Goris and Karabakh - Day 26 - 29

Take the red pill and all your tummy problems be gone..I hope

Just when you're all set to go, the stomach seems to have other thoughts, it rumbles and the toilet becomes your best friend for the morning. I needed a fix and unfortunately the medication my mom stuffed into the backpack is in Mandarin. I can't read it.

I wonder if the free breakfast from the hostel had anything to do with it. But at least my stomach was empty and we made our way south to Goris.

 

While in Georgia,we had met a retired German couple travelling in their custom made 4WD camper. They said Armenia was boring and all the same and Georgia was a lot better. Rather surprising, as we found Armenia to have amazing landscapes that made for a beautiful drive. 

 

Just before we went to Goris we kept a lookout on the GPS for Sisian town. The Polish family sharing our hostel room told us not to miss out Zorats Karer, the Armenian Stonehenge, which predates the Stonehenge in England. We saw a sign for Sisian and took the road in but we couldn't find this place. As we strayed further and further away from the main road, it became clear that Zorats Karer isn't as clearly visible as the family had claimed. Disappointed we went back onto the main road but then I saw little sign. There it is!! and Dion does a quick second right turn , good thing there weren't many cars around. 

As the car was parked on the side of the road, we trekked upwards on the gravelly road. The wind howled as it pushed as faster towards the big crop of stones. The view of the valley below was stunning and there were a lot of stones but nothing that towered over us as we had imagined.A little lodge, at the edge, was the tourist information centre cum souvenir shop. Inside the shop (because I never miss out on visiting a souvenir shop) I saw posters and shirts of big stones with circular holes and prehistoric art. Where are these stones? 

 

Back to the car and opposite the car was a hill, with a chained off area and huge sign denoting it as private property. Curious why another traveller went up this hill, I ducked under the chains and went uphill.

JACKPOT!

I found the Stone circle!

 

 

Happy with this excursion,we continued our drive to Goris and who did we see at the crossroads?

The French Portugese duo! Couldn't give them a lift as they were heading to Iran. Happy to have stumbled onto them and we parted ways again.  

  

The next day, my diarrhea came with a vengeance.  I'm beginning to think that the free breakfast deal in the hostels or little hotels aren't worth it. But still it was rather nice to eat the potato kebab. Even the local policeman stops to have his dinner here.

 

Goris is the town closest to Tatev monastery and also the last stop before entering Nagorno Karabakh.

We did the easy way which was a cable ride to the monastery, the Wings of Tatev , a government sponsored foundation that aims to fully restore Tatev back to its glory. On the ride we pass the Vorotan valley. The high position of the sun casted a rather harsh light on it . The sometimes heart stopping informative ride which lasted 12 minutes, pointed out some things below. 

At Tatev, we explored every nook and cranny of the small compound. After coming out of Tatev we saw a route marker for Tatev village, but feeling weak and tired, we headed back to Goris.

 

The next day we drove towards Karabakh. There are two ways to get a Karabakh visa, one from the capital in Yerevan, which was a lot more complicated, or you could just crossed the border and then head straight to the Karabakh capital, Stepanakert, to get your visa. We did the latter.

We first saw the sign for a castle as we turned around a corner, our GPS had shown that the border was close. There were some flags and and a small building that looked like a security hut for a national park or tourist visitation compound. There was a stop sign so we stopped and wasn't sure what to do next.

Is this the border control??

Some man from inside waved at us and yelled for us to come out. So out we went with our passports.

Yes it was indeed ...strange border outpost. He didn't do much besides asking us where we would be staying and taking note of our entry into Karabakh country and later gave us a little slip of paper, half the size of a business card,where we could formally get our entry visas from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Good thing that it was a Monday afternoon so we headed straight to the address in Stepanakert, which wasn't too hard to find and we got our visas in a separate piece of paper. 

It took us half an hour to find our hostel, we couldn't find the exact address and the locals didn't know where One Way hostel was. They did tell us where Hotel Armenia was but that wasn't in our budget!

When we found it at last it was quite literally behind the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building  =_=

Sneaky hostel. 

We rested for a bit and went for a walk towards this monument. 

Not very hard to find it but it was a very long walk. 

After that we headed into the little city so I could do my usual, hunt for postcards. I made a quick stop at the post office to buy some stamps but I didn't want to gamble on buying them in bulk because I hadn't seen any souvenir shops or postcards. As I came out from the post office, Dion had made a new friend while doing the manly thing (waiting for me :p ). A local who didn't speak much English was making conversation. In this little city where the people are all dark haired and small, Dion was a blonde giant.

There was a park in a huge roundabout, where I lost Dion, but I had a personal mission. I needed to get postcards! So I did the next best thing, perhaps the Hotel Armenia had a souvenir shop. They did.

But they didn't have postcards, they did however show me a lovely set of stamps..which would be a stamp collector's dream. The staff were really friendly and told me where I could find postcards.

It was in a large stationery shop which sold some souvenirs. After buying my hoard I walked back towards the hostel through the park and that was when Dion called out to me.

He was again sitting with another local. Do locals just like giant people or was I not very approachable? Maybe I just need to be still so someone could talk to me.

The next day, just before we left, I made a pitstop at the post office to drop off my postcards.

We left at 10am to make the long drive to Lake Sevan, but the staff

didn't want to let us go until we had our picture with them :) As we got into our car, a Red Cross

Landcruiser honked at us and the driver stopped to say goodbye to Dion. Yes, Dion made another friend while I was at the post office!

I put Borneo onto their map of visitors from foreign lands :)

I spent less than a full day in Karabakh, but it was enough to feel the heart of the people. 

They are not so excluded from the rest of the world even if no one knows where Karabakh is (besides postcard aficionados and travellers who like visiting separatist regions >.> ). Beautiful ladies in the latest trend, men with open curiosity and friendly smiles, we heard more life stories in one day here than we did anywhere else and that beats seeing touristic sites!