Travelling isn't holidays. In holidays, you do not spend whole days queued up in front of an embassy. In holidays, you are not confronted with your own impatience and ego. You are also not taking "a day off" from holidays. But you DO have to go through those things while travelling.
When we entered Yerevan in the morning to apply for our second - and this time, hopefully correct - russian visa, we did not expect it to be such a nerve test!
The whole process took us about the whole day and all of our trust in the good. Literally every step we took was accompanied by errors, broken machines, language issues and heat. While Aoife is a statue of peace, patience and calm, my energy turns from enthusiasm to hardly held back rage. To be honest, i hate miself like this, but i just can't help it. Human inefficiency is poison to me, also my own one. Anyway, after entering the city around 10 am and finishing the applying process around 5 pm, we are fleeing the city as fast as we can. Our goal is a camping, slash bed and breakfast. Both our travel companions (Kathi & Fabio, Helene & Alessandro) made their way there for stomach reasons and a visit of the main capital next day. After such a day, we aren't unhappy to just arrive, have a beer or two and just forget the struggle. On the way, our inner stress get's whipped away by the fantastic view, showing up out of nothing! Mount Ararat is a truly majestic mountain and the canyons at it's feet create an exotic flair, which we haven't seen in any of the countries we crossed before on this journey!
Camping 3 Gs
3 Gs isn't just a camping. It's overlander porn! Built up by a dutch couple, it lies in the stunning hills of the Chosrov reservoir, which holds countless activities for outdoor enthusiasts. There's three terraces for campers, a mad swimming pool, two huge, modern kitchens and toilets straight out of heaven. Driving down to the terrace, a bunch of serious crossover campers are rowed up. Behind, a beautiful scenery in the evening light.
Here, you can connect for your upcoming route through Russia, Iran or the arabian peninsula.
Further, the camping is working with a garage nearby and sends all their guests with car issues there for reperations. We quickly make up a day for our Flöckli. One of our springs broke in Tbilisi and i managed to fix it just that it wouldn't go worse. For our upcoming route i'd have a good feeling knowing it's properly repaired. Another issue lies somewhere in the fuel-air mix. We're blowing out pretty black smoke at the moment and i recognized a loss of power. It happens mostly on high altitude, which brought me to the idea, that there's either a problem in the turbo system or the car doesn't get enough air somewhere else. Since we have a lot of steep mountains in front of us, this is also a priority. Wednesday the 31. of july will be the day. We also have to go back to Yerevan on that day to pick up our visa's, so we'll find a way to the city by bus or taxi. So we will spend probably three days here on the camping, enough time to explore the region a bit. But first, cooking in a real kitchen :))
I could easily get used to that view from out the kitchen.
The landscape has turned very dry compaired to the rich north of Armenia. While in the caucasus you find high mountains and deep forests, the region around Yerevan is a mix of canyons and green oases in between.
We're spending good days here!
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