On the way to Nagorny Karabakh

The road from Yerevan takes time, it’s not so short and curvy (I really feel that I’m pregnant on such a roads). But absolutely beautiful. Sometimes windy and cold, but we are all the time on around 2000 meters.

Out to the capital into direction of… snowy top of Ararat Mountain. Driving driving, amazing colors of watermelons, tomatoes, paprika on the stands around the motorway. The most Armenian’s vineyards are on the Ararat Plain but then second place is around Areni. Fields of wine, courgettes, paprika, peach trees (Hanna was showing with finger and asking “am! am!”)!

Interesting feeling to drive along the border with Iran (more and more cars on Iranian number plates) and Azerbaijan (The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic).

Not easy to get out of the car because of very strong wind. We are cooking inside. Long long kilometers without people. On the way to Karabakh you can really see how empty is Armenia. Life concentrated only in places where living is possible, huge part of the country are just windy mountains, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter.

In the guide we read about Selim Caravanserai, built in 1332 best preserved caravanserai in Armenia. On the important way from Iran to Europe. Don’t know why we expected something big (all those camels and horses should fit there, no?), Selim Caravanserai is small but sweet. And for sure was worth to drive those additional kilometers to see, even cloudy, views. That was a moment when Tom said: maybe it’s good that we have not a great weather here? One could get totally crazy to see such a spaces.

Wind also didn’t let us discover much from Zorats Karer, kind of ancient planetarium, not far from town of Sisian. 204 upright basalt stones, up to 3 meters high, some punctured with holes through which you could observe stars. Very sweet hedgehog was walking by there, getting away all the attention from stones.

We passed by Goris (and visited again some car workshop) and very fast met the border sign. Much faster than expected from the map. Nagorny Karabakh in theory doesn’t touch Armenia but in practice since many years Armenians made a “corridor” leading directly from Armenia to Karabakh.

The “border” was super nice and fast, just small talk with a border policeman (his nephew is responsible for Karabakh’s issues in Armenian Embassy in Berlin). There is no need to have a visa on the border, you can get one in Ministry of Foreign Affairs just after arriving to capital of Karabakh: Stepanakert.

Karabakh welcomed us with even more curvy roads and the side of the road full of blackberries. Tons of them.