I just have three days to cross the country, I want to spend three weeks in Iran and my Iranian visa gives me 24 days, doing a proper visit to Armenia will have to be done some other time. I’ve done a simplified list of what I want to see: Yerevan, Ararat mountain and one of the monasteries on a mountain cliff.

I start in Yerevan, seems that I go from capital to capital. It’s not bad, but not too interesting, could be a good place to live for a while but not to visit, I’m not very excited.

It’s flag. Here the buildings are done in grand style with rows of columns and huge arches.

I buy from a man with a lot of golden teeth the coolest ice-cream, I don’t feel like eating it at all but had to try it and take a picture with it, in the back a Lada car.

A bible in a hotel is something that doesn’t surprise anyone, but in a hostel a bible per bed is something that everybody in the hostel was surprised about. It’s one of the most Christian countries in the world, there are lots of churches and crosses everywhere, the drivers cross themselves every minute, Christianity came in the year 40 and stayed.

Different from the Georgia, and nearly as alien, this alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD. I’m in the market, smells fruit and bread.

Soviet memories, some yearn for it, during two days in Yerevan I’ve felt how this missing feeling is still alive. Mendeleev, the Russian president, has come for a visit and the city has taken to it. Never in any place have I seen so many police in the street, every 30 meters there was a police car making sure all was in order, shouting over the speakers for parked cars to move. The places for the visit were surrounded by police and hundreds of Russian flags decorated the city.

The English poet Byron said: “There is no other land in the world so full of wonders as the land of Armenians”. He obviously said that before this street was built, an attempt at doing a luxurious fifth avenue with Armani shop included. The flats aren’t less than a million Euro. It could be a Gotham recreation, Batman’s city. In a country full of needs having destroy a neighbourhood of old houses to build houses for Armenian emigrants that come here a week a year doesn’t makes sense to me.

I have a collection of signals of “High voltage. Dead danger”.

As tomorrow I cross to Iran and there alcohol is prohibited, I go for a beer with Ferran, the Spanish guy I met in Tbilisi the other day, I’ve met him here again.

Next day I wake up early, before leaving I want to get money out of the cash machine. In Iran foreign credit cards dont work, so I need to have enough money. I already have, but want some extra 400 euros just in case. I get dizzy, I try to get money out of the ATMs and it’s like it does not recognize my credit cards. My backpack is heavy, it was supposed to be easy, getting money on the way to the bus, I had taken money with no problems the day I arrived.
I look for a place they call my bank, they say the cards are supposed to be fine but they have no record of me having put it in an ATM. Maybe they be de-magnet? That’s bad! Finally, with no faith, I try to get money out of another ATM and it works. I get my money, change it to dollars and go to search for the bus. It’s late, I don’t think now I’ll have time to arrive in Iran, I’m hungry, I’m sweaty and kind of in a bad mood.

I wait to see if the taxi fills up, to kill time I play Backgammon in the cell phone, I loose three games 5-0, diabolic machine, so much technology for nothing, it could realize I’m a bit down and let me win.

I ask the taxi driver to stop for a moment, I want to enjoy the view. We go near where the oldest shoe has been found a few months ago, In case you didn’t heard about it here you have a link. These are lands where at the time had some of the most advanced civilizations and part of the progress and invention have continued to our times.

Finally I see the Ararat mountain at 5165 meters, a symbol of Armenia. It’s said that Noah’s arch got suck here after the flood, Genesis says it. In clear days you can see it form Yerevan but I had to wait to go south to see it. I was dying to see it.

Werner, a Belgian guy I met in Sarajevo told me that the view was better from Armenia than from Turkey, I like this volcanic panorama. It’s a bit strange that such a sacred symbol for Armenias is in the country next to it, moreover because the border is closed, but history is like this, seems that Stalin divided Armenia in a few pieces and Armenia lost quite a lot of it’s former territory with Ararat mountain becoming Turkish. Ani the old Armenian capital is in turkey as well but this was lost nearly 10 centuries ago.

It’s a country with a complicated situation, Turkey doesn’t want to open the border on the west and in the east, the border with Azerbaijan is also closed. The independence of Nagorno Karabah caused a bloody war. If we change the names of the leaders and ethnics, history is repeated from what I found in the Balkans.

My taxi companion, kind of cocky, they were offering vodka to the driver on the left.

A drink they have, It’s like Bitter Kas, but it’s not bitter, it’s very sweet and the color is different, conclusion, it has nothing to do with Bitter Kas.

Fence on the border.

I spend the last day at a mountain pass in the pass way of the Marshrutka, with my backpack as a seat. When I arrive I take a self-portrait.

The ambiance is sordid, the landscape arid, the ground dirty, the fence spiky, the taxi drivers are bored from not having clients. I change some money and cross walking this no mans land, I cross the Aras river bridge that divides the Caucasus from the Middle East.

As you see I haven’t seen much, from my list of three things the monastery is left but as I’m so eager to cross to Iran I don’t mind. I have to move, again I get into the axis of evil.

See you soon.
Fernando

A few days ago it was my birthday. I was born in on September 11th. I had always liked the day, September is a beautiful month, with cooling weather and with beautiful light because the sun is already fading. Moreover I like the name, SEPTEMBER, sounds good.

In 2001 seems the date got dirty, I was eating with my parents in a Thai restaurant, Thai Gardens, in Madrid, the curry in coconut milk hottest of the menu was making my eyes cry as I had to blow my nose while I was drinking water to cool down the heat. A short Argentinean man that was eating with two very pretty girls told us, he had been told by phone, it was a bit late and only our two tables were left. We didn’t pay too much attention to what he said, he seemed a bit inventive.
One hour later, in a puzzle shop where my sister wanted to buy one, the shop-keeper invited us to go into the back part of the shop, and in that little rounded TV in the corner we saw time and again how the planes crashed into the towers and how the towers collapsed.
Each person has his story, where were they when they realized. Mine was at my birthday with Thai curry flavour.

I had left work early to eat with my family but meanwhile my co-workers were in the office. They got to know about it and they were watching TV on the Internet.
Waited to watch it, instead of going home, they were eating the pastries that I had taken in the morning. An ex-co-worker reminded me for years “watching the twin towers and eating your pastries”, as it was my first year at work, I bought an awful lot of them so as not to be short so they had them for a while.

If when I was 12 I’d have been told that in 20 years I’d have my birthday in Tehran I’d probably had put a face of  Where is that?, but here I’ve finished, not going out of the house all day until 8 pm to go for a walk and an ice-cream. As you see I’m a bit delayed in the blog, I have to tell you about Armenia and I’m already in Iran, but I didn’t want to write too much about Iran being here, maybe I’m too cautious, but…

I haven’t had presents either, except maybe the one given to myself. In a few days I’m going to Turkmenistan, the eight days there are going to be more than 1000 euros, so I prefer to see it as a present, but I’ll tell you why this cost when I write about the country.

Ah, I’ve got another surprise present. The Kanu Magazine, a prestigious white-water magazine from Germany, has published one of my pictures from Montenegro in double page. Aitor had a contact, he sent the pictures and they’ve published a picture from each of us. Here you have it.

With my name in the footer. I’m proud.

Here is the link to their page. It worth walking 50 minutes under the sun up to the bridge and back to the river to get the picture.

So even happier with my trip and my blog. From the trip there is less left, from the blog I’m happy because practicing it takes less effort to write and I think it’s better quality. After nine years writing documents explaining alternatives in a practical and objective form and documents with instructions step by step, writing a narration is a bit difficult, I have had to un-square my head.

There’s very little to tell you before arriving to where I’m living in Iran… which is great.

I leave you, this was going to be a short thing to tell you about my far away birthday and it’s become an enormous text.

See you soon!
Fernando

Had to happend somewhere…. can’t connect my laptop and some characters have been changed by the computer in internet cafe, mainly in the Spanish version, hope it’s not too annoying to read….[I’ve already corrected it, but leave it as history.]

The musical tastes of drivers here are very varied, this one has played Jean Michelle Jarre while driving as fast as he could. I’m going to Tbilisi, to see what’s there. The bus is cool, but it is not the one I got, a pity!

On the mountains we let cows cross everywhere, we see bees getting out of their coloured houses and conifer forests, now, in the main road that crosses the country I just see ex-soviet abandoned factories. When the USSR fell also the economical structure fell, and even today it has not recovered totally.

I was not liking Tbilisi too mucho, I was walking through Rustaveli(a Georgian writer) street and I was just seeing buildings like the Opera House, the parliament, the academy of arts, the palace of  “idon’tknowwhat”, the street was a typical soviet one owithexaggerated proportions and being Sunday; empty. I find an insipid place.

They are making big efforts to open up internationally, here is an example, in English so visitors have it clear. Looking at their internal policy there are still a whole lot of things to do, but I guess we have to look at this as one step.

I go to eat in a good restaurant, it’s the good thing of being in a cheap country. I have views of the river, elaborated food and I spend 15 Euro. As a starter I ask for lentils done in this pot. As a main dish I ask for pork which I find tastier than ever as I’ve been two months not eating it in Muslim countries. I have to confess that I’ve been close to get into a Sushi restaurant as I miss some Japanese food.

Local beer. It rains, I have to wait until it stops, what can i do?

Kala neighbourhood, the historical area. Things change, the alleys give me more than the street made by a ruler. The city climbs up the hill with buildings made of timber and balconies all over.

I get into every alley, in the main streets there are a lot of restored buildings but I want to see the old ones as they used to be.

I take pictures of the halls.

Of the doors.

Of the stairs.

One of the streets is fully restored and with cool cafes. I sit down to prepare some of the post. Battery finishes, that means I’ve been three hours! I close the computer happy for having a draft of the post and I continue walking rested.

The area is very nice, they’ve respected their own architecture mixing it with a varied architecture of western style, It’s a pleasure being here.

Here the crosses don’t neccesarily have perpendicular arms.

Tbilisi is on the same latitude as Rome, Barcelona, Boston or Chicago, but I find it like New Orleans, it’s also true I’ve never been there so maybe it does not look like it that much.

I would have preferred a sunset with more colours for this typical picture.

The carrot soup is more normal but on the right the aubergine filled up with nuts is a very Georgian dish.

Cool car.

I stay in a hostel called Dodo, It’s a good place with Internet and a rope to hang the washed clothes. The second day the power goes, I ask a girl that works there and she says; “no, it’s not broken, it’s the Russians that are bombing us”. I like the black humour of recent history.
Here I meet Ferran, a Catalonian guy that is travelling in the Caucasus, he tells me that he works in Teheran so he invites me to his place. I hope to overlap days with him there, I’d love to visit the city with someone living in it.

A more twisted balcony than others.

A bridge that takes you to the area where the cool cafes are.

We may see it as an old fashion message, but here they are re-living all the cultural movements in fast forward, next to it there was a painting about Parkour(a movement that is kind of like the skate people jumping and doing tricks in the urban morphology but just with sport shoes).

What an scary dentist!

Roofs of the Tbilisi baths. It’s name comes from here, hot water, there are 30 springs.

Silhouette of a Georgian church and the antenna of the city. I’d have personally installed something more discrete but here they even light it up at night like a Christmas tree.

And I leave the country where Stalin was born, where the wheel was invented(here and Mesopotamia) and where the centauries myth was raised(as was the first place where a man riding a horse was seen for the first time). During Soviet times they had four million visitors a years, now it’s a lot less because in our heads war and conflict still resound with it even it’s a totally peaceful land, I think it’s people are bored of war, like most of the places I’ve visited that have had a recent war.

I’ve felt good here, I’ve eaten well and I’ve seen a lot of interesting things. Once more I’d would have stayed longer. With the trip to Svaneti I’ve been two days more than what I initially planned and as I’ve accumulated so many extra days during the trip, the three weeks I wanted to spend in Armenia are going to be three days only.

Soon from Armenia.
Fernando

I wouldn’t believe that after the last video no one is curious to see the inside of a watchtower and the view from top so I’ve done a video to show it to you.

Svaneti is incredible, in each village there’s a forest of towers, there are tens of them. I can’t Imagine how rich this region was when they were built in the 9th to 13th century.

On the way back as you see we had to stop to change a wheel. They changed a flat wheel for another nearly flat one. Here things are just enough for their purpose… or nearly.

I meet again the Israelis I met in Borjomi, they were in bad mood for waking up so early to catch the bus and had no food or drink for the 10 to 12 hours of the journey so they ended up shouting at the driver to stop because they were hungry. The driver was an ass but when you are not in your country you have to adapt. Meanwhile I was enjoying the landscape through the dirty window, the gorge where the road goes is impressive and the river inside is scary. Now I want to go to Israel to find out if all of them are like this couple.

Here are the mountains where the Greek Argonauts came to search for the golden fleece, I was telling you about them in Turkey. Seems I’ve been following the legend. Sometimes I think on getting a book like that and go to where it relates, it would be a literary book full of surprise, it could be beautiful, maybe I do it one day.

In the next post I´ll tell you about Tiblisi, a very interesting city.

See you soon.
Fernando

The way to Mestia, the centre of Svaneti region, didn’t seem to be simple. First I had to arrive to Zugdidi by a Marshrutka(vans with several seat rows like a minibus), from Zugdidi I had to get a 4WD or a Marshrutka to Mestia. This part is not always done in the afternoon and takes 5 to 6 hours mainly by a dirt road.

I was lucky, as soon as I arrived to Zugdidi I got on to a Marshrutka saturated with bags, luggage, cases, undefinable stuff, cafés and people and I arrived to Mestia. On the way I met a couple from Catalonia with whom I searched for a guesthouse. It’s a great place to stay in the village as they feed you as well.

The music is from Mike Oldfield, from his second LP, Hergest Ridge. There are some moments where the symphonic rock doesn’t seem to blend with the scenery too much but as Mike Oldfield is one of my favourite I’ve felt like putting it.

I’ve been three days around here and I’ve edited a little video about it for you to judge how beautiful the place is. Just one data for you to get an idea of how extreme the mountains are here, out of the 2100 glaciers of the Caucasus 30% are in Georgian land

It’s a pity not having taken the mail of the two Canadian girls that recommended me the place, I’d tell them thank you. Even they disrupted all my days and plans I’m happy to not miss this place. Seems that a ski resort is being planned so they’ll do a road and fill up the village with hotels and the atmosphere won’t be the same.

Fortunately, even in the video I say that Ushguli is the end of the road, this is not totally true. The road continues, the thing is that it is nearly impassable. In this area there are still more isolated villages then even if Mestia gets spoilt the Svaneti essence will still be there for whoever ventures to find it.

See you soon.

Fernando

In the morning I go to the bus station where a minibus is going to take me to the Vardzia caves. Yesterday Arthur, the guy in the tourist information office, said that there were two Israelis coming on the trip, I like the idea, I have never been with people from Israel so I’m corious. The banner has Georgian and Russian.

A square on the way.

As I arrive early so I go into the market to buy something.

I buy two water melons that look good… ok, I buy two apples that are smaller.

We make a stop on the way, which is good because after so much F1 I was getting a bit sick.

It’s the Tmogvi castle.

It was built in the 10th century and has fantastic views.

We arrived to the Vardzia caves, the most famous caves in Georgia. It has a mystic importance to the Georgians because of its union with queen Tamar that founded it in 1185 as protection for the Mongols.

From the inside.

There are like 600 caves but there were up to 3000. There are places where it’s carved 50 meters into the rock and it is 15 storeys. An earthquake destroyed a big part in 1283.

You can get into every nook.

A lift between caves and stairs.

The church is one of the highlights

I like the bells.

With the paintings on the ceiling.

I’ve liked Vardzia a lot also I have enjoyed a lot with the Canadian girls. Now they have changed my plan! I wanted to make a quick trip by the south of Georgia, but they’ve talked so well about the mountain area of Svaneti in the north that I’ve decided to change my plans once more and go there…. At the end… that’s why I’m in Georgia, to see mountains.

Soon from the Vardzia mountains
Fernando