Day 14: Cliff huggers!

Well, our tent survived the heavy rain and thunder from last night! This morning we woke to find a calm blue sky, and that we ourselves were still pleasantly dry. We were never that worried, but when it’s a first time weathering a storm in a tent, you always wonder a little about what it’s made of! 🏕️

Anyway, upon shoving my head outside the tent this morning I found myself nose to nose with the BIGGEST SNAIL I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE 😰 Now, I think this snail was as frightened by my morning face & bed hair as I was by its existence so close to my nostrils 🐌 because we both pulled ourselves back inside our shells quick-smart! Holy guacamole! 🤣 Please see the image of said snail compared to the size of my fist 😳

Ben and I have become much more adept at packing up and down our tent, now. This morning we rose at 8, and we were ready to go by 9 - I’m holding up the applause card as seen in Shrek 👏🤣🤪 We were sad to say goodbye to the hot spring so soon, but we had some big hills to climb and a thunderstorm on the prowl that we wanted to stay ahead of 🫡

Our first challenge was some farmland - it’s always the farmland that gets our heckles up! There’s no way we’re not going to bump into some flock of something - we just had to hope the farmer would be there and would call off their dog. And sure enough, we rounded a corner and heard a bark. We scanned, but saw nothing, until I spied way way waaaaayyyy up on the ridge ahead of us - a dog moving up and down. It then sat and stared at us, its flock of sheep to the left. Well, the best we can say is at least it wasn’t running for us - but we were going in that general direction so this didn’t bode well. We moved to the side of a half made and then abandoned building, and peeked around the corner to watch what the dog was doing. After a while, it seemed to move the sheep off the ridge and down to the left out of sight. Was this our break? Or should we make like a pair of frightened hikers and scat? We decided to try and get over the hill just to the right. The path then said to go left (towards where the sheep & dog might be), but ain’t no way! So we continued straight ahead and hurriedly followed a different, steeper, path all the way down to the town of Shamb - praying all the while that we wouldn’t come across another flock of sheep. Which we didn’t! Just some cows and their farmer attempting to herd them elsewhere 🙏🐄

Shamb is situated on the shore of a big reservoir that could easily be mistaken for an idyllic lake. If Armenia was a richer country, this town would be the Wanaka of Armenia. However, this is not yet so. Shamb is an extremely dilapidated and muddy little village. It seems unthinkable that people live in these shack-like houses that seem to be on the verge of collapsing into a pile of rubble. It makes Ben and I feel powerfully grateful that we were born in NZ and to families that exist above that poverty line and cycle. There’s much to love about Armenia and its people, but much of their physical living condition is not to be envied.

Then began the climb 🎤 (for all you Miley fans, I did just break into song and performed my best for Ben! It’s actually a really fitting song!). Anyway. Holy hecka, the amount of climbing uphill we did today is not for the faint hearted! We had about 8km of pretty steep and at times hugging the cliffside kind of terrain. A couple of times we dislodged a rock and watched as it fell… and fell… and fell… and then listened to it fall further after it was out of sight! There were also a few slips to contend with. In all honesty, I’ll take a bit of a breath-holding traverse over being chased by farm dogs all day every day 🤣🫡 Although I did ask the land on multiple occasions to please keep us safe 🥰 I will continue saying, however, that nothing else in this hike could possibly be as insane as our Day 2! 🤣 Today was truly a breeze in comparison! Still, we are both pretty knackered after all that climbing. We started at 1350m, peaked at 1900m, and now we’re at 1750m. Bring on tomorrow…it’s meant to be much a more intense climb than today (just in terms of it being over a shorter distance, so steeper again 😳😮‍💨😰👀).

One cool thing were the hillsides that will soon be absolutely covered in yellow tulips! 🌼 They’re just now getting ready to grow their flowers, so in a couple of weeks time walking through those fields will be a photographer’s dream!

When we left the steeper hillsides, we shifted back on to farmland 🫣, but there were no sheep in sight for those 5km! We couldn’t believe our luck. There was definitely a lot of sheep poo! We did come across a group of cows surrounding the drinking water pipe marked on the map that I’d been hoping to make use of. I asked the cows if I could disturb them for some water, and they shifted a little away so I could take my fill 🤗🩵

We also saw a vulture today 😱 its wingspan was huge as it flew overhead! 🦅 Nature here is always so vibrant and in your face. In general, today was full of spectacular views of the surrounding big country - we really enjoyed looking around us whenever we (usually me lol) needed to stop for a breather.

We’ve now set up camp near Harzhis. At this campsite there’s actually a shelter set up with a fire barbecue and a big table, running water, and a toilet (well, a big hole in the ground that you squat your business into 🤭). This has given us some relief, as it’s meant to be raining again tonight and for all of tomorrow. Having this shelter will make breakfast in particular much more doable! The presence of the barbecue has inspired us to visit the local convenience store to see if they had any meat. Was personally hoping for a steak, but alas… some sausages will do 😜 So that’s our plan for this evening.

That’s two weeks of our hike done and dusted! Loving this era of our lives. Long may it continue in such sunny and positive fashion 🙏🤗

Peace ✌️Read more