Lake Sevan

After two days in the appartment I felt like I had recovered again. I packed up and left quite late to travel eastwards to lake Sevan. Once more the route had changed. As I had wasted a bit of time being ill, I had now opted to go to Sevan, and then head south over three consecutive mountains (and some smaller intermediate climbs) towards the border with Iran, foregoing my earlier plan of visiting Yerevan. I chose my route over the busier roads, as these would guide me over the smaller mountain peaks, hence less chance of experiencing severe cold weather.

On that topic, it has been a lot warmer the past couple of days. When the sun is out it is easily 10 degrees. And the nights don't dip below freezing that much. On top of that I have noticed that my body has gotten used to the cold weather. Firstly I've more than once estimated the temperature much higher than it actually was (while earlier in Turkey I had the opposite experience). Secondly sensations like cold hands or shivering (which doesn't happen that often) are no longer uncomfortable, they've evolved into something that is now normal. Simply a part of the day. I find it fascinating to discover all these ways the body adapts to exercise, heat, and cold.

But enough blabbering. I headed east under a clear blue sky and a shining sun, a nice little gift on the first day after a break. Somewhere near the top I had a little adventure. I had two choices: continue cycling over the main road, or go offroad as advised by komoot (a routeplanning application). I've grown to be a bit skeptical of the application's suggestions, but I decided to give it another go.

And so I went offroad, free from traffic, and ended up in high grass and on gradients that were way too steep to cycle. Who woulda thunk that would happen? I yelled "komoooot!" angrily at the clouds, and had a little hike-a-bike until I came back to the main road. But along the way the scenery was absolutely stunning, and was especially grateful for the view I had when I looked over my shoulder on the way up.

After a climb comes the descent, and that descent brought me straight to Sevan. What a giant lake that is! The roads were lined with stalls where people were selling dried fish, and as the sun was setting I found a nice little camping spot between some trees.

That night I realised I wasn't actually fully recovered from my illness, and its symptoms forced me outside of the tent a couple of times. Sadly this also meant that I hadn't fully digested my dinner, and that I couldn't eat that well the next day. I allowed myself another slow day, luckily helped along by the relatively flat roads next to the lake, and ended up near its shore inbetween some trees a second time.

Feeling slightly better, but not yet fully recovered I headed southward over the first of the peaks. It didn't really count as a mountain in my mind, as I only had a small ascent (lake Sevan lies 2000 meters above sealevel), but it was a nice little adventure anyway. As I made my way through the village of Madina the rain started pattering lightly on the earth. I put on my raingear, had a little break at a fountain with a wall that would shelter me from the wind, and with a full belly continued over the remaining 15km towards the peak.

As I got back to my bike I noticed that the rain had turned to snow. And before I knew it I was cycling in a decent amount of snowfall. A formidable wind was coming from the south and blew the snowflakes right into my eyes. They kind of hurt a bit, so it was hard to see. Additionally I found myself cycling in the clouds, so all in all I didn't have a whole lot of sight.

But I had some fun in this crazy weather. Sure, I was looking forward to the descent so I could leave the snow behind, but the experience was completely new and exciting to me. The people driving there had two kinds of responses, conveyed by gestures, either laughing and wishing me good luck, or puzzled and wondering what the hell I was doing. The latter was a good boost to morale.

I switched on my lights, hung an extra blinking light from the back of my bike and hurried along. As I was descending I thought to myself that it would probably be beautiful high up in these mountains. That is, if I could actually see anything. But before I knew it I pierced the clouds once more, now going downward, and a totally new Armenia showed itself to me.

The mountains were rough and erratic. Small and sharp peaks everywhere. Some of them, as you'd follow their contours upward, steepened and tapered off into a sharp point. Others seemed to have had a giant boulder placed on top of them. Some cliffs were flat, the geological layers that were exposed running in all different directions. Other cliffs looked like someone had glued giant pencils together, moss-covered erasers sticking into the air. Everywhere the rocks were covered with green mosses and fungi, with patches of a brown-orange if one looked more closely.

During the 25 kilometers of my descent, in which I lost about 1300 meters of elevation, I just didn't know where to look. Sure, I was a bit cold from all of that snow and rain that had seeped through my raingear, but the sights made up for it. More than once I uttered an audible "wow" on my down. After rolling through Getap, where my descent ended, I stuffed my face with some snacks, loaded up on water and found a nice place to camp.

The three peaks

Another day, and the first of the mountains! And luckily for me that morning started not only with a clear blue sky (an entire day of rain had been predicted, but mountains don't really care about weather predictions, in my experience), but I also awoke feeling strong again. It had been such a long time since I had felt this good, that it gave me butterflies in my stomach.

I packed up and started the slow ascent to the Vorotan pass. As a kept on cycling to climb out of the valley I saw dark clouds gather behind me, grey clouds overhead and a clear blue sky in front of me. I felt that if I would just keep on cycling I would be able to stay ahead of the bad weather (ofcourse you do, going at 8 kilometers an hour). I passed through a small village or two while being surrounded by snowcapped mountains whose elevation I would match rather soon. I felt so good that day that I just made the ascent in one go. It's also rather convenient doing it in one go, as that means you're not continuously changing your clothing. Weird as it sounds, when you go up the mountain you're more than warm enough by simply wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and some long pants, perhaps putting on some gloves near the top to keep the hands warm.

At the top I was greeted by a huge monument marking the top of the pass. A strange mixture between a monument and a medieval castle gate. It could've been designed by artists, but I joked to myself that I wouldn't be surprised if it was built by Orks (apart from the symbolism on them). I didn't get a whole lot of time to think this over. As soon as I had put down my bike and had taken a picture, the grey clouds released their contents. Tiny hailsones started to fall out of the sky and onto the asphalt. So I put on my sweater, hat, and rainjacket once more and opted to descend quickly to an altitude where they'd melt into rain.

I vividly remember the hailstones being blown across the asphalt by the westernly wind (yay, tailwind!), causing ripples to appear where the hailstones were clumped together, like patterns in marble. It didn't take a whole lot of cycling and descending before I was back to elevations with temperatures above freezing. I continued along the main road until I realised that in order to do some shopping I would have to make a little detour into Sisian (although, detour, what is a detour exactly when you've been on the bike for half a year and you're still heading in the same general direction).

Since I was feeling better I decided that it might be a good idea to load up on calories. So in Sisian I had the most glorious session of hungry-shopping in my life. I imagined that the cashier looked at those two apples and four tangerines inbetween all those cookies and crisps and nuts and soda, and thought: "who does this cycling bum think he's fooling?".

I drove out of town and found a nice place next to a lake to camp.

The astute reader will realise there's two more mountains that the writer will have to ascend. But those mountains were climbed under clear blue skies, and the writer of this post is having problems with his vocabulary. How many times can I say "beautiful scenery" and its synonyms in different ways without it getting boring? Perhaps a lot of different ways, and I'm sure I'm going to give it another good couple of attempts in the coming month. But for this little blog entry I think I've said enough. I'll leave the reader with some pictures of said beautiful scenery instead.

On my last day in Armenia I woke up amongst the clouds themselves, and took my leave to climb that final mountain. Halfway, during a little break, I found that I had picked a restspot that would be visited by an Armenian family as well, just a couple of minutes after I sat down. I was immediately offered a shot of some homebrewed alcohol (tasted like raki) and absolutely delicious homecooked food as well. Some attempts at conversation were made, but the language barrier was too large (I was reminded of the Albanian farmer who invited me into his home, he was absolutely incredible at conveying things in sounds and mime). I was very happy to have experienced this act of kindness on my final day in Armenia.

Tomorrow I'll head out to Iran, a country full of people who stole my heart several years ago. I'm looking forward to it.