Armenia, Georgia, Armenia, Georgia

1- 8 Aug

After our epic bike ride in Armenia, we head further north towards the Georgian boarder. Fortunately, the ride to Georgia is through a gorge that goes down from 1500 m to 500 m over 100 km, so the coming days will be easy. We enjoy the descend from Vanadzor to Alaverdi through the Debed gorge. The route is scenic, the road until Tumanyan brand-new and the weather beautiful.

In Aliverdi we stay two days in a bed and breakfast with swimming pool, that we share with drowning wasps. On our day in Aliverdi we visit Haghpat Monastery. There are actually several monasteries in the Debed Gorge, but we decide to visit the less known one, because it is situated more beautifully, whereas for the Sanahin Monastery (which is also Unesco Heritage) you need to cross the ugly part of Aliverdi, mainly consisting of huge crumbling Sovjet buildings. Actually, also our B&B is hidden behind a Sovjet building, but as happens so often in Armenia, you open a gate in an ugly urban neighborhood and a small beautiful garden or hotel is revealed.

Bell tower of Haghrat Monastery.

The Debed Gorge is not only home to monasteries but also to industrial buildings that are left alone and crumbling down and to a copper mine and industry. The white cloud coming from a pipe is visible from everywhere. Also visible is a cable car, that starts at the bottom of the gorge and goes to the ugly part of Aliverdi. Also this doesn't work anymore. The cable car cabins are still hanging there.

Abandoned industrial building. The white pipe is found everywhere in Armenia along roads. These are gas pipelines that bring gas into all the houses.

After our visit to Haghpat Monastery we cycle to the Georgian border and cross it without any problems. We have heard stories about the extremely poor state of the Georgian roads, but the road that we follow (it goes to Tbilisi) is actually good. Only when we turn to the west and head for Bolnisi, the road gets worse and worse. Bolnisi once was a German colony founded in 1818 and at that time was called Katharinenfeld. You can still see the German influence by the style of the houses and there is also a 'Deutsche Muehle', restored by a German guy who has started a hotel there (beyond our budget). We stay in another big German house with lots of dark wood and enjoy a good Georgian meal with a very good brandy as desert.

Surprise in Georgia. We visit the site of Didi Dmanisi which comprises the remains of a medieval fortified town, but more importantly is also a prehistoric site where a skull of a Homo erectus (1.7 M years old) (and a lot of other items) were found. This was quite a shock to the prehistoric specialists who initially couldn't believe that Homo erectus moved to Asia that early.

The road through Georgia is muddy (actually this is only the result of a truck that deliberately wettened the street to avoid dust formation close to a quarry)

So, bikes need to be cleaned in the river

Which is rewarded afterwards.

The next day we head back towards Armenia. The complete north-western part of Armenia we have not visited yet and the only way to do that without riding the same road up and down was to loop through Georgia, go back south and then loop through Armenia and back north to Georgia.
Indeed, the road to the Armenian boarder becomes worse and worse and since there was a superheavy thunderstorm the evening before, we require our swimming skills to pass the numerous potholes on the road.

We closely observe trucks to estimate how deep the potholes are

Soil has been transported to the potholes to fill them up. Unfortunately the budget fails for actually doing that...

Back in Armenia (where the road at a sudden transforms into a huge flat, perfect piece of asphalt) we have a really lovely homestay in the Geologists House. Actually, it was not the owner's plan to rent the room, but for some reason they didn't refuse us when we called them. The family was staying for the weekend and a huge grill party organized. Many of the family speak English and we really have a fun evening. This family also produces lots of fruits in their own garden, which finally resulted in very good wodka, made from pears and another one from apricots. Lots of toasts were celebrated, the one that always returns is the 'parent toast' (for the health of our parents). But their was also one for the young guys at the table who had just fulfilled their military service in Nagorno Karabagh.

Diner in Geologist's house. Armin, at the right, is a very energetic, cheerful man who has turned the house of his father in law (the geologist, who passed away 3 years ago) into a guesthouse. He has built many of the furniture himself, he explores new mountain bike routes and hosts travelers (and much more).

The next day a mountain pass is on the program (Pushkin Pass, 2031 m) and we really enjoy it because all the cars go through a 2 km long tunnel, whereas we have the road to the pass for ourselves.

On Pushkin pass 4 or 5 wind mills are built. They are built by an Iranian Company and are a gift from Iran to Armenia. Strangely, we have hardly seen any wind mills in Iran.

From there it goes down and westward into a region of Armenia that has been completely destroyed during the last big earthquake (1988). 25'000 deaths, 20'000 injured and 500'000 people homeless. The earthquake was followed by the break-up of the Sovjet Union (1989) and war with Azerbaijan. With the help of IMF the region was rebuilt and the economy repaired until during the global financial crisis the economy declined again. Anyway, what we see is quite a lot of relatively good looking houses, as complete new villages were built after 1988.

Lunch near Armenian church

Grasslands on a high plateau in western Armenia. It gets more difficult to find good camping spots.

Wanted: Car wreck to complete my fence. 

Also visible piles of dried shit balls that are used to fertilize the soil.

Beautiful sunset while camping in the grass lands

The landscape in this part of Armenia is quite boring as it is a huge plateau between 1500 and 2000 m. It has some big lakes that attract a lot of birds, but for the rest it is grass land with only one or two trees here and there and some hill tops at the horizon. To emphasize the boring landscape we have some pretty grey weather too.

This continues quite a while, also in Georgia, where we again pick up our new hobby, pothole diving.

We have now definitely entered the last stage of our journey. Armenia and Iran are behind us, only Georgia and the Upper Kaukasus are left to explore.