Alien Heartbeat

Bad Dogs Get Eaten

Walked today up to Haghartsin Monastery, near the top of a tree covered mountain. A beautiful walk, the Autumn road lined with carpets of red, and the trees still dressed in yellow that had not yet fallen. In some places so dense it seemed like a mist:

There was the sound of a stream and ice in the air. There were snow-covered mountains nearby, but I wasn’t going that high:

Around lunchtime I reached Haghartsin, a monastery built about 800 years ago and whose name means Dancing Eagles. A nice place, being ill-restored, and somewhat overrun by very pleasant cows:

Even so it had a certain timelessness:

and people still came to its ancient chapels to make offerings:

The walk back was 12km mostly downhill, and by the time I reached the bottom of the mountain I had two blue toes.

I rejoined a main road populated by dogs with anger-management issues. At one stage I was surprised by a pack of 5 or 6 nasty looking canines charging at me out of a gate. I swung my big stick and roared at them. To my amazement it worked. Perhaps they sensed I had spent long periods in countries where bad dogs get eaten, or perhaps people in Armenia just don’t roar at dogs. In any event they backed off in total disarray.

I would have liked to have taken off my boots as I was really limping now, but the cold and the dogs meant no: every few hundred meters I would get menaced by a couple of large hairy specimens, and would have to swing the big stick at them and growl “come on you miserable punks, make my day”. I was unsure if this would have been as convincing bootless.

In the end, none of them decided they wanted to make my day and I limped home late. I hadn’t had lunch so stopped for a snack of bread and whey. But for the evening I decided that some meat-eating would be in order.

(events 14 Nov 2012)

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The Indigestible Man

A few hours later I emerged at the bottom of the old road through the Sevan Pass, still unrelaxed, but without even a little bite taken out of me. Either the beasts couldn’t see me in the fog, or if they could, I looked like a particularly indigestible member of my species. (An Armenian friend later did a news search – there had been wolf attacks in the region, though no one, to his knowledge, had been eaten.)

The end of the pass rejoined the highway. There was no shoulder to walk on, and given the fog and the trucks and the unpoetic probability of being taken out by a truck in the fog, I hitched a ride for a few kms till just after a fork when a road for humans re-appeared. Here I was now below the fog:

No snow either but it was wet. From now it was a steady slope downhill to Dilijan.

For quite a while I followed what seemed to be some type of old drainage stream at the bottom of some hills carpeted with fallen leaves:

This working substation (or whatever it is) doesn’t appear to have received recent maintenance. Though as beautiful as it was, I am glad it was not the source of my evening’s electricity:

Many of the houses along the road were big but somewhat shambolic. But despite seeming almost thrown together, smoke from cooking fires and washing hanging outside gave them a homely feel:

Apartment buildings were marginally less shambolic than the houses (though having been in a few, while solid-looking from the outside, they often seemed to be crumbling on the inside).

This was a semi-rural area, with quite a few farms set into the hillside. Mostly mixed farms, with pigs, sheep, cows, chickens, turkeys. This is a meat-eating populace.

However despite the constructed-from-leftovers feel of the place, there was no denying its beauty:

(events 13 Nov 2012 pm)

Last Chance Saloon

The morning I left Lake Sevan snow was forecast. Looking across the lake, white liquid clouds rolled down the mountain tops in the morning light, and flowed into the far shores. Above them, the unrelieved black of a coming storm:

My starting point was clear but wet, the road ahead looked uninviting, and I was clearly headed into storm:

Today the route was the old road over the Sevan Pass.

Walking highways is unrewarding, so to avoid this I took a taxi out of town to Semyonovka, a few kms before the start of the pass. Semyonovka is an end-of-the-world type town, a last-chance saloon at the edge of civilization. It looked like it had been at the end of the world for a very long time.

I stopped to check directions, though there was only one road. The locals said I was crazy: Wolves, serious wolves. They made big munching motions around my head. Burly men with an unexpected sense of humour.

It was now sleeting and there was ice on the road. A cold white fog now settled. Too wet and foggy for photos.

I wondered why I had never read of other travelers getting worried about road dangers: Heinrich Harrer (Seven Years in Tibet), Paddy Fermor (A Time of Gifts), or even Basho… I guessed I had spent too long at desks.

I took the cover off my knife pouch, put the camera in my backpack so my hands were free and headed in. Real unrelaxed.

It was a striking place: cold, white, absolutely deserted.

(events 13 Nov 2012 am)

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Motherless Men

I arrived at the edge of Lake Sevan after sun had gone down. But in the last of the light the clouds falling into the other side of the lake looked like liquid methane rolling down the frozen sides of Titan:

These falling clouds extended for what I guessed was about 30km on the other shore, and with even less light I took a 2nd shot (iso 1600) showing clouds, glacier-like, running down a valley:

The lake covers 5% of modern Armenia, and freezes over in winter. Legend has it that as the locals huddled in the hilltop Sevanavank monastery awaiting death, the ice cracked and the approaching Arab invaders fell through, leaving the lake black with bodies, hence the name “Black Lake”.

There was an icy wind blowing off the lake, about 0°C, so I thought I better find somewhere to stay quickly. There was a ‘hotel’ nearby, the only one on the peninsula open in winter, and run, regrettably, by four men. One of them said, in a heavy accent: “you pay me now, cash.” This is always a bad sign, as it suggests the guests are usually so unhappy by the next day that they don’t want to pay. That was certainly the case this time also.

I have always wondered what gets taught at hotel management schools. Surely hospitality is something your mother teaches you? I guess some men just have no mothers.

(events 11 Nov 2012)

Offered A Woman

Walked today along the old road from Kecharis Monastery to Lake Sevan, about 32km and an ascent of 740m, through rolling prairies littered with thousand year old churches high on hilltops

and scattered post Soviet debris

Through towns with names like Tsaghkunk and smelling of cow manure and great fermenting piles of hay.

For the most part the road lay along a valley floor and the churches were on great hill tops and after three or four hours I no longer had the burning vital forces necessary to find and ascend the tracks up to them.

I was at one point passed by a wedding procession of about 30 cars, honking and shouting. Some of the drivers stuck their head out the window and asked something in Armenian that just sounded like wtf are you doing here in the middle of nowhere.

A couple stopped to pick me up but when I indicated to them I wanted to walk, they determined I must be insane and looked grateful that I didn’t actually get in.

A pair of likely lads did stop their car and try their luck, for fun and profit, but for the most part just the fact that I was here, with a backpack, a long stride and a big stick was enough to advise caution.

Not sure where this was, maybe about 1/2 way? To the left is an abandoned factory. Those pipes line the road in many places and are gas pipes; I don’t know what happens when someone runs into them.

For the first time also I started passing the old metal containers that are often painted and used as houses. I guess they were left behind when the Soviets abandoned the place. There are people living here – you can see the chickens. Though the vehicle seems to be beyond reclamation.

Near the end of the day I was on a deserted intersection at the edge of Sevan town trying to work out which arm of a fork to take. The problem was the lake is 78km long and lack of foresight meant I wasn’t sure exactly which part of it I needed to head for.

Two gents motioned me into their shop front and I thought a cup of strong Armenian coffee would be no bad thing right now. Instead their offer was more traditional: alcohol and a woman. Of the latter they had only one, but she seemed to be enough. Plenty of body, plenty of makeup, and a big smile. But both alcohol and woman looked a little strong for me. I mentioned that day I had walked from Tsanghkor and was very tired. “You walk so far, you are very strong. Definitely you can handle this woman”. I looked at her again. This seemed implausible, even for a man of my accomplishments. So instead I spoke well of her clear charms, but regretfully took my leave.

Their directions were as ill thought-out as their business plan, so I was now lost as darkness was imminent. Also, I did not know where on the vast shore of the lake I was going to stay, or how to get there even if I did. I happened across a group of grizzled taxi drivers with their old Russian taxis. I had an idea and suggested where they might take me. Ooh they said, that is 10km, it will cost 1000 dram ($2.50).

By this time I knew it was about 5km, and should be about 500 dram, but if an old Armenian taxi driver, a man born under Stalin, and who has seen off the Soviets, can’t cheat a foreigner out of a dollar, what is life worth?

So I got into his richly carpeted taxi, taking care not to break anything with my stick, and off we drove.

(events 12 Nov 2012)

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A Thousand Years of Prayer

Started walk today at Kecharis Monastery, built 1100 to 1300. It is one of the least famous of the monasteries I expect to see, but so far seems the most beautiful, just because it is still in use.

From the old stones emerged the high counterpoint singing of the ancient Mass: the priest blessing, the faithful answering. The smell of frankincense rising as prayers are supposed to rise to God.

The rhythms were so familiar, the ancient Mass I had learnt as a child, that I didn’t think to listen to what language they were using. The Latin of the Roman church, which the Armenians pre-date? Aramaic, the language of Christ, used in the Coptic Mass? I later discovered it was Armenian, and had been since the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the year 404.

As a mass was going on the in the main church, this picture is of a smaller chapel to the right of the main church. You can see the light from the candles inside:

A thousand years old and people still pray here:

In fact Christianity was brought to Armenia in the 1st Century by two of the 12 apostles of Christ. Over the two millenia since then, Armenians have not only built churches on top of many mountains throughout Armenia, but died defending them.

Yet a church is not just where people come to pray, but where they come to be buried:

Outside, thousand year old gravestones. But these stones carry no memory of the people for whom they were placed, or even of the hands that carved and placed them there. They carry the message that everything returns to the earth from which it came:

I took a few minutes here to remember my father who had studied four years to be a monk, left it to fight in the dark hours of the 2nd World War, and has now returned to the same earth as these ancient Armenians.

Then, in deference to the thousand years of faith represented here, I made a small donation, lit a few candles and received a blessing.

Finished, I shouldered my pack, picked up my stick and began my days walk.

(events 11 Nov 2012)

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Narrow Road to the Deep North

Armenia is not such a big place, and the North is full of mountains, forests and ancient lives:

so I decided the best way to see it would be, like Matsuo Basho in “Narrow Road to the Deep North”, to walk:

Started this morning, and the route covers about 500km, two mountain passes and a lake.

The passes are snow-covered at this time of year but I have good gear. Pack weight is about 16kg.

The prevailing Armenian view seems to be “You’re crazy. Nobody does this.” Good enough.

By way of precaution I carry a big stick (for dogs), and a heavy Russian knife (for wolves) strapped to my ankles.

And this time, a map.

(pictures above taken from first 4 days)

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