July 6th – 57kms, 985+, Hell’s Gorge
July 7th – 32kms, 685+, Noravank monastery
July 8th – 19kms, 85+, rest at camping Crossway
July 9th – 60kms, 1365+, Spandaryan reservoir
July 10th – 63kms, 785+, Harsnadzor
July 11th – 25kms, 850+, somewhere after Tatev
July 12th – 39kms, Kapan

That night with the windstorm, the big bushfire and wild camping with scorpions was crazy. When the sun showed up, we woke up, happy to be alive, but still looking a little bit like zombies. Somehow we found energy to visit the Khor Virap monastery.

We cycled uphill, as usual in this country, to the Hell’s Gorge. We arrived late, around 21h, and meet Simon and Claudia again. Our friends found a great spot for us to sleep. Lucky us, it was a calm night, we just had the noise a very small river to fall asleep. But it was going to change the following day (and all the others that we slept with them).

The sun showed up in the morning, and we enjoyed the day to make some rock climbing, as our friends had all the gear to do so. In the afternoon, as usual, we made two groups: the cyclists and the “vanists”. 😉 Once again, we met Simon and Claudia after cycling to the wonderful canyon of the Noravank monastery. We arrived there when the sunset lights illuminate the red rocks of the canyon. It was gorgeous! We decided to sleep in the monastery propriety, as there was a beautiful view on the valley.

Larissa asked the guardian if it was ok to camp at the monastery, and he said : 
– Yes, no problems, you can sleep here. But do you know that there are bears here?
We are used to have locals giving us advice and trying to protect us. They usually don’t believe that we can cycle so far, that we are able to go on the mountains, as it’s very steep, cycle through dirty roads, etc. We explain that yes, we can. They also tell us to pay attention on the wolfes/snakes/scorpions/bears/dogs/humans… We do pay attention, but it’s usually very rare to see those animals around (except for the humans, but they are usually ok). With a smile, Larissa answers:
– Oh, don’t worry! I’m a very strong women, I’m not afraid of bears. Actually, the bears should be afraid of me. 
The old man looked at her for some instants and shook his head, probably thinking something like “crazy tourists”. Now we can say that this proud answer will never be repeated again.
 
As Pierre was using the toilet cabin to clean himself, Larissa was on the door, in order to be sure that the guard doesn’t show up and sees Pierre naked. All of a sudden, she noticed two eyes reflecting her head light. It was weird, as the eyes were standing quite high, like around 1,70m tall. “It is a human”, she thought at first. But human eyes don’t reflect light… Someone with binoculars? Maybe the old guardian is a kind of a voyeur and he’s using some binoculars to see Pierre having his “shower”? This would be crazy, but it’s the only think that she could imagine at that point. She puts her lights stronger and could clearly see, around 50m far from her, two big brown bears. One of them was standing up and looking at her, the other one was trying to find some food on the ground. She almost had a heart attack and entered in the toilets with Pierre. “There are two big bears outside! The guardian was right!”. At first, Pierre thought that it was a joke. But Larissa was too afraid, it couldn’t be a prank. Pierre checked the scene and also saw the big bears. We don’t really knew what to do, especially being half naked… So we went on the toilets and made some noise and put the lights on, directing them to the bears. We also left a WC door open to “hide” inside, if the bears decide to attack us. After a few minutes (seconds? hours? we lost our sense of time…), the bears decided that we were weird enough or bothering them too much and they left.
We went back to Simon and Claudia, and explained what just happened. Once again, Larissa and Claudia wanted to run away from this cursed place. And the boys wanted to stay. Simon even went out, trying to see the bears. He succeeded, as he saw the bears during the night, hanging around the mountains. Lucky us: our friends have a van, so they could stock our food for the night. The bears shouldn’t be attracted by our tent without food. We slept in our tent, with one eye closed an the other one opened. Once again, we survived, but we learned that, at least sometimes, locals can be right. 

The following day, we woke up at dawn to see the sunrise. It was not as beautiful as the sunset, but many Mouflons showed up on the mountains. During the breakfest with Simon & Clauida, all of us decided to take a day off just to unwind. Eating in a restaurant, sleeping in a real campground with no whatsoever weird animal, having a decent night of rest.

As the daylight came back, we kept on going, against a strong head wind, with 20km of steep uphill, with some rain also. That night, we camped alone on the Spandaryan reservoir, joined by dozens of earwigs.

And in the morning, we had on of the most amazing views:

The following day, still a strong head wind, and a boring never ending straight road. We’re tired. Lucky us, some locals invite us for coffee (and vodka, that we declined, as it was 9am).

We also visited a megalithic archeological site, Zorats Carer. We (specially Pierre), really love those places, and we have alredy cycled in Carnac, France. For sure, Zorats Carer was less impressive, but still interesting.

During the evening, we joined Simon & Claudia with their van. Once again, they found a great spot with amazing views. We ate, had our “showers” and chatted a bit. Let’s say, we cycle as quick as a van can drive in Armenia 🙂

Once the tent was pitched, the van parked, and everything was ready to go to sleep, two cars showed up. It was 10pm. Then another car. In total 4 cars full of young Armenian willing to party. We’ll never have a quiet night together then, right???

The young armenians arrived, said hello and explained that they want to make some barbecue there. There was indeed a kind of old barbecue fire on the ground and some empty vodka bottles around, ths could had given us some hints that this place was used by locals as a party spot. “Ok, no problems”, we said. And went to sleep. All of us except Pierre, who wanted to talk to them. Actualy, to socialize and to make sure they won’t piss on our tent during the night. If the young guys were weird enough to us, what they should think about us? One couple travelling with a big ass van, one other travelling with bicycles, both of them going to sleep at 22:00! Weird enough!
So obviously, vodka welcome shot was quickly suggested – which should be accepted as part of the sociabilization process. In Armenia (and Georgia BTW), people love to make speeches before drinking. Also, you need to take a shot for friendship, one for the family, another for the wife and children. If you don’t have children, then one shot for fertility. And then one for God (of course, this one you can not miss). It can go on easily with whatever other reason you want to celebrate.
During the night, in between some vodka, a guy asked him what was that weird car, meaning our friend’s van. Pierre explained that it was a van revamped for overlanding, with a kitchen and an open roof-top to sleep inside.
– It’s not true, said the armenian guy.
– Hu, really?!
– This vehicle is not a van, it’s a rocket launcher!
Armenia has some tension with its neighbours. With Turkey, but especially with Azerbaijan, where the war still make victims every year. Very often, we saw buses (with more or less the same colour as the van) full of soldiers going east. Ok, we don’t have the same life and the same perspectives. But a rocket launcher?! Seriously!?

In the morning, we found out that the young guys left us some watermelon, bread and… vodka of course! Pierre told us this history and we all laughed about it. Actually, all except Claudia, who was slightly afraid that they could turn into a target for soldiers. Fortunately, we met our friends again in Uzbekistan, so we know that no one bombed them 😉 

It was the time to farewell. Indeed, Simon & Claudia were going in the other direction and now they had no more excuses to be as slow as cyclists when traveling with their vans. For us, it was time to see the Tatev’s monastery.

When you decide to go to Tatev, you must know that you’ll have a river to cross. Easy, they have a bridge. But, and there’s a big but, this river dug a “hole” in the mountains. A deep one, actually. You’ll have to go 600m down (from 1500m to 900m), cross the river, and then go up again about 600m to reach the monastery. Ok, challenge accepted. The beginning was easy, just going down. When we reached the river, we visited the Devil’s bridge. Then, time for almost 2 hours of elevation, around midday…

It was hot but, finally, not that bad, as it was not as steep as expected. Arriving there, we met Fabio, the Argentinian guy cycling for 5 years around the world. We visited the monastery and left the village to find a place to wild camp.

That’s it for this week. We hoped the following camping nights would be less wild.