On our fourth day in Armenia, we headed a bit further
afield. We left Yerevan for
Dilijan, a pretty little town nestled in the hills and mountains and boasting
more forest coverage than most of the rest of the country. After arriving in Dilijan and chatting
with our very nice guesthouse owner, Nina, we took a taxi ride to see two old
Armenian monasteries. First stop
was at Goshavank, a very pretty old rambling complex of churches and a library. There were some extremely delicately
carved, intricate khachkars there, probably the prettiest we’ve seen. In a funny bit of
it’s-a-small-world-ism, we ran into two other Georgia PCVs who were also
vacationing in Armenia for spring break. (It was our second unexpected run-in,
actually; in Yerevan we randomly crossed paths with our host mom’s sister, who
came into town for two days to do some shopping.) We had a good time talking until their tour bus driver
started honking for them and they had to run off.
Goshavank
Really impressive khachkar
Thanks to our fellow PCVs for this pic!
Spring was already on its way...
So we did some good ol' fashioned sittin' and enjoyin'
The second monastery on the list of must-sees in Dilijan was
Haghartsin, a beautifully sited place.
It was an interesting church-monastery complex to see. It was obviously very old, and rich
with history, but it was also very much a currently in use church, which meant
that it had been renovated to keep it usable. Of the two, I was more impressed by the look of Goshavank
and the surroundings of Haghartsin.
Haghartsin
Inside the monk's refectory
Not quite as impressive a khachkar as at Goshavank, but still pretty cool
There were lots of ruins all around
Lots of archaeology!
Back in Dilijan
We came back into the main part of Dilijan and wandered
around the town a little before heading back to our guesthouse for dinner. We sat and talked for a while with the
other guests, Erfan from Iran, traveling with his girlfriend Nora and her
mother. Erfan, it seems, is a big
traveler, working as a travel agent and tour leader. But his real thing is mountain climbing, so he showed us
pictures of some of his crazier travels and we really had a great time talking
and sharing stories. It turned out
that his love for adventure tourism is something he wanted to share, and had
convinced his girlfriend and her mother to do their big trip across the Caucasus
by hitchhiking. Nora’s mother
seemed remarkably good humored about the whole experience, although her first
question to Sam and me was “Are you traveling by hitchhiking too, or do you
travel like human beings?”
Nina (the guesthouse owner) had hosted Erfan on a previous
trip to Armenia and his extremely effusive personality made him a big hit with
her, so for our group dinner she had planned lots of special foods. Nora’s mother cooked an Iranian stew
dish, Nina’s husband Misha made chicken horovats on their special indoor fireplace-grill, there were lots of salads and
trimmings and homemade oghi for toasting guests and hosts alike. Sam and I were tasked with lots of
translating, but really enjoyed it.
We joked that we had a mini-UN going on at our dinner feast. Nina and Misha and their family members
would say toasts or make comments or ask questions in Armenian (and sometimes
Russian), we’d translate it to English and Erfan would translate into Persian
for his girlfriend’s mother.
Getting ready for some feasting
Chicken horovats... mmmmm
Our mini-UN
Turns out that the day we chose for our trip and meeting all these great new people was also Efren’s 33rd birthday. Nora surprised him with a big cake, complete with giant roman candles burning on top. It was such a nice, unexpected part of our trip. Our bellies overfull with delicious food and our cheeks sore from smiling and laughing, we headed to bed.
Happy birthday, Erfan!
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