Earthlooping in Yerevan. Picture from the Cascades.
Just one day sightseeing Yerevan to have a small taste of Armenia on the way between Georgia and Iran. Not really an interesting city, but ok to spend a day wandering around and having the last beers before heading to abstemious Iran.
What are you doing in Yerevan? You want to visit Yerevan? Yerevan is not Armenia! It has nothing, it's just a Soviet city! You should go to the countryside, to see the real Armenia, the churches, the mountains... Armenia has the biggest concentration of monuments in the world after Italy!
These were Artur's words, our host in the Armenian capital, and the first ones we heard after arriving in Yerevan. And he may be right, Yerevan is not Armenia and to have a deeper taste of the country we should head outside the city. But we were on the way to Iran and what Armenia has to offer is basically churches and mountains. We're not that interested in churches and we had just came from Svaneti in Georgia with spectacular mountains, so we decided on just seeing a bit Yerevan. Sorry Artur, hopefully we'll pay a visit to Armenia again in the future :)
Yerevan
Anyway, the journey to Yerevan took us 6 hours by marshrutka from Tbilisi. In the van we met some intereseting people: An Armenian woman coming all the way from Thessaloniki (Greece) by bus, who filled up the vehicle with her bags (probably all her life was in those bags) and a young and quite special couple: the girl was American while the guy was Iranian, quite weird, eh?
The Armenian woman started talking as she knew everybody from childhood, inviting us to have coffee with her in Yerevan, asking for Facebook... but she was nice. Nicer were the American-Iranian couple, who, when we told them we were going to Iran afterwards, they gave us a telephone contact in case we needed anything in Tehran, they invited us to their home in Yerevan... we were starting to check the Iranian hospitality which later would shock us in Iran.
The Armenian woman started talking as she knew everybody from childhood, inviting us to have coffee with her in Yerevan, asking for Facebook... but she was nice. Nicer were the American-Iranian couple, who, when we told them we were going to Iran afterwards, they gave us a telephone contact in case we needed anything in Tehran, they invited us to their home in Yerevan... we were starting to check the Iranian hospitality which later would shock us in Iran.
Stop for some fruit on the way to Yerevan
The 6-hour trip went by quite quickly, with a couple of stops on the way, first one to buy some fruits and second one to eat a little bit. The border crossing was very straightforward, just a stamp on the passport and filling up a form stating our address in Yerevan (this address giving would provoke a funny situation later on).
Once you enter Armenia, the landscape suddenly becomes more mountanious and brown, wouldn't call it beautiful, but quite ok. Once in Yerevan, we took a marshrutka to the center and we tried to find our accomodation: Apricot Hostel. The directions we had were that it was next to the Acapulco Hotel, so we kept asking everybody on the street as it was quite difficult to find. When we got to the place, we found out that the Acapulco Hotel is a strip club or something similar, people must have though we were desperate to have some fun!
Anyhow, we got to the Apricot hostel and first thing we found was a mobile phone attached to the door instead of a doorbell. This Artur must be a funny guy! Some guy opened us the door and welcomed us inside. The place is a small flat transformed into a hostel with just one room with bunk beds, a small double room, a kitchen and a bathroom. Clean and nice. But the best is Artur, who we met some minutes later.
Once you enter Armenia, the landscape suddenly becomes more mountanious and brown, wouldn't call it beautiful, but quite ok. Once in Yerevan, we took a marshrutka to the center and we tried to find our accomodation: Apricot Hostel. The directions we had were that it was next to the Acapulco Hotel, so we kept asking everybody on the street as it was quite difficult to find. When we got to the place, we found out that the Acapulco Hotel is a strip club or something similar, people must have though we were desperate to have some fun!
Anyhow, we got to the Apricot hostel and first thing we found was a mobile phone attached to the door instead of a doorbell. This Artur must be a funny guy! Some guy opened us the door and welcomed us inside. The place is a small flat transformed into a hostel with just one room with bunk beds, a small double room, a kitchen and a bathroom. Clean and nice. But the best is Artur, who we met some minutes later.
Border crossing between Georgia and Armenia. Welcome to Armenia!
He's a young guy and he loves to talk about anything. You can spend hours talking to him. He gave us advices on Armenia, on how to get to Iran, his opinion about everything and he even told us to meet the following day to go and have some food and beers. As it was quite late already, after chatting with Artur a bit, we just went for some fast food and back to the hostel to have some rest.
Next day we woke up early and first thing we did was going to the bus station to book our bus ticket to Tehran for the following day. It took us a while as the station is not in the centre but we finally managed to get the ticket in a VIP bus due to leave from Yerevan at 10 in the morning.
With homework done, we went to see a bit of Yerevan. Yes, Artur was right, Yerevan has nothing special, probably the best sights are the Armenian Market and the Blue Mosque. Besides that, there's an open-air bazar, a couple of big Soviet squares and big wide avenues full of Lada cars, these Soviet-era cars are literally everywhere! (check our Yerevan Guide for more details). We tried some Armenian food, Armenian beers, and back to the hostel.
Next day we woke up early and first thing we did was going to the bus station to book our bus ticket to Tehran for the following day. It took us a while as the station is not in the centre but we finally managed to get the ticket in a VIP bus due to leave from Yerevan at 10 in the morning.
With homework done, we went to see a bit of Yerevan. Yes, Artur was right, Yerevan has nothing special, probably the best sights are the Armenian Market and the Blue Mosque. Besides that, there's an open-air bazar, a couple of big Soviet squares and big wide avenues full of Lada cars, these Soviet-era cars are literally everywhere! (check our Yerevan Guide for more details). We tried some Armenian food, Armenian beers, and back to the hostel.
We were late to go and have beers with Artur, so we went to a nearby place and have a bit of Armenian food. Afterwards, to the supermarket to stock-up on food for the trip to Tehran and to get a couple of beers, probably the last ones in one month.
Back into the hostel, we met Artur again. "Are you sick? Did you call a doctor today?", he asked. I told him I'm perfectly ok, I didn't know what he was talking about. Then he explained that a doctor came in the evening asking if there was a Spanish guy there. That was me, of course, and the doctor wanted to know if the Spanish guy was healthy because it might be possible that he was infected with Ebola. What the f***??????!!!!! Artur was not believing his eyes and saying they are totally crazy. And they really are, they sent a doctor to the hostel especially to check if I had Ebola because there had recently been an Ebola case in Spain. Crazy ignorants! We started to laugh and this lead to a conversation about Ebola and other viruses. Artur thinks everything is false, Ebola doesn't exist, it's just an invention from the pharmaceutical companies.
Back into the hostel, we met Artur again. "Are you sick? Did you call a doctor today?", he asked. I told him I'm perfectly ok, I didn't know what he was talking about. Then he explained that a doctor came in the evening asking if there was a Spanish guy there. That was me, of course, and the doctor wanted to know if the Spanish guy was healthy because it might be possible that he was infected with Ebola. What the f***??????!!!!! Artur was not believing his eyes and saying they are totally crazy. And they really are, they sent a doctor to the hostel especially to check if I had Ebola because there had recently been an Ebola case in Spain. Crazy ignorants! We started to laugh and this lead to a conversation about Ebola and other viruses. Artur thinks everything is false, Ebola doesn't exist, it's just an invention from the pharmaceutical companies.
The Cascades, Yerevan's landmark
After a long night conversation with Artur about Ebola and hundreds of different topics, we went to sleep, as next mornig a 24-hour trip by bus to Tehran was waiting for us.
All in all, Yerevan was not that bad and we quite enjoyed our time there, especially sharing some time with Artur. If you ever go to Yerevan, stay at the Apricot Hostel!
You can now check our Yerevan Pictures Gallery!
All in all, Yerevan was not that bad and we quite enjoyed our time there, especially sharing some time with Artur. If you ever go to Yerevan, stay at the Apricot Hostel!
You can now check our Yerevan Pictures Gallery!
RSS Feed
