It has been in the 90s forever now, but last nights rain seems to have broken the heat a little and there is rain in the weekend forecast too thank goodness. The cool feels really refreshing after the non-stop heat we had experienced. I was hiking up at Lake Sevan (Shorjha area)and in Dilijan a few days ago and was just sweating buckets. We discovered a very nice B&B near Dilijan with beds for $7/night, with all sorts of conveniences. The chef impessed us also, although the days food costs as much as the bed ;-)

Recent days have seen the restart of peace negotiations with Azerbaijan which are taking place in Turkey. There are reports again that Azerbaijan wants to take over a Meghri corridor which they will give in return for the Lachin corridor. I agree completely with this plan as long as Turkey also gives us a corridor to the Black Sea since Armenia would be stupid to give up its only link with Iran and just be stuck with Turkey, Azerbaijan and an unstable Georgia on 3 sides... The pan-Turkic dream of linking Turks from Istanbul to the Caspian Sea should not be fulfilled cheaply, it is worth a great deal to them and I think that they would seriously consider giving Armenia a port on the Black Sea which would finally give it a sovereign connection to the whole world!