Day 33: Cuckoo! 🐦

Before hiking in Armenia, I’d never seen or heard a cuckoo bird before in my life. This is something I now feel grateful for 🤣 Upon hearing the cuckoo for the first time (a few weeks back) I was overjoyed - I actually didn’t even realise the cuckoo bird was real 😅 I thought it was just in children’s stories and that cuckoo clocks were a strange human creation - woops!

So at this point, the cuckoo bird sounded pure and sweet, and brought joy to my hiking experience. After about an hour of the same sound repeated over and over and over in quick succession, never changing in tone or pitch or rhythm, and with it seemingly following us for miles, my attitude took a 180 and the cuckoo began driving me up the wall 🤪 And this, my friends, has brought to me an entirely new understanding of the cuckoo clock 🤡

So this morning, at 5am (sunrise time), when a cuckoo bird landed in one of the trees directly above our tent and began its incessant CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! I was about ready to throw something at it 😅😮‍💨😭 I swallowed this rage that had been building for weeks, however, and started cuckooing back at it - hoping to scare it off. Unfortunately, it was a clever bird and immediately saw through my plan. It just kept on cuckooing! I tried all the sounds - growling, barking, screeching (if anyone had walked by at this time it would’ve been quite the entertainment (or perhaps a bit disconcerting 👀)), but this bird was not bothered 🤔 Eventually I sighed and resigned myself to the fact that I might just have to get up and go outside 😩 The moment I began unzipping the tent, however, it flew away - THANK GODS!!!! Now I could finally get back to sleep!

A little later we woke to a beautiful blue sky. The sun hit the tent just after 7am, which meant we could set about turning the trees around us into a giant clothes line 😅 Because yesterday had been such a downpour day, a lot of our gear got soaked (the stuff that wasn’t on the inside of our packs anyway). Our tent cover was in particular need of drying, having now protected us for two nights in a row. Because of this, it was past 9am when we actually got to hiking - putting our dry feet & socks back into our still sopping shoes was not a pleasant experience 😅🫣🫠

As we set off for the day (uphill, as per usual), we watched as an eagle soared above, scouring the hillside for food. They’re such majestic creatures, with great wingspan. We hoped to see it dive for prey (perhaps it would spy a mouse or a mole), but it had no such luck at this time.

Eventually we crested the saddle and came to the structure we’d been looking enquiringly up at from our campsite - turns out it’s a gypsy-like trailer turned shelter! How cool! To our right, where our path would take us, we looked out over the Dilijan national park & forest. Woohoooo! No more farmland 🥳 - or so we thought. Soon after descending a way and crossing the boundary into the national park, we realised that there is still much cattle farming going on throughout 😒😩 As we trekked along the little pathways across more plain grassy hillsides, following hoofprints recently made by cows, I found myself feeling increasingly resentful. There was SOOOOOOOO much farmland behind us - why did they have to come into the national park?! Why can’t people respect these boundaries? Where’s the enforcement of national park regulations? Eurgh!!!!! 😡

We’d soooooo been looking forward to getting away from the farmland - not only because of the threat of dogs, but also because it does get a bit tiresome trekking over grassy hill after grassy hill, and only seeing more grassy hills ahead! Ben and I started joking that it’s a national park for cows, that there’s nowhere in Armenia that cows don’t go, and that we’d have to pay a small fee to have a cow removed from our accommodation before we could go in 🤣 - this helped to lighten the mood considerably!

As we hiked across this farmland, we came across the skull of a large animal…it took me a while to figure out which animal skull it was. I looked at it for some time like “it somehow looks different from a cow…it also doesn’t have horns…but what is it that’s different?” and then I looked at the teeth, and how the front teeth were way forward from the back ones, and then it clicked - it’s a horse skull! Omg!

It felt strange and somewhat macabre to come across a horse skull…it’s more common to see cow or sheep skulls as they’re so numerous on farms, but a horse skull? I guess they’re numerous here, too, but it felt much more grim. Perhaps this is because we’re used to the idea of sheep and cows dying - which is also grim 🫤 Ben and I wondered what might’ve happened to cause this horses death. Had it been chased and killed by wolves? Had it died of old age? We found more pieces of its skeleton scattered around the hillside, meaning it had at least been scavenged after death.

After that we trekked along a hillside looking wistfully down at the beautiful forest below, wishing we were in it. Turns out we were actually supposed to be in it 🤣 woops! We’d somehow taken the higher path, so we dropped down the hillside as quickly as possible to join the trees 🌲 How refreshing it was to walk through forest for a time! There was a creek gurgling a bit further down, and listening to the birdsong was peaceful.

Before long we came to the top of yet another ridge. Looking down we could see a few farm buildings and we could hear multiple barking dogs. We actually groaned! We’re feeling pretty over the aggressive and reactive behaviour of dogs here in Armenia. It’s truly taxing being threatened by them almost every day. We continually wish the dogs could differentiate between what is actually a threat (I.e., a bear) and what isn’t (I.e., us!).

As we descended we watched as heaps of people made their way up and past the farmhouses where the barking dogs were. Huh? What was going on? Was there some kind of celebration happening? Eventually we came to a signpost, and not long later were joined by a group of Armenians. We asked them what was happening - they said they’re walking up to Dimatz (pronounced “deematz”), which is a beautiful mountain ridge / line of cliffs. Ben and I had actually been looking across at this line of cliffs all day!

Upon hearing we’d been hiking for a month, this group of Armenians asked us what we liked and didn’t like about Armenia. We said we like the people and Armenian hospitality very much, and that we really didn’t like the behaviour of their dogs. Hearing this, they were confused - “what do you mean? Are there no dogs in NZ?” they asked. We explained that there are many dogs in NZ, but they’re friendly and people like them. At this they were even more confused! So we tried to explain further about the farm dogs and being chased and facing aggression almost everyday, and how it’s not the same in NZ on the everyday level - we generally don’t need to be afraid of dogs in NZ.

Still, this group of Armenians just seemed so confused! Perhaps dog aggression is so normal here they don’t know otherwise and therefore haven’t really thought about how unpleasant it is? Although the strays are nice and they’re aware of this… We don’t know why they don’t see the dog aggression as a valid problem 🤷🏼‍♀️ We’re told by locals to be careful of the farmdogs in particular, but we’re then questioned as to why we don’t like the behaviour of their dogs 🤣🤣🤣 The math ain’t mathing!

Anyway. 5 minutes later a young Hungarian woman came along, and almost immediately asked us if there are any dogs ahead on the way to Dimatz! She seemed really nervous - probably because of the dogs she’d just walked past. Every encounter we’ve had with someone who isn’t Armenian while hiking has talked about how scary the dogs are and whether or not we know if there are any where they’re going… so… I guess it’s only Armenians who don’t see the dogs as a problem 😅 It’s very interesting.

We slowly made our way down to the hysterical barking (chained) dogs. One of them had basically lost its voice from having barked so much for so long. But it still did its absolute best to do a nut when we went past! The other dog growled at us, and then as we got further away started barking - wtf? 🙄 We’re so over it. Although one thing that’s happened because of our experience with dogs here, is we can now tell the difference between a dog barking that is a stray vs. farmdog, and whether it’s chained or unchained. Stray dogs tend to bark less consistently and at a higher pitch, whereas farmdogs bark like they mean business. An unchained dog barks at slower and seemingly calmer (or perhaps “more calculated” is the right way to put it) intervals, whereas a chained dog is likely to sound more hysterical. Which, when you think about it, all makes complete sense.

After we’d got that over and done with, our thoughts turned to the main event of our day - which was soon coming up. ✨The bakery✨😲🤭🤤 Today we’d pass by Harghartsin Monastery, beside which was a bakery we’d heard much about - it’s well known for its delicious gata, an Armenian dessert thing. After 4 days of camp food, we were sooooooo excited for this bakery!!!!! 🧁 We intended to feast on this gata 🤭🤪

However, we still had a fair few kms to kill plus a waterfall to see before getting there. As we hastily made our way closer to the bakery, we passed through gorgeous forest with big trees. There were many streams flowing through, and much new growth. The path we were following was now well maintained and clearly signposted, which was a welcomed mental break after days of having the complete opposite!

The waterfall is called “the hidden waterfall” - we joked that it’s so hidden it needs a signpost! Then we reached the area where it was supposed to be and there was no waterfall…huh? 🤔 Eventually we found a tiny track (if you could call it that) carved around the rock-side of the river. We followed it around and voila - it really is a hidden waterfall! In the summer it’s said to be a great place for swimming - we didn’t know why it wouldn’t also be good in spring, so we hoped we’d be able to swim, but upon arrival we saw that the waterfall was MAD with the amount of water pumping down it! Really powerful and just smashing the “swimming pool” below - so that’s why it’s not for swimming in spring 💁‍♀️ Was a bit of a “duh!” moment 🤪

We then hiked an incredibly fast 2km the rest of the way to the bakery. When we came out of the forest we found ourselves almost instantly surrounded by people and cars - woah! After 4 days of not really seeing anyone, this felt quite overwhelming! 😅 We also once again became the sore thumbs that stuck out from the crowd - as muddy and unkempt as we were, this was even more pronounced 🤣🤣🤣 Nonetheless, we joined the queue for the bakery and eventually put in our order. Ben got a fig and walnut gata, with a quince compot, and I got a Brie & apricot jam gata, with a coffee 🤤

Upon taking the first bite of my Brie & apricot jam gata, I basically cried with joy! It was the most delicious thing my tastebuds had experienced in DAAAAAAYS!!! There is no way I can write this that will make any of you understand just how extremely mouth-wateringly delicious this gata is! All of you have to come to Armenia, go to this bakery, and order this gata! IT IS THAT GOOD!!!!! HOLY GATAMOLE!!!!!!!!!! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 Gata is a soft biscuit-like cake thing, and my one had a whole circle of Brie freshly baked inside of it, and the apricot jam, which you can put however much of over the top, just perfectly tops it off 💁‍♀️ oh wow! I shall endeavour to recreate this when back home, but I think the real deal is at this bakery!!!

After eating our fill of gata (Ben actually got 2 and felt sick after 🥴), our focus turned to the massive climb we had left to end the day. It was a 3.5km section up to our campsite, across which we’d gain 470m of altitude 😮‍💨 She was gonna be STEEP!!! Surprisingly, perhaps because we were armoured with gata (and me with coffee), we absolutely crushed this climb! We booked it up that slope and made it to camp in what felt like no time! And what a beautiful campsite it was, situated on a flat meadow piece of land, mid-mountain (the rest of which we climb first thing tomorrow - we can see our track and it goes up and over the ridge 😮‍💨).

As we looked around and took in the vast views surrounding us (think layers of mountains, masses of forest, and severe cliffs), on the ridge to our north we could see a little familiar box 🧐. We soon realised it was the Gypsy trailer from this morning! And it’s RIGHT!!! THERE!!! 😅 The trail obviously had us do a loop-de-loop instead of just down and up 🤪 but oh well - this way we got to meet a heap of people, visit an epic monastery, AND enjoy a delicious bakery 😈💁‍♀️💪

This evening we sat amongst the flowers and cow pats, enjoyed our last mountain dinner (at least for this section), and watched as intense and localised storms passed over the region. At one point I saw a huge bolt of lightning strike a ridge over to the north, leaving a big plumb of smoke or dust rising into the air! 😱 W O W! It was incredible! If it had struck a tree, what tree? There’d only be cinders left. My only hope was that the wind didn’t blow that storm our way 🫣

Shortly after dinner it started to rain - it’s almost like clockwork, now! (With the exception of yesterday 🫣). The mornings are sunny, afternoons cloudy with patches of rain, and it will typically rain harder at night. So we crawled into our tent and called it a day - a very good day! Until… that dang cuckoo bird started up yet AGAIN 🫠 gee-whizz! I think I have an arch nemesis on the rise.

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