Friday the 14th of October is a holiday is Georgia. That means no school. Yay! The strange thing was that most of my students didn’t seem to know that Friday was a holiday until I mentioned it. I know that when I was in school I always knew when the next day off would be, but that probably had something to do with me writing everything down in my calendar at the beginning of the year. On Tuesday Kenneth suggested possibly going to Armenia and I didn’t see any reason why that couldn’t happen. A visit to the world oldest Christian nation always sounds like a good idea.
As I said before I bought our overnight train tickets to Tbilisi on Thursday morning and then we just had to wait. The train wouldn’t come through Supsa until 10:30PM. I had English lessons with Giorgi as usual. I had dinner and then around 9:15 Kenneth’s host Dad picked me up to take us to Supsa. It took the usual 20 minutes to get there, so we still had some more waiting to do. Fortunately it had stopped raining. The train arrived right on time which honestly surprised me. I have come to realize that transportation generally runs on time even if everyone else doesn’t seem to. I’m not quite sure how those two balance each other out but somehow it works. We arrived at our train compartment and realized one of us would have to take the top bunk on one side and the other would be taking the bottom bunk on the other side. The two other people in the compartment were already situated. I felt bad because I think we woke them up. Anyways after getting settled we called our two friends who were also on the train and went to go say hello. They had already fallen asleep because there isn’t anything to do on a train but we woke them up to make plans for the next morning. This consisted of trying to find the McDonalds and getting breakfast. I normally try to avoid the golden arches when I travel abroad but sometimes even smelling something familiar is nice. So with that we retired to our compartment.
It was a long night and I think I might have slept or at least I recall waking up several times in the night. My alarm in the morning was a woman walking up and down the train selling K’ava(coffee) and water. She might not have been speaking that loudly but the sound carried in the train. We got off the train and made our way towards the taxis. I thought I remembered seeing a McDonalds on Rustaveli near the Radisson, so that is where we headed. We arrived to find that there was indeed a McDonalds there, but that it either wasn’t open yet or was recently closed down for renovations. We obviously weren’t meant to eat it that day. So instead we wandered down the street in search for breakfast. Clare, Erica, Kenneth and I ended up in a small grocery store where we purchased food for breakfast and Kenneth and I bought some snacks for our trip to Yerevan.
We walked Erica and Clare to the hostel where our other friends were staying and in the process we picked up another TLG teacher who was going to Yerevan. His name is Dan and he is from England. Together the three of us took a taxi to Ortachala bus station (the international bus station) to catch a marshutka to Tbilisi. We arrived just in time to catch one that would be leaving in the next 15 minutes. It is always better to be on one that is leaving sooner rather than later. On the marshutka we also met Clement. He is from France and is in Georgia through a French program to teach French language. The ride itself was pretty uneventful. We spent most of it talking about school stuff and learning how to count to ten in Armenian. Yet another language to try and learn while traveling in the Caucuses. I really wish I had studied Russian too. The Armenian countryside is very pretty, lots of mountains all over the place. And it was the beginning of fall so there was some great color splattered all over the sides of the mountains. The strangest things about the geography were probably the random rocks sticking out of the grass.
Armenia
After about 6 hours of traveling we finally arrived in Yerevan. Our French friend had been to Yerevan the previous year and said the walk to the hostel wasn’t that bad. So rather than braving public transportation we hit the pavement. It was a good 40-minute walk but we got to see lots of things. A giant market, the brandy factory, beautiful people and we were able to enjoy the weather. We got to the hostel, checked in and then went out on a search for food. We ended up finding this place that served traditional food and the inside of the restaurant looked vaguely like a church with its stained glass windows and wall frescoes. After filling our stomachs we took a tour of the city. We walked up the Cascade a giant set of stairs that has galleries and works of art in, around and under it. At the top of the stairs there is a monument that celebrates 50 years as a soviet nation. We did some math and figured it had been there since the 70’s. Unlike Georgia, Armenia still has good relations with Russia so many of their monuments to the Soviet Union are still around. We wandered around a lot and after a while we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.
The Casacade in Yerevan
The next day Kenneth and I got up, threw breakfast in our snack bag and grabbed a cab to a bus station. We were headed to Khor Virap. We arrived at the bus station just after 9am but fortunately our bus hadn’t departed yet. We rode 40 minutes and then had to walk 1 km to the monastery. Khor Virap is a monastery near the foot of Mt. Ararat, but on the Armenian side. Historically Mt. Ararat was part of Armenia but borders today have it in Turkey. The church at the monastery is quaint and we saw two christenings and one salt blessing happen in the three hours that we were there. History says that St Gregory the Illuminator was held captive by King Trdat(a pagan) in a well at Khor Virap for 12 years. That well is still at the monastery and you can go down in it. It’s a terrifying straight down ladder into what would have been a very dark hole if it weren’t for the light fixture that is now there. The view of Mt. Ararat is stunning and would have been better if there had been less clouds but I’m definitely happy we made the trek out there. The trek back to the main highway was 4 km and definitely less fun. After reaching the main highway and waiting for several minutes I flagged down a marshutka that was already very full of people so we had to stand most of the way back to Yerevan.
Mt. Ararat
We got back to the bus station, walked through a tunnel under the train station and saw some delicious looking street food. We were trying our best to point and use Armenian numbers to order food but it turned out that the woman who was selling the food spoke great English(well it was good enough to sell us food and explain what the different things were). Always a bonus when that happens. Kenneth was also a bit adventurous and purchased a white beverage. The lady said she liked to drink it so we figured it couldn’t be that bad. Well it was. I didn’t try it but it smelled like spoiled milk. We ended up just throwing that one away. Fortunately we also had some water.
After our quick lunch it was another trip to another bus station. This time we were heading to Echmiadzin. This city was the capital of Armenia when the country adopted Christianity and it is also where St. Gregory was told in a vision to build a church. The church here is the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Their Catholicos (highest ranking church official) lives next to the church. The cathedral is ornately carved on the outside with many bell towers. The inside is less ornate but has some beautiful paintings on the ceiling. In the very back of the church is a small museum. It holds many sacred artifacts. You have to purchase a ticket to go in but it is totally worth it. There is a spearhead that was used to pierce the side of Christ on his way to Cavalry, there is carved image of the crucifixion that was carved by St. John, there is a piece of wood from Noah’s ark, there is a fragment of the cross that Christ was crucified on and in some very ornate arm-shaped reliquaries they have bones of John the Baptist, Peter and Andrew. In addition to these items there are also several historical items for the Armenian Church. They have the miters from every former Catholicos and some of the staffs they used. They also have giant container of holy oil that is only blessed once every 7 years. It is very moving to be in front of so much history. After wandering around the grounds for a little bit longer we finally made our way back to Yerevan.
Holy See at Echmiadzin
We stopped by the hostel to drop off some things and to ask for directions on how to get to the statue of Mother Armenia and the park up on top of the hill. We waited for the bus for a while and then decided the walk couldn’t be that bad so we made our way up to the top of the hill. Fortunately for us the Cascade has escalators inside so you don’t have to hike up the stairs. The park is an amusement park as well so after walking around and looking at the monument we rode the Ferris wheel to get an every better view of the city at sunset. Our plan was to head back down, find a souvenir shop, grab a quick bite and then head on a night tour that was lead by our hostel. That didn’t’ happen. We ended up in a souvenir shop with the most amazing shop worker ever. We picked out what we wanted, purchased it and the started a conversation with him. He told us everything he knew about Armenian history and culture. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an informational trip to a souvenir shop. Of course after he was done I wanted to buy a little bit of everything so that I could better remember Armenia but that was a bit out of my budget. He did give us some good food suggestions. So with our souvenirs in hand and a list of good places to eat we left the souvenir shop. We wandered for a very long time before finally eating but in that wandering we stopped at a fruit juice stand. While I was waiting for my banana juice many men with earpieces and some police showed up and told people they couldn’t walk any further past them. After a couple more moments a large group of men in suits walked across the street and into a restaurant. Then some official cars pulled up one of them had no plates and Armenian flags on the front. The rest of the cars all had similar plates on them that said something like AM 001-1, -2, -3. I turned to Kenneth and said, “I think we just saw the Armenian President.” Before this trip I had never seen the leader of any country in person and now I’ve seen two(well definitely one and most likely 2). After a very long day of traveling we retired to the hostel where we met up with everyone else to discuss travel plans. One of our companions was going to leave very early so he could be home at a reasonable hour. We decided that wasn’t for us.
Mother Armenia
We woke up just after 8AM Armenian time(one hour ahead of Georgia), had breakfast at the hostel and then 6 of us piled into a cab to go to the bus station. We asked around for a Tbilisi marshutka but the one that was leaving soon was already full. So we waited a moment then we were escorted to the other side of the station and put into a marshutka that was very empty. I was worried we would be waiting forever. But 10 minutes later and we were off. We ended up with a personal marshutka ride back to Tbilisi. We were all so shocked we were convinced that maybe he was going to stop somewhere else along the way to pick up more passengers. Nope. It was just us, our driver and a girl sitting in the front seat. I guess we covered his expenses to travel back so he decided he could go.
On our trip back to Tbilisi we took a different highway that took us through the mountains and past Lake Sevan. It was great. Our driver even helped us order food when we stopped for our break. It was the best experience I have had so far in a marshutka. We arrived in Tbilisi just before 4PM(Georgia time). We said goodbye to our travel companions and once again went to another bus station to head home.
No comments:
Post a Comment