiently beered. One night I was a little too beered, causing head injury after slipping on steps leading up to a bar toilet – I blame it on the sudden shock of alcohol in the system after a month in Iran. Most of the youth in the bars were actually iranian students living a much more liberal life in armenia, a refreshing change. Other than drinking lots of beer, I also visited the Armenian history museum; extremely informative museum highlighting the deep armenian culture, a very old civilization – awesome ancient bows and swords were on display, primitive yet very creative in design. The museum also brought the genocide to the attention of visitors, after WW1 the ottoman turks killed ~1million armenians through executions and forced marches during the process of deporting them from turkish controlled lands. The Turkish government has never apologized for the event, some turks claim that it was a band of kurdish mercenaries hired by the turkish government that performed the harsher-than-anticipated deportations – Armenians believe this is a weak and convenient excuse. During the history of armenia, the country managed to gain a few enemies, most of which surround the small isolated land. Oh and the russians had a turn here too, handy for my as I hadn’t forgotten the few russian words from central asia.

After a few fun and relaxing days in yerevan, I headed to the outskirts of the city to fetch a marshutka van-taxi to the next town, Foolishly, when arriving close to a marshutka stand, I was conned by a taxi driver. The man gave me a very good deal to the next town (Hrazdan) he showed me a note equivalent of $1 as to show how much it would cost when I mentioned the town name – I mentioned the town name again to be sure and again he showed the note, for some reason I believed him, the town was close and I thought maybe transport costs were similar to iran, also he had a trusting face. When arriving in the destination town, he informed me that it was $1 per kilometre not $1 to the destination that we confirmed before I arrived in the taxi – I was about to protest this obvious con until he took down the taxi light above the car which displayed $1(of armenian dram)/Km in glowing neon – I had no argument. I paid the man $15 worth of local currency (6000 dram) and got out of the car.

From this point onwards I decided to never take a taxi again, this was the very very final straw for taxi drivers world wide, too many times they have tried to con me with some creative angle – Never again. This is when I gained the courage to hitchhike on my own as much as possible, armenia is the point of expensive; it only gets more expensive from there on. I put my hand out, with the thumb proudly shining in the sun, together with my big fake smile – it took about 10seconds, first car, students eager to talk with a foreigner. It took one more car to get to the next town of Sevan, it was so easy, to the point that I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have to actually hike a few kilometres through the floury snow and beautiful mountains on a nice sunny day.

Sevan is a tiny town (every armenian town is tiny except for the capital city) near a giant lake. On the edge of town there was one hotel on a hill with a broken sign, it looked like either it was abandoned or it was used for horror movies – I walked 3km to the town centre through thick snow. This is when I noticed that the hotel I passed was the only option for sleep, many taxis wanted to take me there, the locals didnt even think there was a hotel in town. It was getting dark so I hiked back up to hotel after having a feed of kebab and buying a cheap bag of oranges. I arrived at the hotel, it really was a shithole, after a bit of polite shouting a man arrived knowing no english – I bartered a price down from $20 to $14, this was the cheapest and only option, else freeze to death in the heavy snow outside. I took it, begrudgingly, yerevan was to be the only place in the country that listed couchsurfers – there really was no other option (honestly). The next morning I woke up early and hiked through the town again, I wanted to see the lake side before heading to the main road to hitchhike again. The lake was quite vast and impressive; and frozen at the shore level for quite a way out, noone was around, noone seemed foolish enough to be outdoors in the extreme cold conditions. I started to feel the cold, the day’s hitchhiking had begun. The first car took me to a tourist site, as he was heading there anyway, turned out to be one of the oldest churches in the world, built in ~60AD, then burnt to the ground by Genghis and his buddies and reconstructed a few years back. It was still very impressive as the construction wasn’t new, it was just recompiled by the stones that remained. I hitched to Dilijan on a small truck and a later a 4WD.

Dilijan was a beautiful town in a miniature mountainous green valley, with icing snow on the top. I stayed another expensive night in the cheapest guesthouse in town, bartered down to $14 without breakfast – Although after having a good conversation about my trip and my remaining funds, she threw in a massive breakfast free of charge. I got back on the road and hitched a Fruit truck to vanadzor, then one car to alaverdi – the guys in the car gave me beer and a sandwich, as they were celebrating… something, the language barrier made it difficult to know what exactly, they charged me $1 when I got out.

After checking out a few places, I found a room for $15 (once again, bartered down from $20) although it was a bit of a hike from the centre. The next morning I took a cablecar (30c) to a hidden town on the top of a mountain, which was the real alaverdi and housed an amazing indiana jones style cathedral right on the very scenic top of the peak. I walked about 4km before a car hitched me to the Georgian border, bypassing a huge avalanche blocking the main road on a cliff-face by diverting through a small town, I could see the extensive damage when we returned to the main road. I walked 2km to the georgian border, the cheerful georgians gave me a free stamp in the passport, valid for 360 days tourist visit. I wondered why they didn’t just add 5 more days to make it a full year. I stepped in Georgian soil, it felt colder. It was.