Khor Virap, Norovank and finally home - Sunday 17 May
The final day; and it’s going to be a long one. We’re heading south for the day, leaving at 8.30, and not expecting to be back before 6.30pm. There’s a last group dinner included, and then we must be ready to get to the airport at 1am. Our flight to Heathrow via Frankfurt isn’t due to land until 10.40 am BST, which could potentially mean c32 hours without sleep. I’m dreading it and continuing to curse Voyages Jules Verne for putting us on such crappy flights when there’s a 9.40 am departure via Istanbul available. No doubt they have preferential rates with Lufthansa that allows them to skim off more profit!
A crappy Lufthansa flight at 04.40am or a nice Turkish one at 09.40 - no contest!
Anyway, before flying home, we’ve got a full day of action
ahead, including the site I’m most looking forward to visit in Armenia. As always,
that’s based on a photograph I want to get, and it could be highly
disappointing if Mount Ararat is shrouded in clouds. After 10 minutes of
driving through the Yerevan suburbs our guide announces that the peak of the mountain
was clearly visible and was “likely to be for the entire day”. The peak is
directly ahead of us so it’s 10 minutes before we make a slight turn and it
comes into view. It is a magnificent sight, but I’m concerned by the clouds
lurking to the side of the lower peak “Little Ararat”. I’m silently urging the driver
to go faster; fearful that said clouds will drift northwards and obscure the
main peak “Great Ararat”.
The great mountain comes into view
Our destination is, of course, a monastery called Khor Virap.
It sits atop a small hill with the peaks of the great mountain behind. That’s
the photo I must get. It is quite simply the iconic photo in Armenia. In a
number ways it’s like the classic Kilimanjaro photo. Obviously, you replace giraffes
with a monastery. It has a big flat plain in front of the snowcapped mountain,
and the main peak in the background is in a different country (assuming the
Kilimanjaro pic was taken in Kenya) – Tanzania and Turkey respectively,
I constantly urge the driver to put his foot down because
those blasted clouds are undoubtedly moving towards the main peak. After 25
long, agonising minutes we pull over a couple of miles short of Khor Virap. No
time for pleasantries, I skittle off along the road away from the rest of the tourist
hordes who’ve stopped to get the same pic. I get the photo’s; I can relax now.
Ten minutes later we arrive at the car park below the
monastery. With the important photos “in the can” I take a leisurely stroll up
to the monastery. It’s a fine place, but very busy. Unfortunately, the majority
of the tourist ants crawling over the site are from the Orient. Not Leyton, but
your actual China and Japan. Now the people from these countries are usually
very polite and respectful, until they mob up into a tourist group. Then, to
me, they’re unbearable. Every single one of them has to have about 20 pictures
of themselves posing in front of every view/building etc. Time is no object to
them – stuff anyone else who might want to get a proper photo without a
grinning idiot doing the V-sign or kicking their legs up. FFS, they do my nut
in! I struggle to remain my usual exceptionally polite. calm and patient self (stop
laughing you gits – I really am!). Well, Oriental Ants were pretty damn
irritating here, but I was offsetting that by enjoying some of the outfits a
few of them were wearing. I often think that Orientals dress rather well; certainly,
a lot better than I do. However, there was one group of sexagenarians (over 60’s
– to save you looking it up) who were trying look like they were in their late
teens/early twenties. Hilarious. I tried to get some surreptitious pictures,
but it was tricky.
Deary me!
Once again, the time allowed at a site was insufficient, and
all too soon we were on our way. Next stop another monastery, called Norovank just
under 2 hours’ drive away. Fifteen minutes into that drive we took a sharp 90
degree turn to the left to continue on the main road. Our guide explained that
if we’d turned right, we would have got to the closed border with Turkey after 5
kilometres. A further 3 km beyond, across the thin strand of Turkey, that was
Iran. Had we gone straight on, we’d have hit the closed border with Azerbaijan after
less than 2 km. I’m certainly chalking up some close encounters with the World’s
bad boys on this trip – just need to include the USA to complete the set. All
of that got me looking at Google Maps as we drove along. Very shortly we went
through a place called Karki that is technically an Azerbaijani enclave. It
looked very dead indeed……..
The scenery became evermore spectacular as we climbed high into the hills to around 1800m (5900 feet). The red stone was beautiful. We eventually turned off the main road and continued to climb up a deep gorge. Soon we arrived at the car park for Norovank Monastery. Once again there was a fairly steep walk to get up to the church. Not easy for the “Olds”. Although, by now I was probably fully “Monastery’d out” this place was arguably the finest of them all.
Only the smaller of the two churches was open, but this
place dripped atmosphere. In the ante room before the main nave many of the
devout locals were lighting candles and seemed almost to be in a trance. The
roof had a hole in it, and the sun bore through it giving an awesome shaft of
light in the smoke and incense filled room. I couldn’t help but think of the bit
when Elwood “sees the light” in the Blues Brothers. Heathen and puerile maybe.
Nevertheless, it was a lovely, and truly memorable sight and atmosphere to experience.
That was all the sites done for the day, but on the way back to Yerevan we stopped at a farm that made cheese. Lunch was basically bread (Lavash) and cheese with red wine. Certainly, the bread and cheese were right up my street; and even the single glass of red was more than bearable.
By the time we got back closer to Mount Ararat both peaks were shrouded in the clouds. My fears that would happen were proved to be right. Thank heavens for that 8.30am start
We were back at the hotel by 5pm, and apparently there was
no group dinner provided (even though the written itinerary said there was).
Double result as far as I was concerned. I didn’t want to be sociable, and now
I could decide how I spent the next 8 hours before leaving for the airport at
1am. The answer was obvious. Sleep, if you can. Before 18.30 I was deep in the
land of nod. I was woken by my alarm at midnight, so had got 5 and a half hours
sleep in the bank.
All the boring bits of the journey home were ok. Minor
delays on both flights. I managed a bit of sleep on the first leg. Tedious
layover in Frankfurt for 3 hours, and then home. I was met my splendid mate
Bradders at the airport and duly delivered home via Costa’s in Beaconsfield.
That was it. An interesting trip. I need to collect my thoughts on it, and will
scribe a short summary of them shortly.
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