2023 Kaukasus

So we are in Armenia at the moment and our next destination is Kazakhstan.
The easiest way would be to take a ferry from Baku the harbor in Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan.

The problem is that the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan is closed for years and the border between Georgia and Azerbaijan now for about three years also.
South via Iran is not an option for us since Amini’s dead last year is there to much going on.

Going back to Turkey is not allowed because after our travels there we can not get back in for 180 days.

This leaves us with only one way to Kazakhstan or any other destination. 750 km via Russia.

Since we do not want to sponsor Russia at the moment we could fill up diesel in Georgia and give it a go.
There might be one small problem. We travel with our Unimog expedition truck but the camper is formally registered as a truck and not as a camper in the Netherlands. This maybe a problem in Russia we heard.

Prepared for two days in the mountains we are leaving the Unimog at Haghartsin Monastery and start our 24 km hike over the Mt. Dimats towards Hovk village/Teghut.https://hikearmenia.org//all-trails/trail/holy-cliff
1300m altitude over 8km only steep up the mountain- it’s described as a tough hike and not for beginners! Because of the weather we left late but we took the tent to stay up in the mountain.
It’s moving on slowly but it’s a great hike: leaving the forest, crossing wild horses and arriving at the cliff of the Dimats Mountain on about 2500m above sea level late in the afternoon.

The forecast is right: we’ll get a thunderstorm. Quick we set up our bivoc, and cook/eat to be ready and in our shelter and sleeping-bags just in time. But the temperature drops down and it start snowing. Pffff we are not prepared for such a cold night.

There’s only one good decision: getting back down from the mountain. Tired and with headlights we are hitting down in the dark… It takes us two hours for arriving exhausted at our truck: but after a warm shower in our warm bed in the truck.

We want to be back on this mountain- so we try to reach it with the Unimog- it’s a steep hard 4×4 trail. What a great overnight place.

It also seems to be a astounding place to paraglide. A couple times we walk up from the cliff to the launch with our paragliders, waiting for the right conditions: but the wind is too hard and too gusty. Watching the birds soaring along the ridge. Let’s try it again tomorrow.

In the morning we have to help and save Arthur, an Armenian crazy guy we know from Yerevan who wanted to surprise us on the mountain and got stucked on the bad muddy trail.

In the meanwhile we recognized that some tour guides coming up the mountain with different 4×4/off road vehicles with their guests, mainly Russians, and huge music blasters, some food and drinks. It’s really fun and they want to take a lot of pictures/videos with us, of the truck and the most with Basco! And when they leave: the silence is back!

Even with a bright blue sky in the morning the wind condition doesn’t change. After another 2 hours of para-waiting at the launch we give it up.
No flying here for us….

We show you some bird view pictures we made with the drone (search the Unimog!). You probably understand why we are disappointed that we can’t fly from this mountain but have to drive down (what is also kind of spectacular).

We cross Tzovayuk, walking up to the monastery, getting like almost everyday a glass of fresh pomgranate juice and spending a rainy night at Lake Sevan.

In Dilijan we get better weather. The National Park around Dilijan is the famous hiking area of Armenia with uncountable well-marked hiking trails as the Transcaucasian Trail or the Medieval Trail.

Before we arrived we thought that Dilijan National Park is kind of a touristic place but we really get surprised. Don’t miss to stop here and pick some nice hiking trails for a couple of days. It’s just beautiful- great nature, astounding views, hidden waterfalls, mystical monasteries – silence and physically activity. We like it a lot!

First we choozze an 8 km walk from Lake Parz up to the Goshavank Monastery through forests and grasland filled with spring flowers. We are checking on our light hiking and bivak gear for the next two days of hiking. Basco doesn’t like his backpack at all but is carrying his food patiently.

At our destination we meet a young Armenian/Ukrainien family. They are inviting us for an Armenian dinner and we spend a great evening with intense conversations, Armenian dishes like tree-mushroom, Vodka and Armenian wine in Ijevan.

Since a couple of days we have contact with the aeroclub in Armenia. The paragliding community is here very small. We really also want to fly in Armenia. Because of the military alert you have to notify the authorities before. Two helicopters are crossing the fly zone later anyways .

The forecast looks flyable for the weekend so – yes we have to drive back to Yerevan and further to the south and we will join them to fly together in Vedi.

First we spend a day in Yerevan and try to get our coffee maschine fixed. It’s kind of a disaster for Vincent as a coffee junkie that it broke down. As workout we run up the giant stairways of the Cascades The 572 stairs afford us at this sunny early morning an unobstructed view of central Yerevan and Mount Ararat.

We like Yerevan: kind of modern and also traditional, some historical buildings, all kind of art and creativity all around.

We are driving to Vedi with an almost cloudless view on Mount Ararat.

Mount Ararat is the highest point in Turkey, is located in eastern Turkey on the coast of the Araks River, 16 kilometers from Iran and 32 kilometers from Armenia. Mount Ararat actually consists of two mountains which are merged at the base: Big Ararat (5137 meters) and Small Ararat (3927 meters). The popular peak is famous not only for its beauty but also for the many stories and legends associated with it, most notably the widely-held theory that it was on Mount Ararat that Noah’s Ark landed after the Flood.
Ararat is a blessed mountain for Armenians. This mountain has miraculous beauty, and is a symbol of the motherland for Armenian.

We get two fantastic days to fly – with a group of very nice Armenian pilots – in a pretty dusty dry area and an astounding overnight spot at the launch – with the snow capped Mount Ararat as coulisse.

We liked the Syunik region a lot and unfortunately we cannot drive further. Our next destination is the Nature Parc around Lake Sevan.

Our advice: if you drive with a car prepared for kind of bad roads just leave the mainroad. We find little villages with the gas pipes over ground in all kind of wild constructions, getting taken over bij mainly Ladas or having to take over all generations of Kamaz trucks, both Russian brands. Here the very hospitality Armenians don’t speak English at all and our vocal translation app can’t translate in Armenians language – they all speak Russian – luckily also our app. That leads to a lot of funny and friendly conversations.
Live is hard and often only surviving. The average income in Armenia is told us is around 200 Euro per person per month. Sheeps, cows, fruit trees and wine are picturing the landscape.

We often look for small churches and lesser known monasteries which are located on beautiful hill sites – we stop there not for religious reasons but enjoying the view and the mystic old buildings, built of black basalt.

The city’s in general are not very colorful – the houses are mainly not plastered the roofs of corrugated iron sheets, sometimes a painted gate. A lot of old empty buildings left over from the Sowjet era.

On the top of the Selim / Vardenyats pass is an ancient caravanserai. The building, from around 1332, was used as a location for caravans moving from Europe to the East on the silk road to stay overnight. Very special to take a look on and in one – we are traveling on this famous silk road.

We are arriving at Lake Sevan and driving up the shoreline. Lake Sevan it is the biggest freshwater lake in the Caucasus region and is locatrd around 1900 m above sea level.

One of the special places we visit in Armenia is Noratus Cemetery, a historical graveyard from the 9th – 17th century, that has the largest cluster of khachkars in the world.

Khachkar or Cross-stone, Cultural World herritage, is an extraordinary phenomenon in Armenian Art.
Already in the 4th century, people used Khachkar as a separate monument or fastened on the walls of the churches, monasteries, chapels, sources, bridges and other historical buildings or on graveyards like here in Noratus – a whole field of Khachkar.

We find them all over the country., also in the 9th to 12th century Hayravank Monastery nearby Sevan, where we searching after a short visit our overnight place up the hill with a beautiful view over the lake.

Only in the morning we recognize where we stopped last evening: we wake up with bright blue sky on a landstrip in the Spandarian lake surrounded bij snow capped mountains.

The lake is like a mirror. To sport and run on 2060 m is kind of challenging but the view and the shower outside are all worth it.

The sun is strong up here and we just finally enjoy the warmth of 23 degrees at this fantastic place.

I don’t know if I wrote it about it yet: Armenia is in a tense situation with Azerbeidzjaan since years. Only in 2020 five thousand young Armenians died in these fights around Karabagh (and a lot of Azerbeidzjaans, too). Along the streets in the villages hanging boards with (young) men who died in these fights. The region around the boarder is in military alert. These days ago there were again shootings at the border around Goris.

We planned to go all the way to the south of Armenia but we skipped this plan. We tried to check the situation and decide that Tatev in the Syunik region will be the farest south destination we’ll drive to (it’s around 25 km away from the last shooting).

On our way a lot of militaries are crossing, military trucks are covered in some fields, helicopters around. That’s how war alert looks like 🥺.

We are following the Armenia ‘s Silk Road over the Vorotan pass. The landscape is amazing. We are driving now all the way on a level of between 1500m and 2300m. The Caucasus mountains on both sides building the border to Azerbeidzjaan.

The region around Tatev is famous for its amazing steep Vorotan canyon. The cablecar “Wings of Tatev” is crossing this canyon.
Wings of Tatev is a 5.7 km cableway between Halidzor and the Tatev monastery in Armenia. It is the longest reversible aerial tramway built (in 2010) in only one section, and holds the Guiness World record for “Longest non-stop double track cable car”.

We “fly” with the cablecar, visit the monastery and the cave under the “Devil’s bridge”.
Our place for the night is just fantastic.