Armenia – my favourite country so far

I’m utterly in love with Armenia. Look how happy I am! I’ve met wonderful people (from fellow backpackers to local archaeologists), seen magical monasteries, had amazing food and helped uncover burial sites from the Bronze Age(!!!0

I’ve been enjoying my time here so much that I haven’t even had a chance to think about the blog (sorry!) So instead I am grouping my time here together under one post.

On my first day here, I headed straight to Khor Virap which is a monastery with Mount Ararat looming behind it. There is a 6m deep pit here (which I went in!) where the “founding father” of Christianity in Armenia was kept for 13 years. Fun fact, Armenia was the first Christian country, officially converting from paganism in 201 AD.

On my second day, I went on a tour with some of the hostel guests to Garni Temple, Geghard Monastery (which has been my favourite so far – I felt like Indiana Jones in some of the crypts and there was lots of animal stonework) and Lake Sevan. Tours in Armenia are really cheap (£6 to £10 for a full day, depending on how many kilometers you cover) and much easier than public transport (which would involve costly taxis from bus stations or long walks in the midday heat).

The next day I want to Noravank Monastery, which was positioned at the top of a canyon (very cool!) The views from the road were breathtaking.

I stayed in Areni that evening, which is a wine making village and part of the ancient Silk Road.

The next two days in Shaki were the absolute highlight of my trip. I was very fortunate to be staying in the same guesthouse as two local archaeologists who were working on the nearby Zorats Karer (more on that to come!)

I arrived, met up with Margaret (a friend I made in Yerevan) and we drove to Ughtasar, a mountain 3500m high where there are undisturbed petraglyths. It takes 3 hours to drive up there and it was absolutely magical. One of our archaeologists joined us and was able to act as a tour guide, pointing out burial sites we would have otherwise missed and explaining the meaning of the petraglyths. The only other people we saw were three other archaeologists halfway up the mountain. Oh and when the mist rolled in, the cognac and chocolate came out! How perfect?!

The next day, the archaeologists kindly let me join them and I spent the day lifting up rocks and helping them clear one of the burial sites at Zorats Karer(!!!) Zorats is known as the Armenian Stonehenge as it is a collection of Bronze Age burial sites, surrounded by an Iron Age wall.

Every time I moved, there was someone keen to show me another part of the site and to explain what was happening – everyone was so friendly and welcoming! I was pleased that I was surprisingly good at carrying away the large rocks and making a stable pile of rocks (harder than it sounds) so I was useful to them and not too much of an incumbrance. And I was very lucky to be there when they discovered the opening of the grave, too!

I am still in Armenia for a few more days, in Goris (where the weather is terrible) and then traveling up to the border area with Georgia. It has been a magical few days here and I cannot wait to return to Armenia.

TTFN, x

 

Baku and Qobustan – surreal city vibes, mud volcanoes and petraglyths

I find it impossible to announce that I’m in Azerbaijan without making it sound like Eurovision…

So, hello from Azerbaijan! I spent the day in Baku yesterday, which is a very surreal city. I can’t quite pinpoint it, perhaps it’s the clash of the old city and the Dubai-like skyscrapers, perhaps it’s the architecture inherited from the Sultans, perhaps it’s the omnipresence of the oil, perhaps it’s a bit of everything but I’m definitely not in Europe any more.

I actually had a very good sleep on the night train and arrived rested in Baku, but it was so hot that I couldn’t bear to venture out of the old town, so I have very few photos from Baku itself.

Today, I was more adventurous and went to Qobustan.

Qobustan is a town 70km south of Baku which is famed for its petraglyths and the nearby mud volcanoes.

The petraglyths were completely different in appearance to the ones I saw in Bulgaria but they also depicted hunting scenes. Some have been removed from the stone face and reside in the museum, but there are still numerous carvings which you can visit on the mountains. The carvings of the ox and antelope are particularly clear and arresting.

The landscape from the petraglyth mountain is also very beautiful and resembles a post apocalyptic moonscape.

The highlight of the day for me was the mud volcanoes. There are around a thousand mud volcanoes in the world and 400 of them are located in the coastal areas of Azerbaijan.

A very fun and playful atmosphere with people (locals and tourists) bottling the mud for beauty treatments, young boys sliding down the volcanoes, and taxi drivers driving up onto the volcanoes . I still have mud splatters on me after being caught in an eruption!

I used a variety of transport to get around Qobustan. I took an Uber to the museum from Baku (which cost 22 manat, £10) and then met a group of young Russian tourists who kindly took me up the mountain and to the volcanoes, before dropping me at a train station (where the officials helped me hail a bus, as there weren’t any trains running, peculiarly. I think it might be just for freight).

From the museum you can get a taxi to the volcanoes, but I didn’t have the mental energy to haggle so I was very grateful for the Russians generosity. I was told to expect upwards of 20 manat for that taxi.

Tours from Baku varied wildly in price, depending on how many wanted to do the tour that day. There was only two other people on the day I wanted to visit, so a tour would have cost me 70 manat. I was lucky to meet the Russians and have an easy bus journey back (the first bus only took me to the outskirts of Baku. A young boy who wanted to practice his English helped me with the bus connection, buying a ticket, and when to get off). If you have a tour quote you for 50 manat as a solo traveller, I would say take that option. But if you are travelling as a group, see if you can keep the Uber driving waiting and they can take you the Baku, museum, volcano, Baku loop. That would be the most cost effective.

It’s a little bit of hassle to travel there independently (or expensive, if you do a tour) but definitely worth it.

The post is being uploaded from a Pizza Hut(!) in Baku train station, waiting for a night train for Sheki (in the Azerbaijani mountains).

TTFN x

Mostar day trip – Blagaj, Pocitelj and Kravica

I usually avoid taking tours. Partly because they feel quite awkward and inauthentic, partly because of the forced small talk, and partly because of the price.

Tourism is a very important industry for Bosnia & Herzegovina and the industry collectively have done what they can to protect its income streams.  In some areas, like Mostar, there are next to no public bus routes because it forces tourists to use tours instead. There is a bus to Blagaj and a bus to Medjugorje, but most notably not one to Kravica which is the biggest tourist attraction in the area.

I really wanted to see Kravica so I considered getting a bus to the nearest town and then walking (8km each way) or hiring a car (which was more expensive than online research had indicated). But I arrived in Mostar a little fatigued, so I relented and accepted the inevitable. Begrudgingly, I sought out a tour.

Let me preface this with my experience of a tour in Mostar was very different to the standard tour experience.

I opted against my hostel’s tour (as, at €35, it was €10 more than what I had been told was going rate) and went to a hostel (Mirror Hostel) which my hostel in Sarajevo (Hostel Tufna) had recommended. This was a stroke of luck as it was a family run hostel and my tour guide was the grandfather (rather than some cocky teenager).

The second lucky thing was that I was the only one of the tour, so I paid €30 rather than €25 but I was very glad to spend the extra €5 on having a private experience!

The final stroke of “luck” which made my experience unforgettable was that my guide, Adner, was a Colonel in the war. He started as a soldier during conscription, was promoted to Colonel, and by the end of the war he was responsible for 10,000 troops in the Mostar region. This made for fascinating and harrowing conversation. He took me through the roads of Mostar which were his front line, his bunkers, where his troops fought. He has a large scar on his elbow from a shotgun, a large would on his knee from a grenade, and a scar from a sniper on his back. Many of his formers soldiers now operate the service jobs in the tourism industry, such as fruit selling and parking attendants. He took my breath away with his anecdotes numerous times and I am so grateful that this was the tour experience I had.

Adner:

Blagaj

This is the first stop in any tour. It is a Dhermish Monastery and is considered the holiest place in Herzegovina. Adner and his friends used to swim in the river as teenagers, and he showed me a stream where we filled up my water canteens.

Pocitelj

This will be the second stop in any tour and it’s name literally means “stone village on the hill”. It’s very picturesque and quaint. All of the buildings are original or rebuilt using the original materials. Like Blagaj, it has Dhermish origins.

Kravica

Kravica, the reason I came. These waterfalls are comparable to the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, but crucially you can go in the water here so it is a completely different atmosphere.

Some blogs say that these waterfalls are deserted and maybe that is true outside of the sunny months but it was 30 degrees when I went and well populated! That said, it is a distinctly local vibe and whilst there are tourists there, the overwhelming feel is that these are local residents having a day out and splashing around.

They are only 300 metres from the Croatian border (you can see the border control building from the entrance!) and cost 10 BAM in the summer months to enter.

The water was cold but in a very pleasant way! Make sure to bring some sea shoes (unless you are super confident in the water), as there are some slimy rocks and things on the bottom.

Make sure to pick up some of the roadside figs! I can honestly say they aren’t like any other fig I have eaten. They tasted like they’d had honey injected in.

Medjugorje

We stopped by Medjugorje on the way back to Mostar, only because it was on our route home. It’s bonkers. I won’t go into it, because it would be a religious and political mindfield, but the church is BIG business there. The confession booth set up alone is laughable. (I have never seen so many, nor seen them organised by language, nor with traffic light buttons to show whether they are in use.)

So, if you ever find yourself in hostel, head to Hostel Mirror and ask for their tour!

TTFN, x