A Caucasian Calamity

The plan? Walk the length of Armenia. The team? One man with a cracking moustache and appropriate clothing, the other? Brendan. The Armenian section of the Transcaucasian trail is a newly completed, 800km long network of trails. It joins ancient paths, Soviet 4×4 tracks and unmarked wilderness sections, weaving a serpentining route through the diverse landscapes of the Lower Caucasus mountains. However, our plan to venture along its length was destined for failure. So, let’s swim back against the relentless flow of time and follow those bright eyed and bushy tailed boys leaving Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, for the northern start of the trail beside Lake Arpi. 

Day 1 – Bucket Meat  

With our bags loaded and my facial hair inspiring nothing but disgust and the startled half-second when the man in the mirror appeared as a stranger, we were on the fast train from Yerevan to Gyumri. The night had come and gone, sweeping away all remnants of the tawny atmospheric haze that had been choking the horizon for days and in its absence stood a behemoth. The volcanic symbol of Armenia, Ararat, stood unburdened. Its snowy summit lay across the Turkish border and offered a stark contrast to the dark slopes which swept onto the fertile plains of Armenia. As the train got going, Ararat was a constant backdrop. While closer to the window, rusting train yards sprawled out on a web of disused lines, a gently corroding reminder of the forgotten might of the unified Soviet rail system. Behind and beyond the twisted metal, farmers bent over crops that were untouched by even the slightest suggestion of a breeze and their Ladas were strewn untidily along hedgerows.

In Gyumri, we quickly got a taxi to take us to Lake Arpi. Our driver didn’t speak English but was friendly and we were feeling pretty happy with ourselves on how well the journey was going so far. 

After an hour or so we had turned off the main road to the north and started to head through smaller villages. Not long after, our driver pulled in to talk to a doctor walking on the side of the road. While Armenian was indecipherable to us, we got the gist from the body language that something wasn’t going to plan. It turned out the road beyond the village was terrible and our driver was not keen to destroy his Opal Zafira’s suspension for our sake. So, we were politely kicked out, told that there would probably be a mashrutka (shared minivan) that would come by at some point and then left to fend for ourselves in this small Armenian village. This minor spanner in the works wasn’t to dampen our spirits though, and after a little wait under the watchful gaze of the local inhabitants, we managed to hitch a ride with a mountain guide and his customers. They dropped us at the lake around 1pm but we still had 18km to walk that day, so we took a selfie and set off. 

 
Our first day on the TCT was solely confined to a gravel road and remained a flat and easy introduction to the hike. While it wasn’t quite wild yet, the road was bordered by a sea of purple, white and yellow wildflowers chattering with life. Walking through the remote villages, was an interesting look into rural Armenia and in each one we thought it was essential to foster the walking brand of ‘those nice boys’ so we were throwing out a ‘barev dzez’ (formal way to say hello) at every opportunity. We had even consigned ourselves to learning how to say the ridiculously long word for thank you (shnor-rah-kalut-syun). Our aggressive friendliness bounced back in our favour in no time when three young lads offered us some fish they had just caught. While the sentiment was appreciated (an offering of food is a primal and sacred thing), neither of us were keen to learn the ins and outs of fish butchery on our first night of wild camping in rural Armenia.  

As we powered on, the haphazard roadside dance of countless butterflies seemed to diminish while dark clouds were whipping together into a maelstrom of atmospheric malintent. For most of the hike, the winds were corralling the clouds and their thunderous grumblings just off to our left but, around 5km from our camp, the wind changed. The torrential rain came as we entered Met Sepasar and there was little we could do about it. However, a few hundred metres down the road a huge, blue, rusty Russian truck pulled over, the door flew open, and we were beckoned in. There was only enough room for one on the bench seat, but we managed to get both of us in there with our big rucksacks. The men in the truck were called Alexa and Sergei and they spoke no English, but we soon found common ground in the unlikely realm of Latin pop songs from the last decade. Alexa had quickly whipped out his phone and started playing Danza Kuduro, a Spanish pop classic from 2010 and then professed his love for the music and philosophy icon that is Pitbull. I immediately felt a connection to this random Armenian man because I too live by Pitbull’s teachings. While one could ponder on the complexities, subtleties and and nuances of Pitbull’s teachings for millennia, one of his most profound truths, the one axiom that I carry with me through the tumult modern life, goes like this:  

“You may have a plan; it never plans out. But somehow, ironically, it plans out”  

With the rain hammering, and us jamming away to unlikely Spanish tunes, we had a shot or two of vodka and a hunk of barbecued meat from an unappealing white plastic bucket. It was comforting to know that middle-aged men everywhere, even in the Armenian backwaters, are aspiring pit masters. BBQs, much like a crisis of identity and Lycra-clad road cycling, seem to be key facets of middle age. However, these Armenian guys were still definitely at the entry turnstile of midlife. With that decline in bodily functions and overall happiness looming on the fast-approaching horizon, they obviously hadn’t yet invested their time in their BBQ technique, that meat was horribly cremated. 

They drove us a few hundred metres down the road and they offered for us to stay with them, but this was our first night on the trail and we knew we would camp, come rain or shine. As we opened the creaking door and got out we were presented with a parting gift, a solitary beer. Buoyed by this early friendliness and the strangeness of grasping one lukewarm beer in the middle of nowhere, we finished our hike in high spirits. On those last few kilometres, we passed a picnic shelter area and judged it to be a prime location to cook our dinner out of the rain. However, inside were some local guys, all drinking and eating, and they called us over to join them. We went off to put up our tents first, Brendan’s getting soaking wet in the process, but then we returned to the picnic shelter for the evening. 

Roma and Arkadi were really lovely guys teaching us lots of Armenian and Russian which would be invaluable in the next few weeks. The other guy was Pyotr and by this early hour of the evening every sheet at his disposal was flapping wildly in the wind. Unfortunately, he was sat next to me and had decided that we were going to be best friends, an idea I was strongly against. Either way, we had a lovely evening sharing their food, being peer pressured into downing vodka and learning about each other through the little-celebrated medium of mime. After they insisted we stay in their houses, they left and we cooked some of our own dinner with the ingredients they left for us. Then we went back to our tents to find mine had collapsed, a slightly dispiriting portent for the rest of the trip. 

Day 2 – Dabbing For Fruit 

Getting out of my tent with the sunrise, I watched the crimson river tug the blanket of cloud from the mountaintop and hoped Brendan would get up soon. He did, and after a quick breakfast of water-based porridge (made edible with a tonne of condensed milk and toasted almonds) we were on our way. 

The first half of the day was a mix of trail walking through wildflower meadows on the lowland border of mountains and walking through small Armenian villages. These rural settlements often looked abandoned on first glace. Shells of trucks were sunken among long grasses, cracks and holes furnished inhabited and uninhabited houses alike and tiny tractors that belonged in a Soviet museum sat rusting at the roadside. But people did live in these places, along the long quiet dusty roads that made these villages feel like they belonged in the Wild West, people tended to their animals or picked vegetables in their front gardens. The rare moments of activity came when shepherds met in the street, bringing sheep, dogs and chatter to the stillness. In contrast to the chatty rabbles of old shepherds, the wildflower meadows and streams between the villages were places for the frenetic and raucous charge of the Armenian cowboys. They called out across the vast green expanses and steered their responsive horses with incredible dexterity.

We had a little lunch break at the village of Hartashen, where we filled up our bottles from a spring and then got going into the mountains. Following a stream, we were heading exclusively uphill into what looked a lot like Wales. After an uncomfortably steep section through some thick wildflowers, I swapped my socks for some less sweaty ones (to stem the start of a blister) and we had a sit down in the gentle breeze.  

The rest of the day was a simple matter of following valleys and trying not to be mauled to death by packs of huge Georgian sheepdogs. Cresting a hill and seeing the roof of a farmstead quickly appear in front of us was a sign to quickly turn off and detour. Despite our very wide diversions up onto steep mountain slopes (much to Brendan’s ankle discomfort), or traipsing through thick undergrowth that obscured the ground, the dogs were ferocious in their protection of their land, often running far from the farmstead to scare us away.

We set up camp for the night on a patch of mountainside, just past a farmstead. These muddy, smelly patches of ground that people call home for the summer, are often right next to the springs for drinking water. This means that if you want to hydrate you have to run the risk of fighting a dog to the death. Our camp was nice though, and after cooking a huge dinner of rice with smoked sausage, we had a very undignified wash in the stream and I retired to my tent to snooze, write and read. While I rested, Brendan was happily communicating with a group of young boys on the neighbouring hill, not through hand gestures, smoke signals or morse code, his communication strategy of choice was dabbing. When I woke back up an hour later Brendan excitedly told me that through his long-distance communication with the boys, he had successfully gained us a bag full of apricots. 

Day 3 – Face to Face With The Multiverse  

As we finished our apricots and porridge for breakfast, the sunlight gathered and slowly conquered more mountainside from the twilight of morning. Nevertheless, we revelled in the glittering coolness of that dewy shade for as long as we could. Once the sun had besieged the land, we settled into our morning of inconvenient farmstead detours. Big ol’ barevs were being thrown out alongside some dominant waves to anyone around. As per usual, this friendliness paid off because farmers would often call their dogs back, tie them up or come to our aid. Coming down one hill, mercifully unpursued by dogs, we could hear a faint rumble, but the skies were clear. As the thunderous sound grew louder, we looked around to see what foe we might have to face now, but instead of an enemy, we saw a stampede of wild horses galloping in a graceful sweep across the mountainside.  

After crossing grassy mountain plains, fording rivers in deep valleys and slogging up gravely slopes, we came to what we expected to be the last farmstead of the day. We had spotted the area from afar and saw that there were in fact three farms clustered together and plenty of dogs. After some deliberation, we decided we would try and skirt around the left. We had quickly received a friendly reciprocal wave from one shepherd, and he even waved us in, to say hi. However, his dogs obviously hadn’t got the memo and ran out to cut us off. With four dogs running at us, and nowhere to back off to (due to the cliff beside us), we gripped our walking poles tightly and prepared our bodies and minds for violence. As they got close, I tried talking calmly to the dogs trying to avoid any further escalation, then they began circling us. At this point, I think they correctly identified us as people and not the wolves or bears they were sworn to attack. This meant that, while still occasionally barking and circling us, they looked a little more submissive. My very real premonition of having to kick a dog square in the face and follow it with an almighty lunge with my sharp walking pole, dissipated and became another thread in the multiverse. Each conscious or unconscious choice a branching of possibilities, a concertina of parallel universes with different James Slaters who had chosen different paths. That specific James killed a dog or two, and it changed him. For better or for worse, we will never know.

Anyway, back in our universe I was still eyeing the dogs and talking to them. The shepherd had run out, called off the dogs and helped us back to his collection of huts where his two friends were peeling potatoes and organising assorted containers of milk in the fenced courtyard. They gave us water and then invited us for lunch.  

There were two buildings made from wood, plastic tarpaulins and cardboard. We were invited into the one with the pitched roof where they slept, ate and warmed themselves by the stove. Much like our first night, their lack of English and our enthusiasm to learn Armenian meant we made a good impression and learnt lots of new words. We ate cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, bread, jam, meat and onions and enjoyed trying to chat with them. They were insistent that we must drink three very large shots of vodka with them despite understanding that we still had at least four hours of hiking to do. Bargaining was no use because apparently drinking two shots was impossible, an unthinkable compromise, so we downed three purely out of politeness. Afterwards, we both had an unctuous sweet Turkish coffee to make the buzz even more pronounced and then got going.  

The rest of the walking wasn’t strenuous, first we dropped out of the mountains to the lovely village of Katnaghbyur. People were out stacking hay extremely high in their yards and then covering it with tarpaulins, washing was being hung out and a man was attempting to fix a tractor but had somehow managed to get oil all over his face. He looked like a third rate, skinny commando who had been overzealous with the camo paint. People were friendly in Katnaghbyur and it had a buzz to it that other villages had lacked. Beyond the village we entered the endless wildflower meadows, which we crossed for the rest of the day. The variety of colour was kaleidoscopic, but the density was what impressed me most. The flowers were truly an interwoven patchwork of life, a thigh-high rainforest and I was gazing over the canopy. The meadow extended as far as you could see. When looking for a place to camp because Brendan was verging on collapse, we set our sights on some green hills which looked grassy and sat above the slightly boggy, mosquito filled basin of flowers. However, when we got there we realised that, while the ground wasn’t boggy, it was still knee-high with the almost impenetrable blanket of purples, whites and yellows of flowers. Our useless human eyes just couldn’t process the flowers from distance, so the hill had looked grassy and green. So, I said to Brendan that we should keep moving, we would try one more promising looking hill, near to Urasar Lake, and camp there come what may.  

I forged a path ahead to check the hillside, luckily it was mostly flower-free and had far fewer mosquitos roaming around in search of a meal than the last one. I found us a flat area and lay down my bag to watch the huge white storks scythe through the stagnant air of the boggy depression, a place only winged creatures could inhabit, an intangible ether between the untamed floral beauty and the dynamic swell of the heavens. 

After casually chatting to a cowboy who came by our humble camp, Brendan and I made our noodle dinner at a strange sunken stone circle on top of the hill. Both of us happy to perch above the grass and to air our blistered feet on the warm stones. Before crawling into our tents, we journaled, chatted and listened to the chirp of something, the moo of something else and the gentle rumble of wind in our ears. Just two nice boys having a nice ol’ evening. 

Day 4 – A Stiff Upper Lip Only Gets You So Far 

We were on our way with our normal haste, trying to get some kilometres under our belt before the sweat poured forth. We crossed a slightly boggy, grassy expanse beyond Urasar Lake, each of our footfalls awakening a new band of blood-hungry savages from the grass, and followed it down to our right until we reached the edge of the forest. There, hidden by the heavy twisted boughs, was the start of an old track. This rocky trail led us downhill through the ancient deciduous woodland towards the rumble of water. At the river Sev, all we had to do was follow the water for the rest of the morning, taking in the views of the large tree covered cliffs on the opposite bank, a green wall that seemed almost to defy gravity. As the sun forced its way through gaps in the forest’s foliage, it struck areas of long grass or the towering skeletal stems of thistles, liberating the dew on their surfaces as tendrils of steam.  

The pleasant morning walk ended in Stepanavan, a charming town in Lori province and a lovely place to resupply (even if the shop assistants followed us around the store watching our every move).  

From Stepanavan, there was a long slog uphill through a forest, both on dirt trails and 4×4 tracks. At the top it was an easy downhill cruise to Pushkino and then Gargar where we had a guesthouse booked. However, on reaching the top of the hill, Brendan had slowed considerably. I could see he was trying to hide the pain of his blister and his chafing that he had been developing over the last day, but it was clear he was really struggling. 

In Gargar we found the guesthouse, but the friendly grandma at the gate didn’t speak English. She didn’t know we were staying there and we weren’t even sure we were in the right place. Even so, she invited us in for coffee and touched our arms and shoulders an awful lot while she spoke. She was very smiley, and it was good to sit down out of the sun even if it meant occasionally being touched by a stranger. After her son arrived, we got everything sorted, collapsed into our room and had much-needed showers. After washing, the mood of nicely scented relief shifted; Brendan’s huge blister on the sole of his foot was yellow with infection, and he assured me that his chafed groin was rotten to the core too. This would need a doctor’s attention as soon as possible, and to make matters worse, his phone had completely stopped working. We sorted out transport and accommodation for Brendan to go back to Yerevan the next day at 6am, while I repacked by bag to continue alone. The hope was that after a few days rest he could rejoin me on the trail, but little did we know that our hiking days were done.   

Day 5 – ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’ 

After a cold rubbish breakfast of leftover eggs and frankfurters given to me by the guesthouse owner who had shown very little interest in Brendan’s plight or our needs, I got back onto the road. The two dogs that had been hanging around the courtyard of the Guesthouse seemed happy to see me that morning and as I started walking they came with me. It’s pretty common for dogs to follow hikers on trails, but I thought these dogs looked well fed and would turn back at the far edge of the town, but no. Despite me telling them in an unconvincing and desperately lonely tone to return home, they kept coming. First, we walked along pleasant tracks on the wide valley floor, where flowers grew abundantly and the only person I saw was an old man taking his cow for a walk. But soon we were off into the dense woodland, the trail had disappeared and I was hacking my way uphill, getting caught on branches and angrily sweating. It was truly horrible but the dogs were still with me. The bigger, younger one was a girl and the smaller older one was a boy. They would be Bonnie and Clyde.  

Bonnie was a bouncy, friendly dog that walked beside me or just ahead of me, making eye contact and obviously enjoying herself. Clyde was much more uneasy, he walked behind me and was unhappy with the metronomic swing of my walking poles. However, as we emerged from the tangled woodland hell and into the open air of the soft grassy mountaintop, Clyde began to trust me more. Brendan may have abandoned me, but I was not alone.  

Heading downhill for the rest of the day, I was enjoying the warm breeze and the buzz of summer through the desiccating undergrowth. We were briefly charged by two huge sheepdogs, but they were both terrified of me, one slinking back to his owner and the other timidly following us for kilometres. This huge dirty dog kept a wary distance from me while desperately fawning over Bonnie. Despite her lack of interest, he kept coming. After initially aiming to scare him off, I got settled into walking as a foursome. However, as Armenia turned its way more deeply into the sun’s unblinking gaze, Harry (yes, I named him too) slowed considerably. On reaching the outskirts of Kurtan, some 20km or so since the start of the day, it was back to the three of us.  

I ate some lunch in the shade of a sheltered picnic bench, next to a spring. Rural Armenia is liberally scattered with these structures; the spring is usually piped through a memorial tombstone of sorts, with the family also constructing a shelter for people to enjoy the fresh clean water in the shade. Finding these places in amongst the mountains was a lifeline and I happily sat there eating Lavash (Armenian flatbread). With all three of us feeling well rested, we soon entered Kurtan.  

With a stray dog either side of me, sweat falling freely from my brow and undoubtedly a smell emanating from me that would’ve put the dogs to shame, I don’t think I was the most appealing sight to the inhabitants of Kurtan. Nevertheless, ‘Barev dzez’ and ‘Bari luis’ (good morning) were being tossed out to everyone with a smile. Brendan may have gone but the need to be a nice boy was not. Nearing the end of the village, a young guy said ‘Barev dzez’ back and then added ‘Can I help you with anything?’ in flawless English. This was a shock; I hadn’t heard English from anyone outside of the Guesthouse in Gargar. I replied that I was ok and then he asked if I had eaten lunch. I doubted that this mysterious friendly man would count perching in picnic shelter hunched over some 2-day old lavash as “lunch” and I was right, he immediately invited me to come for lunch at his grandfather’s house.  

Back the way I had come and following a complete stranger, who also had a small child and another man in tow, we eventually got to the house. I cannot emphasise enough how disgustingly sweaty I was at that moment, but despite this, all hospitality was extended to me. I was told to treat the place like my own grandfather’s house, to make myself at home, take off my shoes and relax. All of that sounded wonderful but I was a little worried how my feet might smell after being released from their snug incarceration. As I shoved off the boots and sat on the beautiful wrap around porch, overlooking the gardens I began to relax. My saviour was Hamlet, a TV host and tour guide in Yerevan, who had come back home to see friends and family. We went out into the garden to pick some raspberries and currants and then he offered me some ice-cold fruit drink made by his mother a year earlier. It was a simple drink made their own fresh fruit, some sugar and water. It was then left to marinade for a year, and it was delicious.  

Sat outside revelling in my luck and keeping an eye on Bonnie and Clyde who had been allowed to lie in the shaded courtyard, the chubby child who had been with us came and sat next to me. It turned out he was Hamlet’s cousin and he had brought with him an old Russian spyglass that he intended to show me. After he had demonstrated the power of the spyglass and I had shown him my camera, he decided it was time for some cards. Unfortunately, he didn’t know any card games so I taught him something simple and he loved it. I was now his favourite person. Four of us played cards happily until lunch was called. I ate my fill, while Hamlet translated questions from a whole host of his friends who worked in construction in the village and of course the nameless chubby child. The food was delicious, fresh and simple with some of the classic Armenian salty cheese being homemade by one of the friend’s mum. We took some photos together, and then some of the friends dropped me at the end of the village. Bonnie and Clyde ran behind the car to keep up, but only Bonnie had the pace. Clyde got left behind. 

There wasn’t much I could do but walk on, especially with the thunderclouds pushing and shoving, rolling and rumbling across the sky towards me. The first and most important task was to get down the almost sheer cliff edge to the bottom of the canyon. The path was a nightmare to get down, it was overgrown, a little wet and unforgivingly steep. On one section I slipped on the wet grass in my haste to escape the storm but I didn’t realise that in the same instance my sleeping mat had taken its own momentary chance to escape from my bag. Once at the base of the cliff, Bonnie and I half walked, half ran towards Hnevank monastery where we would be picked up. While this eagerness moved us forward at a good speed it did end up leading us astray, into the chest-high wildflowers and thorny thickets choking the banks around the monastery. As we fought tooth and nail to reach sanctuary, the rain began, and Bonnie hugged my heels.  

Past the monastery and soaking wet I was picked up, while Bonnie ran behind the car again to stay with me. We then spent the night on a forested slope at the beginnings of Debed canyon. I slept in a chipboard shed while Bonnie slept on a mossy stone looking over the surrounding “glamping” ground.  

Day 6 – CHRIS! Is that a weed? I’m calling the police! 

Waking up, feeding Bonnie a sausage and firing up the old sub-waist pistons required very little thought, instead Bonnie and I focussed our combined attention span on the insane views down the valley. The silken morning light threw definition aside opting instead for pure ambience. The saffron infused colour of morning did not diminish its clarity, and the freshness was still suffused with the hint of the dewy night that had preceded it.  

First, we walked downstream, following the valley past a dog sleeping in a rusted-out shell of a hut, and towards the cliffs on the far side. Before the steep and hot ascent, we had to negotiate our way through a very unwelcoming group of cows. They didn’t take kindly to Bonnie so ran at us aggressively. Bonnie growled and charged back on occasions trying to protect me but also hid beside me, knowing I could use my sticks to ward off death by hoof.  

At the top of the aforementioned cliffs, we walked over a short section of grassy plateau, reaching the stunning village of Tsater not long after. Just outside the village a shepherd and I made polite, stunted conversation and I took my time to admire the view. Tsater was a village on the edge. Sitting on the grassy plateau, some houses were mere metres from the edge of the canyon, where a large vertical precipice dropped onto steep wild slopes below. In its verdant isolation the village remained traditional and pristine.  

From Tsater, we dropped in height and then followed the canyon from just below its final vertical cliff. The path was intermittently horrible for someone with a large bag. All manner of thorny, stingy and spiky things grew along this narrow track, seemingly most frequently trodden by some illusive cows. While the jaggy qualities of the track snagged me and caused me anguish, the footing was hidden from view by bushes, thick tangled grasses and at one point, the rampant growth of marijuana. Nothing like fighting through cannabis on the side of a steep canyon in oppressive heat to make you feel like you need that one thing that you know will just relax your mind. Something to make you breathe deeply and reevaluate things. Something to drain the anxiety away and help you just chill out. So, I harvested what remaining energy I had so I could make it to the hostel and grab that shower, nothing is more relaxing in this world.  

In Tumanyan, the hostel was incredibly cheap, cool and well planned. I immediately thought two nights there might be a good idea. It would give me a chance to rest, nurse my blistered feet and most importantly try and figure out why Bonnie was limping.  

Day 7 – A Tough Decision  

My rest day was not a fun one. I spent the whole time trying to find out what was wrong with my dog. She let me pick up her paws and inspect them but there nothing there. She followed me everywhere, while being constantly hounded by a horrible dog that I couldn’t scare away. She never begged for food, even when I was eating near her, but I bought her a lot of pelmeni so she could have a good meal. After a day of searching for, and messaging, dog rescue centres and charities in Armenia I knew that I would have to leave her in Tumanyan. I had a long day (over 30km) to walk the next day and with her limp I didn’t want her to be in any more pain. Also, I had decided after that 30+ kilometre day I would be going back to Yerevan to see if Brendan had survived. There was no chance I could take her with me and Tumanyan was a nice enough village. The only problem was how to give her the slip, she waited outside every door for me, happily wagging her tail when we saw me again. It would be hard, logistically and emotionally. Nevertheless, tears were shed and plans were hatched.  

Day 8 – Up and Out

Leaving the main level of the hostel to head down to the separate kitchen, I was hoping Bonnie wouldn’t be waiting but she was outside the door and got so excited to see me with my big bag, ready for another adventure. As I made a luxury breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and tried not to think about leaving this sweet and loyal companion in this strange new place, some local boys came by the door and scared her off around to the main door of the hostel. This gave me the opportunity to jump a wall and slip away across the football pitch in front of the hostel, out of sight from the main entrance.  

It was a sad start to the day, but when I got back onto the main trail I could refocus on the task ahead of me. First, there was a small climb up to a partly derelict monastery, which was much more exciting to walk around than I expected. Then, leaving my Indiana Jones fantasy behind, I started through a stunning and woodland, densely packed and cool despite the already piercing sunlight.  

The woods wouldn’t last long and the rest of the morning was a pleasant jaunt along the canyon, unlike my horrible walk from Tsater, this section wasn’t out to make my day uncomfortable. Instead, I walked among the eagles that rode the warm air currents around me, I watched the life scurry from my heavy footfalls and marvelled at the river of purest quicksilver far below. While the mountain slopes facing me remained in night, unstirred by advent of a new day, the dazzling channel meandered an iridescent passage onwards, every obstruction of its course causing a new bubbling upwelling.  

At lunchtime, I climbed up and out of the canyon and reached Odzun. This was a town with a spectacular church that I checked out but admittedly I spent more time admiring and appreciating the water fountain in the grounds. Fresh, cold water for my shrivelling body. After Odzun, there was a brief but horrible steep uphill but the rest was a glorious track down into Alaverdi. The perfect gradient for kilometres. Easy peasy.  

Final Thoughts  

From Alaverdi I would head back to Yerevan, bringing an end to the original plan for good. However, those eight days in the mountains amounted to something special to me. Things might not have gone to plan, and tears might have been shed, but the wild Armenian north is an immovable fixture in my heart. The hospitality of the people and the unadulterated wild abundance of the land made me understand what many of our lives are missing. Many of us lack a community that cares, people who want to go out of their way to make your day better but also the vital and intrinsic connection to nature all humans need on some level. Farming is the most important industry in the north of Armenia, but this hasn’t overtaken and overrun the wild places. People work in harmony with the land, keeping the wildflower meadows pristine, drinking from the mountain springs and living among the almost deafening buzz of life.  

Stick around for the next blog to see if I find Brendan alive and well, alive and unwell, not alive (and I suppose well/unwell doesn’t matter in that circumstance) or perhaps I don’t find him at all. Either way, the adventure must go on.