The day started as usual by my nervous mind waking up the rest of me at 5. But at least I was ready to go when there was some daylight (maybe because of the cloudy sky not before 6:30!). It was perfect to bike, no wind, no sun. The street was partly new or even in status nascendi or the opposite. Most of the time it steadily went up, but only a few times in the more exhausting way. It was much less traffic than in Georgia (or Romania or Bulgaria) and most of the drivers behaved well. The cars are often old or very old (and then stinky), what could give extra motivation to drive reasonable, but I tend to interpret this as characteristic for Armenians.
I ate figs, but only two, as the first was tasty and the second disgusting.
Some other impressions, including the cemetery topic (Armenian cemeteries go along the streets, only a thin but long area)
a friend collects those “man at work signs” around the world
Today I always took the main road, whatever Garmin suggested or intense he complained.
But this together with assumed misprints in my “village list” (all the places + km-indication) confused me in the aera of Spitak. It came earlier as expected but other villages came later (or not at all but in exchange other, not listed ones).
Armenian language is so complicated – you even write names different when you go to Yerevan or Spitak!
As I was in Spitak at 3pm I thought I can go on to the next town/village, Jrashen” , that according to internet information should have a hotel, distance 10km. After a while there came a road sign “9% on the next 8km” Still I thought that this is ok, because “was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen” would mean every elevation done today would be something less tomorrow. It was one of the few steep climbs of the day and after some km I was at 2000m and then it was clear that I did the pass instead of reducing the demands for the next day.
potatoes growing on sea level 1900m!
on top!!
On top a man explained that Jrashen lays behind me! So, I hoped to find any place to stay in the next 5 villages (on the next 20km), but nothing to see, so I consulted “maps.me (an offline map) that showed a guest house in Aparan, another 17km ahead.
Now I calculated to be there at 19:30, after 13h on the road (breaks included). I couldn’t find it, (at the indicated place was a police station…) and nobody knew it. In fact, all those who tried to help me knew nothing about any hotel in that town. I went on. A bistro looked as if the would also have rooms and the owner even said yes! I started to unpack the bike when she told me, no this is no hotel! Again, everybody wanted to help me and then a man said after 1km there would be a hotel. I re-packed my bike and went on. (Maybe at this point it is correct to mention that I was not only tired but a bit desparate). I found a motel, sign “open”, light at the entrances (it seems to be typical, to have a ground level bulding with some separate entrances to the rooms) and a parked car. But the house was complete empty. I prepared my self to go on for even longer when I saw another hotel on the opposite site – and here I write the blog and will sleep soon ?