From the Armenian border till Yerevan
It was the 19th day of the expedition when I reached Armenia. Getting pass the border was pretty quick, as we aren’t required to have Visa to enter Armenia since the beginning of the year. It was already night when I arrived at the second largest city of the country, to Gyumri.
The roads looked and felt like I was riding just after a carpet bombing. I made several attempts to get my currency changed, but I had just no luck. I used up all my strength to cycle out of town and find a suitable place to camp. I used up all my bread, I didn’t had Armenian currency, but I did not bother, as I knew, tomorrow at that time I will be in Yerevan, where I will meet Laci and get my well deserved shower, to wash away the dirt which was laying on me for 5 days.
My first stop in the morning was at a local, traditional, bakery. They prepare a Lángos like flat bread in a bell shaped oven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1ngos). It smelled marvellously, but I hadn’t had any money. The next thing I know was a man stepping next to me and asked if he could help me. I was not ashamed to tell him what my issue was, and couple of minutes later I was wolfing down the hot bread. He was really nice; he brought me the bread and gave it to me saying that the Armenians like the Slovenians. I have no clue why, but in Armenia, every time I mentioned that I am from Slovakia it was understood as Slovenia. Although this is also quite common, when I tell people from where I am, in Western Europe as well.
Laci was quite surprised when I arrived at his flat around 7 pm; I managed to get past the numerous uphills and cycled 116km that day. During the whole day I had to climb up on a 10-12% hills with 5-8kmh, the hills had elevations around 300-400m, and on the downhill I lost the elevation in no time, just to find a new hill in front of me. When I talked to Laci, in the company of 3-4 beers, he assured me, that this will continue, just with higher hills.
What you should know about Laci is, that he comes from Transylvania, but he lived in Budapest also for quite some time and his family has Armenian roots. It came a time in his life when he decided that it was time to move back to his ancestor’s soil, to Armenia. He started studying the language, which wasn’t easy, as it doesn’t uses Roman script, but soon he was moving to Yerevan. He got lucky, as he got a job in the Matenadaran, an ancient manuscript repository and according my impression, currently his knowledge about the Armenian history exceeds what most of the Armenia born know about their history.
I spent a whole day with Laci. He told me a lot about the relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and I have received a bit of the real life in Yerevan. The city is buzzing with life, it reminded me of Europe; coffee houses, restaurants, students, youngsters and luxury cars. It was graduation time in high schools; groups of students were driving along in limousines, expensive sport cars and antiques cars; in front of the Opera they were building a stage for a concert. We stopped at auntie Ica, who helped me with sewing; she repaired one of my clothes. To finish the day off, we drank another bottle of beer. My thank goes to Árpi and Zita (http://360fokbringa.hu/en/) for introducing me to Laci.
