At 6:40 I sat on my bike and was prepared for a mountain. Thought I…
The start was nice, along the river, along nice hotels (as I had slept in Vayk, they had not disappeared) and then it went more and more up. But this was not the main problem – it was the heavy front wind!
I was glad that in Yerevan my lowest gear was repaired I needed it most of the time, sometime even cycling standing. The Transfargasan in Romania was 1500m elevation and I could do it with 2nd and 3rd gear. It would be comparable in the dimensions but the wind made it so hard…
Anyway, the first mountain had a highest point to reach and when you go on, you reach it.
the pic (from this peak) should not give the impression of weakness or so, it is just blurry 🙂
After some ups and downs there was another 500m climb and the wind had not stopped and gave me another lesson in endurance.
after first try the mountain was not high enough, he got a topping
On the way I had to of the worst dog encounters:
The first dog couple attacked my bike, biting in my bag (but not destroying it). My fear turned in self defending rage and as they were apparently impressed, they let me go. But it was not funny at all.
The second was even much scarier at first. Again two dogs. The saw me coming and without hesitating the crossed the street diagonal and ran towards me. They had a short look to each other and split, so one came more from left, the other from right! Again, the self-defence-mode started semi-automatic. I raised my hand menacingly and bellowed at them. They were a bit irritated but in that second a car approached, blowing the horn. Maybe scared by the car that they hadn’t noticed or in combination of my reaction, the surprise and the horn, anyway, the ran away.
here, the Spandaryan Reservoir is in the back 😀
Between Gorayk and Tsghuk is the Spandaryan Reservoir which gives a nice view for a while 🙂
After 10 hours for 100km I reached Goris on a spectacular downhill ride on a brand new road, on the way back from Karabakh (9days earlier) it was not there. You had a good view on Goris!
There, a group of 5 guys around 16y blocked my way and wanted to greet me. And 3 of them tried to ride my bike. Then 3 kids between 8 or 9 talked to me in English! They guessed that I looked for a hotel and gave me directions (ok, it was only 150m).
There I met Paulo from Italy, also on his way to Iran and on to Singapore, not clear how. He saved money by working as an English teacher in Xiamen ?
who wants to know the reason for this pic, could get info on day 035
We talked for a while, exchanged some information and experiences, both most impressed by the strong winds on the last to mountains. His dog-approach is based on the theory that dogs don’t chase him but the bike. So he gets of and walks a bit. One time he had an encounter with two dogs running towards him and one was hit by a car. And the driver didn’t even stop.