Three Days In Armenia (Aug28th-Aug30th)

Going to Armenia was a bit like the British equivalent of going to Wales. 6 hours on the minibus driving from Tbilisi to Yerevan watching Russian comedy on the DVD player, stopping for kebabs and passing poverty and power stations (the nuclear kind). To the North, the scenery was the same as Georgia; green mountains and rivers (in fact, before the Turks came along some 100 years ago, it WAS Georgia!). Then we hit the desert; bare dry-grass rolling hills of beautiful colours, but not the inspiring "Let's go camp" green we were looking for. Yerevan was hot, dry and dusty. Apart from a clean and modern central social point, it was less well kept than Tbilisi- rubbish in the streets and slow-crumbling pavements. The people were nice enough (we got by on Dima's perfect Russian) but nowhere near as friendly, welcoming or helpful as Georgians and it was more expensive than Georgia. So we decided to escape south to green forests and waterfalls...