August 11 - The city too far
A healthy breakfast is a nice way to start the day, with an omlette, delicious honey and even more delicious raspberry jam...yummy. Things got off to a good start, after contemplating for a while which road to take (and picking the shorter one), the Austrian-like countryside descended for some thirty kilometers to Ijevan, then to the Azerbaijan border. That was where my troubles started.
This is Armenia
Look once again - these are cows on a railway track
A flower market
Nothing too bad, justthat I had to reclimb each meter I had lost in the morning hours, now in the heat of the day. I heard that this road is occasionally closed during military skirmishes with the Azeris, so was not quite surprised to see some villages completely deserted. Herr I met the first bikervwho did not stop, just said a sort of hello. I was pushing myself up and was quite frustrated - I even swore at the honking cars passing. Here most cars honk at you, to say hello, to cheer you, to warn you, to scare you, whatever. Usually, I don't mind it, but having to struggle for each meter, it did disturb me this time.
Never-ending mountains
Even the highest pass once reachesvits summit and it wasn't different here, I rolledcdown into Noyemberyan, drinking about two liters of liquid. It was yet another climb to the border road, from there it was about a dozen kilometers to the actual crossing. There I met a Russian and a French hippie traveling to China via Iran and Pakistan. Good luck, lads.
Hippies @ the border
The crossing went real quick, as you can see, I am not the first foreigner to travel in this region of the world. After about 10 kilometers, I found quite a horrible place, at least without a Miss Piggie. It was for truckers, enough said regarding the quality. But hey, they do get some excellent grilled food, I wasn't hungrybor elseelse I'd have filled my belly (like today, a day later).
The kitchen at my hotel
In all, it was a very tiring day and I did not reach my goal, Tbilisi, it was several dozen km away. But at least I had slept really well, like in Hotel Miss Piggy.