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.
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.
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.
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.
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!