Day 34: Dilijan Day!

This morning we woke to another gorgeous sunrise. Because we were so high up, we could see the whole valley and across to the mountains on the other side. The sky was blue, and the sun rose over the ridge to our left. Witnessing sunrise always feels like such a privilege. Perhaps this is because it’s less common to be awake at this time; it’s more of an effort to be present and welcome in a new day with the sun. It’s special!

Amazingly, everything was dry when we woke up, even at sunrise - we must have climbed above the dew point. This was actually such a relief - waking up to everything being wet from dew generally hasn’t been a huge deal, but waking to everything being dry and warm did make us realise what we’d been missing! 🤪

Also - it’s Dilijan day! 🥳 Our last hike day for this remote section! Today we hike into the city of Dilijan where we’ve booked ourselves into a spa hotel! 🤩 WOOP WOOP!!! 🥳🥳🥳

The first part of our hike this morning was - of course - a big climb up to a ridge at 2200m. To motivate ourselves, Ben and I ended up singing “I would walk 500 miles” by Kenny and the Scots. Well, we tried to sing - we managed to at least wheeze out every other word between desperate gasps for oxygen! Our muscles and lungs burned as we climbed up and up and up! We even went past bits of snow! 😮‍💨 whew!! Armenia is not a flat country!!! But where did this song come from? For whatever reason, it was stuck in my head from the moment I woke up. But hey - at least it was relevant to our situation!! 🤣

The final push to the top of this ridge was mighty, but finally reaching the top was rewarding! We found ourselves enjoying panoramic views of the surrounding mountains - some of which still have significant amounts of snow on them! Behind us we could see where we’d come from, with Dimatz in the background, and ahead of us - quite a way down in the distance - we could see the city of Dilijan! WOOP!!! The spa awaits! 🙌

Just after we started descending, we bumped into an Australian man called Rhys! How bizarre - we were up a mountain in the middle of nowhere and here’s this Australian just tracking up in his jeans! Rhys said he’d come from Dilijan. Bear in mind, it was only 10am at this point and Dilijan was a solid 13km away from where we were, ALL of which was steeply uphill…he must’ve been hiking with the bears when he left!!! He did mention it probably wasn’t his smartest move to get going so early…HARD AGREE! He didn’t have bear spray or anything! Just his jeans, a cotton shirt, and a satchel that assumedly held some food and water! 🤯

Anyway, aside from this perceivedly large lack of awareness for his own safety, Rhys was really lovely and is currently taking a few months to travel while he’s in between jobs. So far he’s been to Morocco, Kurdistan, Georgia, and is soon off to a friend’s wedding in Greece! How epic! We ended up asking Rhys if there are any unchained dogs between where we were standing and Dilijan. He said there were some dogs a bit further down, and that he’d had to run away into the forest as they’d chased him…we wondered if they were strays or farm dogs (Rhys didn’t know). Running from strays might be acceptable (probably?) but it’s advised to not run from farmdogs and instead appear confident and large…good thing he got away alright and found his way back to the track…I found myself wondering how could someone come hiking in a different country and not research what safety hazards there might be? Farm-dogs come up every time as one of the major ones! But alas - Aussies! No surprises there 😜

Soon after that we spied some shack-like buildings, and felt confident that’s where the dogs Rhys had mentioned would be. Eeek! It’s interesting, because even though we know being stealthy isn’t the way to go, it’s a natural instinct - Ben and I couldn’t help staying quiet as we hiked toward and through the various farm shacks. We saw some sheep, but miraculously - no dogs! So we kept going, crossed a couple of rivers, and came to a longer building with a house in front of it. I had a feeling this is probably where the dogs would be, so Ben and I decided to give this place a bit of a wide berth (this wasn’t so possible higher up). We followed a river down for a while, and then crossed what seemed to be an old vegetable patch. So far so good! And then we seemed to be in the clear 😮‍💨 boy, did we feel stressed!!!

As we attempted to cross yet another river, a woman walked by on the track up behind us - heading toward the farm shacks. This made us realise we weren’t meant to be crossing this river, and that our path was where she’d just come from. She was too fast for us to catch and warn about the dogs, however, as we were halfway over a bigger river, balancing on rocks! And sure enough - a few minutes later we heard dogs barking as she went past the big long building. No dogs chased her, however, so perhaps they’d been chained since Rhys had gone through! Thank goodness for that - I’d been wondering why farm dogs would be left unchained on a path that seems quite highly used by the public! So again, perhaps it was because Rhys had started walking so early.

After that, we had 599 more river crossings and extremely muddy paths for a while. At one point we came to a rusted old water mill. It’s so interesting to see old machinery/tools people used to use in their daily lives! And to just come across them randomly every now and then - how cool!

We then climbed up a small but relatively steep (and muddy) hill, and at the top we could see Dilijan was right there!!!! We were getting closer and closer to that spa and sauna!!! 😈 It was here that we decided to stop for lunch, and give my dad a call. Whilst chatting, we enjoyed our classic salami, cheese, and tomato on lavash wrap - even after 5 days of this for lunch, it’s still yummy!

It was lovely chatting with Dad for a while! He’s currently in at the Awaroa Hut (he works as a hut ranger for DOC on the Abel Tasman and Heaphy tracks down south), and has recently been on what sounds like an epic kayaking expedition with a group of his local friends! He described some of what they saw as what NZ may have looked like before Europeans arrived and cut/burned all the bush down. Wow! Hopefully he can take Ben and I on this kayak route one day so we can also see that seemingly untouched, beautiful, thick and vibrant New Zealand bush! 🤩

As we talked with Dad, we reached the outskirts of Dilijan. We were immediately accosted by a (thankfully) friendly stray dog! And not very long after that, we came across two unfriendly farm-dogs - they seemed to be guarding a couple of calves. One of these big dogs was thankfully inside a fenced area, but the other was out yoloing on the road 🫠 If it wasn’t for their aggression, they’d have been beautiful dogs, but instead they just looked nasty! So we turned back the way we’d come and found another road to go down. It was here that we said goodbye to my dad, promising to let him know when we’d made it to our hotel so he’d know we were safe 🙏

As we moved further into Dilijan there were no more farm-dogs (thank gods!) but unfortunately there were plenty of sad looking strays 🥺 We were barked at a lot as we went by various dogs owned by humans - they bark so suddenly and unexpectedly, it always makes me jump out of my skin, with adrenaline rushing to my fingertips! 😣

We found Dilijan to be an obviously much wealthier area (possibly the most wealthy we’ve been in). It seems a popular place for both Armenians and tourists to visit. Apparently Dilijan is the “Switzerland of Armenia”, as many of the buildings are designed like Swiss ones! It’s a big place, and our hotel was a fair few kms in - at least it was all downhill! Well, until it wasn’t 😅 turns out we just walked to the bottom of the big hill only for our hotel to be up the top of another one 🤪 Psyyyyyych!!!! 🤪 Many a curse came from me as we hiked painfully up to our hotel. I was ready to put my feet up.

We f i n a l l y saw the resort, walked the last few hundred meters and in through the doors! BIG hallelujah!!!!!! We had just hiked over 100km of big country in 5 days whilst out in the wops… a cool accomplishment! 🥳

Upon entering our hotel room we realised how filthy and smelly we actually were 🫣 We immediately put all of our belongings out on the balcony and we each had a solid 30+ minute shower (Ben had the immense pleasure of showering first). Omg, it felt soooooo good to be properly clean! And to stand under hot water - it felt incredible 🤩

Although we were obviously tired, we did not dare sit down - we still had a grand plan to tackle for the afternoon! So as soon as we were ready we headed back out and jumped into a taxi for a very bumpy ride to the bakery- I mean the Haghartsin Monastery (that is conveniently located right beside the bakery 🤪😈) Yes, we went back to the Gata bakery so we could enjoy yet another delicious Brie & apricot jam gata! This time Ben also got the Brie one - it’s MILES better than any of the others! And this time I actually had the foresight to take a video of what this gata looks like before demolishing it! 🤣 The other day we’d been so overwhelmed with excitement and drooling with anticipation to eat something other than salami, porridge, or noodles, that we’d just gobbled the gata up without a second thought 🤣 Now, however, we had the capacity to capture the finer details 😌 We can confirm that although our tastebuds had been sated the day prior, this gata was still just as mouth wateringly delicious as it had been the first time!!! And- I repeat- all of you must come to Armenia just for this gata!!!!!! 😝😝😝

We explored the inside of the monastery a bit before booking another taxi. It’s a magnificent building that has had some intense repair and maintenance done - as it would need, being so old! Ben wasn’t allowed inside, unfortunately, as he’d worn shorts. Shorts are perceived as disrespectful in the functioning monasteries and churches here - unsure if this is a worldwide Christian thing, or just here in Armenia 🤔

On the way home we stopped at a store so I could pick up some togs to later wear in the spa. I was very surprised any store had togs to sell - I’d expected to have to get a pair of shorts and tee and make do! I got lucky I guess 😋 It’s an obvious Nike rip-off bikini, but it’ll do the job 🤪

Upon entering the spa centre in the hotel, we found there are multiple swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), a couple of spas, and then a line of rooms that have differing functions. There’s a tea room, where we were welcome to make and drink as much tea as we wanted! YUM!!! This is to help prevent dehydration whilst using their spa facilities. There’s a salt room, where the walls are lined with salt lamps and there are comfy chairs to sit on in the middle. There’s a cold plunge pool, a hot spa (that wasn’t working), two steam saunas - one infused with herbs and the other with essential oils, a Roman bath (a very hot steam sauna), and a dry sauna. There are also two rooms where you can order a massage. 😳 wow!!!! We made ourselves some tea and sat in the salt room for a time before moving to the steam saunas, then the cold plunge pool, then the spa, then back to the sauna and a final cold plunge before we thought we’d better think about dinner!

We decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. And a very delicious dinner it was! We enjoyed caramelised eggplant & capsicum, chicken soup, baked salmon with asparagus and potato, and a platter of fruit, all complimented by basil lemonade and a hot chocolate ☕️ A delicious end to a delicious day!!!! 🤩

We’ve now retired back to our room which has a huge and comfortable bed! We are well ready to fall into deep slumber 😴 Mmmm… we’re really missing our tent right now…

Tomorrow (May 19) is my birthday, which is why we’ve come to this big fancy spa resort hotel. We are taking tomorrow as a rest day, and we’re literally just planning to spend the day flipping through the spa and sauna complex. We have a couple of massages booked in the afternoon, and a restaurant down in the centre of Dilijan has been booked for dinner. Ben, lovely and thoughtful as ever, has organised all of this! How lucky and blessed am I to be doing life with someone so wonderful and loving 🥹🥰

So our remote mountain stint has come to an end. We actually only have 4 more hiking days to go, and then we’re all finished!! W h a t! 🤯 Crazy that it’s almost that time already!!!

Anyway. We hope you’re all going well - sending you all love and hugs, as always 🤗🩵

PS: We’ve been asked what we typically eat on a hike / camp day…
Breakfast is usually porridge with muesli & scroggin added
Morning tea is usually scroggin, some biscuits, and a few lollies
Lunch is salami cheese and tomato on lavash
Afternoon tea is more biscuits and lollies
Dinner is some kind of noodles or pasta with herbs we’ve foraged (thyme, dill, mint), some spices/seasoning, etc (as we’re now out of dehydrated meals)
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