It seems like ages since having left Peru with my grandchildren to visit England, I was able to see London through the magic eyes of two young children which was amazing!
We did a lot of fun things together and they then all returned to Lima, leaving me to get on the road and visit new places. This time my focus was to be on Armenia and Georgia.
I have always opted for budget travelling…..not because I am a scrooge with money, but because for me, this has been the best way to be in contact and feel the vibes of a country, as well as meet every day people, whether it be in a crowded bus, a little modest hotel, a park bench or over a plate of food in the local market.
Indeed, my first longish budget trip was when I was seventeen and hitch-hiked to Istanbul and back….. a naive youngster, I certainly grew up a lot on that trip. How the world of travelling has changed since those times!
When moving to Peru some forty years ago, part of my work involved regularly travelling to countries throughout South America. 0n these trips, I was always assigned top range hotels, which were ideal for work purposes but often seemed to be comfortably similar in each city….. lacking the colour and atmosphere which makes every place unique.
Thus, as soon as the work was finished I was off to find some cheap and cheerful accommodation which would bring me in contact with the favour of local flavour.
Now, I find it very practical to find places to stay using Booking,Com. With my target of no more than $30 per night on this trip, I found some beautiful, well equipped mini departments. Only one was, shall we say, under par, and run down. However, at least the owner brought me a steaming cup of herbal tea to get over the shock once seeing the room.
As the years pass, my zest for travelling continues, but my stamina, wobbly operated knees and bionic back with titanium screws have meant lately that some compromises sadly have to be made. I guess this was the first trip where I really had to give these factors more consideration than usual. Things will change when and if I get a brand new knee installed. Then I’ll be galloping around everywhere again.
This latest trip, starting in Armenia, got off to a slow start. I left London for a flight to Yerevan via Venice. On arriving sleepily in Yerevan, I made my way to the hotel I had reserved.
I had already written to the hotel to say I would be arriving at about midnight Armenian time. I turned into a small unlit street, and there it was, hidden in the dark, my hotel of choice. I went through the door to the reception desk but there was nobody there.
After waiting about half an hour, I decided to explore. I was really too tired to find another hotel at this late hour in a totally unknown city. There was a kitchen area……well,,,,,,so I could at least make myself a nice cup of tea! I tried some of the doors on the ground floor….. an open office, some locked rooms…… and then….. one room that was unlocked. Someone had obviously recently vacated the room. Although the room was “used”, I crashed down on top of the bed cover and ignoring the excessive heat managed to get a few hours of beauty sleep.
There were apologies in the morning and a certain good will by the hotel to put things right. There would be no charge for the dirty room, a reduced rate on the following nights and ……what brought music to my ears…. a car and driver for the whole day to go wherever I wanted. The driver arrived, my daunted spirit lifted and I went forth optimistically into the Yerevan day,
The driver enabled me to make the best use of the day including cruising the streets in the old part of town and saving my weary legs from a lot of extra walking. Terrible night perhaps..l but a good rewarding first day to follow!
Click images to see full size view and scroll.
In conversations with the manager that same morning, he was keen to help me make the best of my short time in and around Yerevan. He found me a tour for the next day which included many of the places I wanted to visit. Despite my general reluctance and aversion to the idea of organised tours he persuaded me that this would be my best bet.
I thought of the horrendous lines of tourists following a guide with a flag held high on a stick which I had frequently observed with some amusement in Dubrovnik last year and shivered at the idea.
I then thought about my wobbly knees and the complication of finding transport to these rather desolate places included in the tour which would take time and sap my limited walking energy. The decision was easy to make and my now friend, the manager, made me the booking.
In fact, the tour, with a small group of people in a small van was excellent. Not only did we see a lot of the monasteries, countryside etc, but the guide limited talks to a reasonable essential minimum and allowed us plenty of free time to do our own thing in each place. I confess that I enjoyed it a enormously, and would certainly recommend this option to others who have a limited time to visit the area surrounding Yerevan.
So that day my wobbly knees appreciated my decision taken. But what about getting round town? Public transport can be tricky to work out and often involves a fair bit of walking and waiting around as well.
Indeed, it is far more practical to get a SIM card as soon as possible and download the local taxi app. This works well in countries such as Armenia, Georgia and my native Peru where taxi services are very cheap. (Don’t try the same in London, for taxis cost a fortune!)
My taxi rides, wherever I was in Armenia or Georgia were then automaticslly charged to my Peruvian Credit card, so there was no problem with coins and banknotes or language. Another plus for wobbly knees , the ease of simply jumping from taxi to taxi!
I found that even for semi long trips, for instance Yerevan to Sevan, about 55 km, it was quite reasonable and practical to order a taxi online and be taken to the doorstep of my destination. Wow, can you see how lazy I was becoming.
Sevan, was on my route heading towards the Georgian border and is also the location of one of the most famous Armenian monestaries situated on the shores of Lake Sevan.
Absolutely beautiful! However, for me, the main and most important “attraction” in Sevan was to meet up with Leighton and Sladja who I had got to know through their travel blog on WordPress, “Leighton Travels”. I have enjoyed reading Leighton’s travel posts enormously, and have also been very grateful for his constant support when starting my own blog. It was great sharing experiences, and the freaky little restaurant, with Jimi Hendrix playing on the sound system while a local band was ready setting up for a practice … unforgettable. Thanks to you both…..it was great, meeting you!
But then it was time to head up from Armenia to Georgia. Last year in the Balkans, I was able to hire a car and drive with it through a number of different counties. I was not able to find a similar cross-border deal in Armenia, and leaving the car in a different location was rather expensive. As a result I took the advice from Emily Blush’s website, (emily@wonderlush.org,) and took the trip from Yerevan to Tbilisi with a pre-booked “Go Trip” driver. This was quite expensive for a single person, but very good value if you are travelling in a group. On the online application you choose your starting place and destination, Then you add places where you want to stop on the way. The app then shows you prices and available drivers.
There is no rush on the way and you can stop wherever you like en route to look around or simply take in the scenery. Wow, my knees are really getting spoilt and I was becoming to really appreciate these door to door experiences I was having more and more.
Tblisi was a wonderful city to visit. If this were a travel guide, I would write pages about the beauty, the history and above all, the feel of this vibrant city. Ahhhhhh …. Well….. here a a few snaps……just as a taster!
From Tblisi I was able to hire a car which for some time now has been my preferred means of travel. In Emily’s blog she warns her readers about the poor driving in Georgia, especially along the mountain roads. However, after being used to daily traffic in Lima, and often handling the Kamikazi lorry drivers on the hairpin bends crossing the Andes at 4800 metres, driving here was really a doddle.
The car I was provided with had bumps on each cormer and an empty bottle of wine under the driver seat. On remarking on this to the car-hire person his answer was “Well, that is why it is so cheap.” There was no pre- check on the condition of the car. On mentioning this he simply suggested I take a video of the car., which I did. In a way, it was nice to think I could add a few scrapes here and there and nobody would notice. The empty wine bottle remained under the seat. Who knows? Perhaps it is still there!
Pehaps the most important thing about car hire ( apart from insurance coverage) is to have a “Navigator” This car didn’t have one installed, but with my local SIM Card I was able to connect my phone. Usually in Peru I use the app WAZE for navigation. However opening Waze, all the script was only in Georgian letters, non of which I was able to read.
Thankfully opening Google Maps, the details came out in both Geotgian and western script. I WAS SAVED.
Street signs were usually written with both scripts, which was also a relief.
So, with my hybrid Toyota Prius, I left Tblisi and headed towards the mountains along the Georgian Military Highway linking Georgia with Russia, stopping off here and there at whim. Time was mine and there were no specific guidelines or deadlines.
The mountains and the scenery were awe inspiring. It was so peaceful stumbling across green meadows and crossing little mountain. streams,
There were lots of serious treckers about, and also mountaineers loading pack horses with equipment to take up the foothills of the mountains.
Then there was me and my knees!!
I headed towards a recommended waterfall, dragging my gammy leg. I was doing pretty well but after a number of kilometres the trail suddenly became steep and slippery. Having learnt from slipping down a precipice last year in Bosnia, I humbly started my descent. Did it matter? No…. I was surrounded by such beauty, all I had to do was stop regularly to take it all in!!
In the north of Georgia, not many people spoke English, which meant I had to use my Russian, which I had learnt for five years in Secondary School. I can still put a few simple sentences together. For instance I lost my pen and needed another one. I couldn’t find a shop anywhere, so I went into a chemist and asked, “Где я могу купить ручку недалеко” (Is there somewhere nearby where I can buy a pen.) She understood me,,,,,,,, but her answer was both long and confusing. She saw my perplexed face, looked in her desk, and with a smile took out a ballpoint pen and gave it to me!
In fact, people were so very friendly and willing to help. One afternoon I arrived in the town of Telavi in the wine growing area of Georgia. After installing myself in a hotel, my idea was to find a taxi which could perhaps take me to a nearby winery in a nearby village. (No drink and driving!) I explained this to a taxi driver but his Russian was almost as bad as mine.
He took me to speak to an English speaking lady who was running a nearby kiosk with coffee and sandwiches. She kindly explained my wishes to the driver……… and then added that she knew a family in her own village who had a winery. She then offered to come with us in order to introduce me to her friends. She locked up the kiosk and we were off. We arrived at her friend’s winery and were soon having a a look round. I was shown the pottery jars (Qvevris) that they had just made following a tradition of centuries. The qvevris are buried under the ground, filled with pressed grapes and sealed to mature into delicious wine.
That led on, of course, to the sampling of the wine and brandy , just me, the owner’s wife and the lady from the kiosk. What a lovely afternoon and what amazing selfless hospitality.
After days of wandering, I finally arrived back in Tblisi where a police car flashed its lights and pulled me over. Oh, no, what had I done? I explained that I was totally lost and trying to find the car hire office to return the car, The officer, on observing that I was a blundering old foreigner, took pity on me and invited me to follow his patrol car, not to the “clink” but kindly, to the road I had been trying to find. With a wave he indicated the road I was to take, accelerated, and was off to find another victim.
These happy unforeseen happenings for me are what travelling is all about. Countries may be beautiful but they can be totally outshone by the wonderful people you meet on the way. I could go on with other examples but will simply add that this happens wherever you travel if you are prepared to see things with miracle .eyes.
Now I am back in London. Yesterday, I was in Walthamstow in East London. I stopped outside a fabric shop to rest my wobbly knees a bit. The owner came and offered me a seat and we started talking. He came to England 40 years ago from the Punjab ( I left England about 40 years ago to live in Peru). It was interesting sharing our experiences of going to live in a distant land. He then offered me a cup of tea….. and that was just what I needed. People! All around the world….. beautiful people.
Wanderings! 
Leave a comment