Archives du mot-clé Cycling Armenia

Week 16 – Shikahogh State Reserve + Armenia recap

July 13th – 48 kms, 1700+, old bridge after Tsav
July 14th – 52 kms, Agarak

Crossing the Shikahogh State Reserve during our last 2 days in Armenia to reach the border with Iran was perhaps the most idyllic cycling we had so far. Breathtaking scenic routes, almost no traffic (actually almost no people at all), wild nature, lovely locals.

It was as well the moment where we could not find gas canister for our stove anymore, or then stupidly expensive. Time has come to cook with petrol. Great, from now, beside smeling sweat and solar cream, we will smell petrol as well.

Happy pigs, trying to get fresh on the mudd.

It is with this new fragrance that we achieved our longest climb so far: 1700m elevation in only 48 kms. Tired and happy, we reached an ancient bridge after Tatev, perfect spot to pitch the tent. A family was already here, enjoying a barbecue. No need to use our smelly stove, they invited us to join them and within 10 minutes, delicious dishes they prepared surrounded us. They had to left before twilight, offering us tons of food and one small bottle of their homemade vodka!

Meat, lavash bread, wine, vodka, cheese, vegetables… Nice surprise uphill. 🙂

With the lovely family who invited us for barbecue.

After a quick shower in the river, it was time as well for us to rest. The night was cold and wet: a cloud got stuck right in the sommit we were.

Last day in Armenia was going downhill the Shikahogh Reserve to then cycle along the border through pomegranate plantations until reaching the city where the border checkpoint is.

Admiring the big downhill in front of us…

Araxe river: the border between Iran and Armenia, full of pomegranate plantations.

While searching for a water fountain in a village, a lovely family invited us for coffee, cakes, fruits and well, wine and vodka. It was the weekend afterall. When we had enough, the family told us: “You know, you should drink one more, soon you will be in Iran, meaning no more alcohol!”. Wise guys.

Oh, Armenia… We were already missing it when we were still in this hostel at the border, enjoying a last diner with other locals inviting us at their table. From this place, we could see the border : the dramatic mountains on the Iranian side look like the Mordor from JRR Tolkien.

Armenia – Iran border. The mountains on the iranian side do not really look encouraging.

After all stories we heard about Iran, it is somehow afraid and intrigated that we reviewed our checklist a last time before sleeping:
– Printed e-Visa and other documents they might ask? Check
– Lots of water? Check
– Voil for Larissa? Check
– Long sleeve shirts for both? Check
– Enough money to travel one month without possibility to withdraw money and use our credit card? Check
– No more vodka bottle offered by locals in our paniers? Check
– No microphone, no drone, no whatsoever spy tools? Check

Good. Iran, here we go.

Recap

Distance travelled inside the country : 1009 kms
Flat tires: 0 (yeahhh)
Lavash bread: 27
Vodka shots: 1 (ha ha)
Nights with locals: 3 nights
Camping: 7 nights
Bivouac: 11 nights
Hotel/Guest House: 10 nights

What did we like?

Landscape. Beautiful mountains, nice valleys.
People we met, long term travelers among others.
Armenians were very kind, with honest and generous smiles. They also really appreciate that we tried to learn some words of their language, kind of rewarding 🙂 Perhaps because it is horribly difficult.
Fountains, barbecue, picnic tables were everywhere on the roads (and also on the cemeteries), easing our daily life.

What did we dislike?

Armenia is a trash. This is such a pity. The country is beautiful, but every single nature spot we had the chance to cycle through was spoiled with garbage.
As per the above, it seems that ecological consciousness almost doesn’t exist in Armenian’s mind. This is also valid for young generations. Thinking about it, this is not exactly their priority in regards to the different wars and economical tensions along the country.
Armenia was the poorest country we crossed so far, showing another daily reality. Unfortunately, we saw many kids working in shops, restaurants, fields. This will hopefully change soon.

What is growing?

From what we have seen: apricot (symbol of Armenia!), tons of cherries, watermelon, raspberry, redcurrant, pomegranate in the south, wheat. The northern part of the country was curiously rather empty, nothing is growing for some reasons (maybe it’s cold? dry? too high? we don’t know).

People seem to have less private gardens than in Georgia. We could figure it out because some products were very easy to find in small markets (like milk, seasonal fruits, cheese), while in Georgia it was almost impossible. Indeed, you usually don’t buy what you grow in your own land…

Curious facts we learned

Lavash bread, which is a kind of a huge crepe, reaching sometimes more than 1m long (you need a huge pot of Nutella!)

The economic situation is difficult for young people, facing a high unemployment rate. Many of them want to leave Armenia and go abroad for work.
Armenia was the first christian country in the world. Also, there are many ancient churches and wonderful monasteries to visit around the country.

For the first time, when Larissa said her first name, the answer was not: “Hang on, this is a Russian name!”. It was funny because people were saying: “Oh, that’s nice! You have an Armenian name!”. It is also the country where people start to not understand “Pierre” first name anymore. We still didn’t know at this time, but it will get worse. Sarting from Armenia, we’ll just say a very well french pronounced “Piotr”.
Armenians have a specific alphabet for their language. It means that every sound has it’s own letter. The alphabet « fits » perfectly with the spoken language. It is, somehow, the opposite of french, where the french word for « much » is writen « beaucoup », but you just pronounce « bocu ».

Week 15 – 2 Bears, 1 Rocket launcher and plenty of monasteries

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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).

Great spot, also good for clothes washing

Some rock climbing in between two cycling days

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.

Our not-bear-proofed bivouac at Noravank monastery

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.

Reaching the pass… It’s getting dark and we’re really tired.

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).

« Do you want some vodka with your armenian coffee? »

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!?

Clausi : the dangerous rocket launcher van

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…

Go down and then up again to cross the small river down on the valley

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.

Week 14 – Still waiting… in the camping

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June 29th – 30km, 675+, Garni
June 30th – 6km, 500+, Goght
July 1st to 4th, Goght
July 5th – 62kms, 20+, Khor Virap

Leaving the city we got flushed by heavy rain – we “missed” this after a few days in an apartment. So we stayed in Garni village to dry, and take some rest, as we had some stomach ache. In Garni, a pagan site was rebuilt from its ruins. The place was very green, surrounded by mountains and rivers. After a week staying in a big city, it really felt good to walk around and see the nature again.

The following days, as soon as we still had to wait for our package, we decided to pitch our tent in a camping. And what a place! In the 3GS camping we had 2 great kitchens, a swimming pool, nature and mountains close by, clean toilets and very very nice people. By far the best camping we have ever seen. Well, ok, this was the first official camping of our journey, but still a very nice place. There, we met some traveling friends (Silke and Jan’s FB page) and spent 6 very nice days until our package finally arrived. It was very good to hang with some friends again, sharing good food & good discussions.

Close to the camping stands the beautiful Goght monastery, right on the side of the mountain. Lots of tourists were there. Weird to see all those buses full of people… But still, it is worth the climb there. Also, we saw a kind of a weird tradition: people use to hang some tissues or objects on the trees, in order to make a wish. It could be a nice tradition, but in our days, we saw specially plastic bags, baby wipes, toilet paper and dirty sockets. Not exactly the nicest thing to see hanging in the trees. Especially when the track to a panoramic view goes RIGHT in all these trash-hanging branches.

Make a wish and put some trash on the trees.

After the visit and while we came back to the camping, we met on the road a South Korean cyclist, on the road for 3 years already. This guy was friendly and we are always happy to meet other cyclists travellers to share our experiences. But… But something was slightly weird with his behavior. For instance, one of the first question he asked was “Where do you sleep tonight?”, which is rather unusual as a first talk (specially in the mornind and as we were going in opposite directions). We told him that we were staying in a campiste. Well, he never showed up to our camping.
We learned later in a Whatsapp groupe that this guy is actually stealing money from other travellers, and had already been in jail for having robbed around 15000 USD (from cyclists especially)! We were shocked. The cycling people is usually a nice community where everyone help and respect to each other, whatever the way, speed or reason of their travel. So another lesson learned: even though we meet mainly nice people on the road, we should always remain vigilant.

Some months later, as we’re talking to another cyclist, we told him that we were shoked about this history. He was worried and wanted to know the name of this guy. We told him that his name is John. Our friend was very disturbed and asked us to show him a picture. We did so. In this moment he said:
– I traveled with this guy, John, for one week in Georgia. After he left, I figured out that my money was missing. So far, I never knew who stoled it from me: was it one of those nice families that hosted me? Someone in the hostel? An uknown person while I was sleeping? I never talked about it with anyone, because I never knew who I could blame. Now I’m happy that, at least, I know who made it.
We said that we were very sorry about it. We asked him how much was robbed from him.
– Around 1000 dollars… Also, I just figured out that this money was missing when I entered Iran, where I can not use my credit card anymore. Fortunately, I was lucky that during my journey in Iran people were often inviting me and giving me food. Finally, all this money was not that necessary anymore, it came back to me in another way.

*99,99% of the people we meet are just great!*

During a quiet sunny morning, the miracle happened : FedEx informed us that our package finally arrived in Yerevan! AND that it should be ready for pick up during the afternoon, after custom clearance!! Alleluia!!!!
So we prepared everyting we needed to arrange the wheels, informed the most trustful bike shop we could find that we will arrive during the afternoon and jumped in a cab to Yerevan.

We were so happy to receive this stupid package. After sending back the stuff we didn’t need anymore (using the regular post office…), we headed to « My Bike » bicycle shop in Yerevan. The former mechanic of the Armenian’s racing bike team is working there – quite a straightforward guy. Golden teeth, getting chubby after retire from cycling, strong like a caucasian bear, accurate eyes. And well, we trusted him. We had the Rohloff wheel fixed, relaced and trued within 10 minutes, using the good old style earing with vodka adjustment technic (forget to find a mechanic with tensiometer for your wheel in Central Asia). The job was done, we were ready to hit finally the road again. Close to 6000kms later on horrible gravel roads among others, the wheel hasn’t moved!

When we finally left our camping, we met again a super kind German couple, Simon and Claudia, who are overlanding with their fully revamped T3 van. We were both going to the same place, Khor Virap. It is a monastery with a nice view on the Ararat mountain (where Noah is supposed to have landed on after the Great Flood).

Armenian cemetery. You usually find those images on the tombstones (that really look like ghosts from far). But you’ll also find picnic tables, barbecue and fountains close to the road, where people died on car accidents.

Simon and Claudia found a super nice camping spot on the top of a hill, with a wonderful view. We put up our tent and, after some moments, wind. More wind. A huge and powerful sand storm, actually. The wind was so strong, that we were afraid it could break our tent – the hoops were bending like crazy. In a rush, we took our tent off and jumped in Simon & Claudia’s van, protected from the sandstorm. While this storm was going on, we saw a big bush fire, getting bigger and bigger every second because of the wind. Claudia and Larissa were really not feeling very safe there, but it does not seem to bother Pierre and Simon. After some discussion around sand-crunchy pasta, it has been decided to change our camping spot, going down the hill where we could potentially find a place protected from the wind (and the fire?). We found a place, in the middle of the trash, having the nice company of some scorpions. Larissa woke up in the middle of the night because it was smelling smoke. It was a false alert, the fire was far. And Pierre was sleeping as a baby, anyway. Back to sleep, pay attention with the scorpions, please.

Week 13 – Waiting in Yerevan

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June 21st – 62km, 380+, Sevan
June 22nd – 70km, Yerevan
June 23rd to 28th – waiting in Yerevan

First of all, thanks for all your comments and messages – yes we got them.
We’re very happy that you’re following our adventure and supporting us. Thanks, thanks.

Also yes, it has been some months without posting anything… Well, it is easy to explain: after Armenia we went to Iran, were most websites (Google, Booking, Facebook and… WordPress) are blocked. Also the people there rarely gave us some free time to work on this blog. Arrived in Central Asia, WiFi speed drastically dropped. In Turkmenistan, we barely had internet access in the desert and 5 days to cross the country was kind of a rush. In Uzbekistan, we could use internet with some freedom, but it was so slow we gave up to post anything. In Tajikistan, some parasites kept us busy and you can forget decent internet in the Pamir. In Kyrgyzstan, Fall arrived with consistent temperature & daylight drop and as we are now leaving as chicken, as soon as it was dark and cold, we were sleeping. In Kazakhstan, we were just cycling quickly to catch our plane.

That’s it for the spoilers. Now we left the beautiful mountains, the cold, Central Asia and autumn behind us. With an airplane, we joined Bangkok – Thailand, were we drink as much coconut water as our bodies can absorb (yes, our plan changed, we won’t have time to see much in SE Asia as initially planned). And guess what? We got a cold HERE because of the AC. Not at 4000m lost in the Pamir, not in the frozen steppes of Central Asia. Here, Bangkok, Thailand, tropical country. Well, we cannot complain…

So finally, we take the time to write a post here. It’s always a pleasure to read our notes, see the pictures and remember all the way that we have done. And even cooler to share all of those stories with you. The following posts we’ll be smaller than the others (as we have some delay), with pictures and quick information. Hope you’ll like it! Take care and big sweaty hugs to all of you:)

On our last day on the surroundings of the lake, we visited Sevan city and it’s famous monastery.

We camped close to the lake and could see the other side of the post card… The water of the lake is rising, and many constructions are getting flooded by the water. The day after, we met locals fishing just in front of their houses, so close to the water. We exchange some words with them and understood they were quite desperate, as they know their house will be flooded soon – just a matter of time – and the government won’t do anything to help them.

We went downhill from Sevan lake to Armenian’s capital, Yerevan. As we were going on lower altitude, the landscape changed quickly. Basically, the vegetation was going from green to yellow, showing a much dryer ambiant down there. Our daily storms were left behind. Also, the mosquitoes seem to be happier in Sevan lake than in the capital.

In Yerevan, once again, we were lucky to be hosted by a local, Tigran. Tigran hosted us for 2 days. We could discover the city, the armenian food, enjoy a folk concert and have some pleasant moments together. Thanks Tigran for your hospitality and kindness!

As our package from France with some spare parts was lost in the wonderful world of the international logistic, we decided to rent a small appartment to wait decently. Everyday, we called the Fedex customer service to check if our package arrived. Everyday, the answer was the same: not yet, please contact us again tomorrow. It was like this for 11 days.

We enjoyed this waiting period to visit the city, get some fat again after 3 months of camping food, maintain the bikes, wait again, plan the itinerary. After a while and as our money was flying, we were just tired of the city. So we took our bikes and went camping in the mountains, relatively close to the city so we could come back easily once this damn package will arrive. We needed to see something else.