Day 25: A walk in the park

Last night, Ben and I just could not get warm! It was f r e e z i n g 🥶 We had all our layers on, as per usual, but for some reason just stayed cold. So neither of us slept very well!

What made this better was that when it was finally time to get up, we stepped out of the tent to a glorious bluebird morning. All around us were green leaves on tall trees blanketing the valley, and the dappled light of the sun was shining through. Light reflected off the river as it gushed by, and birds were singing their morning songs. Ben and I sat together on a rock for a while, just taking it in - it was so beautiful! The sun was already warm, and it quickly dried off our tent covers. We are so happy to be back in places where spring has taken hold! Everything is so alive!

Our hike began with a gentle stroll down the valley and then up to Step’Anavan. Along the way we had a waterfall, colourful butterflies flying around us, as well as these cool looking little yellow birds! In general it was a gorgeous little walk into town, and a lovely way to kick off day 2 of our part two!

Arriving in Step’Anavan was interesting. Arriving in a new town is usually entertaining for us. It typically goes one of two ways - either, locals will come and talk to us with curiosity, offer help, and/or invite us in for vodka and/or coffee and/or food (like what happened yesterday), OR, the locals will just stare at us, frowning like they’ve never seen people like us before in their lives. Even if you wave or say barev dzez (pronounced ba-rev sez or zez), they just continue staring 😅 It’s a bit…odd…and it feels hostile…but I try tell myself that maybe they haven’t ever before seen a human carrying a pack and walking with poles 🤣 The staring scenario is what largely happened today when we clambered over the top of the hill, arriving (admittedly quite abruptly) on the side of a reasonably busy street. It’s uncomfortable being “on display” like that.

As we moved further into town, the staring largely stopped and turned back into smiles and nods. We heard traditional music coming from up ahead and could see a crowd of people off to the side of the road. Interestingly, a lot of people in military uniforms were among them. Getting closer we could see a group of people wearing what must have been traditional Armenian clothing, dancing to the music. There were also large flower wreaths hanging beside a memorial wall. Had we walked in on some kind of Memorial Day?

Turns out today is the equivalent of ANZAC day for Armenians. May 8th is “defenders of the land day”, which commemorates the Armenian efforts in the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. It has expanded, however, to be more of a general day celebrating martyrs, veterans, and the Armenian military personnel. Much celebrating has been happening! The vibes of the town were upbeat, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

This is when we decided to get some ice cream. It was such a hot day, and everyone was obviously celebrating, so what better time? 🍦 The ice cream we got was delicious - some kind of strawberry flavour. The texture of the ice cream was a bit different. It was still creamy, but it was also icy… an interesting effect! We enjoyed it a lot 😋

Once past Step’Anavan, we climbed fairly steeply up and out the back of the town, into the farmland. Just as we left the bush and crested the hill, a golden eagle (national bird of Armenia) took flight in front of us and soared down the hillside. How marvellous! It has been incredible seeing all the different types of species here 🤓

The next few kms of our hike were fairly uninspiring, although we did comment at one point that the landscape reminded us of Switzerland with its bright green fields, valleys surrounded by forested slopes, and snow melt running down into rivers all around.

As we passed through our final town, we were greeted with the usual Armenian hospitality and curiosity; people waving, smiling, asking us if we needed any help. At one point an old man at a bus stop gestured for us to come over and have a chat so he could ask us where we were going. This end of town was also full of stalls selling things - nearly every house had a table set up to sell bread, fruit or jars of what may have been homemade alcohol with local fruits in them. At this stage, though, our focus was on water - each water fountain we passed today hadn’t been functioning, and we realised we weren’t going to have enough water to both cook dinner as well as quench our thirst.

The next river that we could see on the map was in the same place as the next water fountain - about another 1.5hrs walk. So we continued on, making today quite a big day, and eventually came to a park called “Dendropark”. Dendropark is a protected garden space. There’s a lot of wildlife and different types of flora and fauna here - imagine Auckland botanical gardens but left alone for 30 years, then somebody comes back and tries to create some order! That’s what this park feels like.

We filled up with water at their fountain, used their bathrooms, and then walked back down the very busy street lined with food trucks and stalls. At one point a random woman approached us, and upon realising we didn’t speak any of the languages that she spoke, started gesturing for us to follow her and repeatedly pointed to her throat and cleared it, making coughing sounds. She was trying to communicate - and most likely sell us - something, but we have noooooo idea what - so I cleared my throat in return. This made her laugh and retreat 🤣

We have now found a random plot of dirt in the forest to pitch our tent. We’re a little way outside the “park”, so don’t be worrying that we’ll be stepping on someone’s toes 😝 It’s a lovely quiet spot (except for the birds and sounds of revelry, pop music, and the Macarena wafting over from the main road!), with a little bit of water flowing down the path.

Tomorrow is forecast to be okay in the morning and raining in the afternoon / evening time / overnight. It looks like we’ll be camping near another shelter tomorrow, so we should be fine. Might be our first time setting up our tent in the rain, however 🫣 Good thing we’re fairly well practiced at this point!

Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend 🤗 Big love and hugs as always! 🩵Read more