June 14th – 66km, 1000+, Haghpat
June 15th – Visiting Haghpat
June 16th – 66km, 1300+, Shahumyan
June 17th – 54km, 1180m+, Semynovka
June 18th – 69km, 250+, Tsapatagh
June 19th – 16km, 140+, Arengui
June 20th – 76km, 250+, Gavar

Armenia… As soon as the border was crossed, something changed. Indeed, a frontier means leaving a comfort zone. How to count this unknown money? What do people eat here? How to speak with locals? Oh, they also have another alphabet! The words that we learned in the precedent country are not understanded anymore. How do you say « thank you » in armenian, again? « Schnorrhakalutsjun »?! Ok, this language is going to take us some time to learn. Maybe it’s better to use only russian? No… Locals are so happy and proud when we try to say some words in their own language… Ok, let’s keep on trying! Thank you: « Xe-no-ra-ca-lu-tchun ».

Cycle, hurry, hurry… Indeed, we have a special meeting… We will meet Florian, our cyclist friend we first met in Turkey, then in Georgia, Batumi and now in Haghpat. He found us a very nice camping in the village, which is on the top of a canyon. Reaching this place was not easy, especially because of the 10 to 15% uphill during the last 5 kms. We hated Flo at this exact moment, but were smiling again when we saw his happy face waiting for us in the camping 🙂

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Alone in this nice camping, we enjoyed the beautiful view of the canyon and discussed about our journeys and this new country. The landscapes are different, there is more water, the nature is greener again. But the population, the cars and houses looks sadly poorer than in Georgia…

We keep on cycling, among storms, nature and amazing views.

Next day started with a nice downhill to Dilijan. Dilijan is one of the most touristic villages in Armenia. This town has an interesting old city (way too touristic for us, though), plenty of nature and even a tourist office – actually the only one we saw in Armenia! A nice parc surrounds the city, and many hikes are available. We did none, preferring absorbing some fat by eating an ice cream, while waiting for the heat to cool down.

After this downhill to the city, we need to go up again. We have a nice uphill in the mountains. Our reward was waking up with a nice view on Sevan’s lake.

Located at 1900m, Sevan Lake is the 2nd biggest altitude lake in the world. Surrounded by mountains, the lake is actually quite beautiful.

But, and it’s a big « but » : the lake is full of trash. It is so sad. You go to the beach, you are welcomed with tons of plastic bags, bottles and other trash laying on the floor. Also, you can see many old Soviet’s industries being abandoned along the lake, giving a weird ambiance to the place. Indeed, the level of the lake was very low, mainly because of the irrigation. The gouvernement is trying to increase it’s level again, witch has as a result that many buildings are abadoned and under the water now…

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It is wet and tired that we landed in a fancy hotel in the middle of nowhere. Swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi, internet good enough to publish an article for the blog… After spending almost all day in this hotel, we start cycling in late afternoon. The road keep following the lake. A quick stop in a market to buy food immediately changed in an invitation for an armenian coffee, than for wine, than for dinner, than for vodka and than for sleeping in Armen’s place.

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Armen is the owner of this small Market. He is a very friendly man, generous and funny. After a while, two young brothers came to his market. They are very skinny and looked hungry… Armen gives them food, speaks to them, learn them that it’s not polite to eat too quickly, to say « thank you » and… how to drink wine. We are very surprised that 8 and 10 years old kids are alowed to drink wine. What shall we do in this kind of situation? When you see big differences between your culture and the other’s one? In France, since some years ago, it was also normal for kids to drink alcohol, they could even have it on school. By the way, wine was considered more as food than as alcohol. It would be easy to judge it, but we tried to understand and somehow accept those cultural differences. After 2 shots of wine, we stayed polite and said that maybe it was enough for the kids. We gave them some soda and they were very happy. 

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In Armenia, the place that kids have in the society changed very clearly. It’s normal to see kids working on the fields, taking care of the animals, selling merchandise in shops, in restaurants, on the streets… We still didn’t know it at this moment, but the further we go east, the most common it becomes. As (almost) every Occidental coming from families that could provide us with food, education and love, we could see that we have a big privilege since the first moments of our lives… Sadness, pity and anger alone are not going to change this situation. Having conscience about our privilege and fighting for justice and equality may help.

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The following days around the lake were easy cycling. The problem is that the weather is constantly changing, with heavy storms many times a day. « Storms » means more water and it also means… mosquitos! One evening, when we put our tent close to the beach, we had a big mosquitos invasion! It really looked like a horror movie when we opened the tent: the air became solid and black, with mosquitoes trying to enter in our tent, nose, eyes, mouth and ears. Mosquitos everywhere. We closed the tent and waited a long time until this situation calmed down and we’re able to go out.

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These are our first mixed feelings about Armenia. More to come soon.

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