Talk about adventure tourism. It was just waaay more adventure than any of us wanted, but to get to Shamshadin, and see it's monasteries and scenery requires some serious offroading and lack of creature comforts. I will try to be brief in sharing this story in order to save us all time.
It all started the morning of the 4th of July, when we got a slow, comfortable start, leaving Yerevan just before noon, and heading to Ijevan to spend the night. We had nothing specific planned for the day, just an idea of looking at some local monasteries if we felt like it. After a delicious lunch of fish on the shores of Lake Sevan, I was telling Lena and Jack about Kirants Vank, well north of Ijevan which I had been to in 2000, and another monastery I had tried unsuccessfully to find at that time as well, Arakelots. With such long days, and a couple of sandwiches, we said what the heck and headed up.
The brand new Lincy funded highway was amazing, except it was sad to see the massive rains had washed 2 sections away. So we got to our turnoff and headed south into deep forests. The first monastery, which was supposed to be just 1km from the village, and which I was unsuccessful at finding again proved very difficult. It was a very humid weekend in the forested areas we spent the whole weekend in and we sweat like pigs searching for this monastery. There are logging roads all over so it is confusing. We returned to the bottom of the hill where I noticed a very tiny spot which could be a wall way above, but we were worried about the light having almost 10km of bad, muddy dirt road to cover in order to reach Kirants, one of my favorite monasteries. So we headed off, and eventually the track confused me and we had to double back a few km to confirm directions. Water had ruined the previous road I had taken it turns out, and it was already completely overgrown, so we headed back on the new road. Getting to Kirants monastery, it was surrounded by very tall grass. After venturing into it twice, and almost immediately noticing ticks jumping onto us, we gave up and left in low spirits. Heading back, Lena had a headache, so me and Jack decided to see if whatever I saw on the hill in the forest was Arakelots. As we started up, we met young Gourgen, who confirmed we were on the right track and guided us up. Arakelots was fantastic, really. With interesting fortifications, and a unique "piled stone" roof in one of the chambers, it distiguished itself as a unique monastery in a land of monasteries. Returning to the car we found that Lena had gotten worse, and that the sandwich she ate was no longer with her. We headed back to Ijevan in the dark to find a nice B&B and were successful in finally finding Svetlana's place, thanks to a new B&B guide to Ijevan.
Svetlana's place was fantastic, beautiful, comfortable, and with a fantastic shower and breakfast, all for under $10. We got a late start again due to car issues, which Svetlana's son fixed. Finally heading into Shamshadin, with a lot of difficulty, and the help of some kind Ijevantsis who knew some of our tourism development friends (they drove our car up the hardest parts of the road to the monastery and back down), we reached Srveghi Monastery. It was very nice, and never having found a single picture, and not knowing what to expect, a beautiful surprise. Jack was lamenting the shortness of time to photograph and plans to spend the night there in order to get in all the shots he wants.
From Srveghi we rushed to Nor Varagavank, which I had been to on 4th of July weekend 3 years ago. Each monastery in Armenia truly has its own charm, and this one has no shortage of it. Incredibly intricate carved stones, beautiful shades of stone, and, like all the monasteries of Shamshadin (and most in Armenia) a very beautiful setting.
Again running low on light, we left our relaxed picnic and rushed to Shkhmuradi Monastery. Bad roads caused us to hike the last portion, which allowed us to enjoy the very cut off location with again lush forests, and sheer cliffs. The monastery was small and charming, but we could not dawdle, we rushed back to find accomodations in Berd. We ended up at the hotel, which was not nearly as bad as we expected. True, you could not shower, but otherwise the "luxury" room, at under $4 per person was very clean, nicely remodeled, and comfortable. If there had been a toilet seat that would have been icing on the cake :-)
We had a great dinner nearby, and asked them to bbq some of the marshmellows I had brought with me to enjoy on my 4th of July weekend. They were all amazed by the marshmellows, and thought they were like "barbequed ice-cream". When was said you can eat them as is, they were impressed you can also eat the things "raw". :-)
So the next morning we headed off to fund our last monastery and then head home. Kaptavank was hard to get too, and after taking our pictures, we were happy to be heading back. We were taking a different route back to Lake Sevan, via Chambarak-Shorjha. The spectacular scenery was something we could only appreciate with our eyes, because the haze of the weird humidity greyed out the more distant mountains and forests. We did get some fantastic shots though, and after an hour of working on the car (thank goodness Jack knows something about this), we finally made it to Sevan hours later and ate another delicious meal of fish. I just had the BBQ fish which had some tomato sauce marinade, and the others ate bbq and fried too. While there, I somehow noticed a tiny tick had gotten under my skin, and when we headed back to Yerevan, Jack pulled it out for me. The digital pictures all came out fantastic, and I am just so glad to have another day off today to recover from my trip!
It all started the morning of the 4th of July, when we got a slow, comfortable start, leaving Yerevan just before noon, and heading to Ijevan to spend the night. We had nothing specific planned for the day, just an idea of looking at some local monasteries if we felt like it. After a delicious lunch of fish on the shores of Lake Sevan, I was telling Lena and Jack about Kirants Vank, well north of Ijevan which I had been to in 2000, and another monastery I had tried unsuccessfully to find at that time as well, Arakelots. With such long days, and a couple of sandwiches, we said what the heck and headed up.
The brand new Lincy funded highway was amazing, except it was sad to see the massive rains had washed 2 sections away. So we got to our turnoff and headed south into deep forests. The first monastery, which was supposed to be just 1km from the village, and which I was unsuccessful at finding again proved very difficult. It was a very humid weekend in the forested areas we spent the whole weekend in and we sweat like pigs searching for this monastery. There are logging roads all over so it is confusing. We returned to the bottom of the hill where I noticed a very tiny spot which could be a wall way above, but we were worried about the light having almost 10km of bad, muddy dirt road to cover in order to reach Kirants, one of my favorite monasteries. So we headed off, and eventually the track confused me and we had to double back a few km to confirm directions. Water had ruined the previous road I had taken it turns out, and it was already completely overgrown, so we headed back on the new road. Getting to Kirants monastery, it was surrounded by very tall grass. After venturing into it twice, and almost immediately noticing ticks jumping onto us, we gave up and left in low spirits. Heading back, Lena had a headache, so me and Jack decided to see if whatever I saw on the hill in the forest was Arakelots. As we started up, we met young Gourgen, who confirmed we were on the right track and guided us up. Arakelots was fantastic, really. With interesting fortifications, and a unique "piled stone" roof in one of the chambers, it distiguished itself as a unique monastery in a land of monasteries. Returning to the car we found that Lena had gotten worse, and that the sandwich she ate was no longer with her. We headed back to Ijevan in the dark to find a nice B&B and were successful in finally finding Svetlana's place, thanks to a new B&B guide to Ijevan.
Svetlana's place was fantastic, beautiful, comfortable, and with a fantastic shower and breakfast, all for under $10. We got a late start again due to car issues, which Svetlana's son fixed. Finally heading into Shamshadin, with a lot of difficulty, and the help of some kind Ijevantsis who knew some of our tourism development friends (they drove our car up the hardest parts of the road to the monastery and back down), we reached Srveghi Monastery. It was very nice, and never having found a single picture, and not knowing what to expect, a beautiful surprise. Jack was lamenting the shortness of time to photograph and plans to spend the night there in order to get in all the shots he wants.
From Srveghi we rushed to Nor Varagavank, which I had been to on 4th of July weekend 3 years ago. Each monastery in Armenia truly has its own charm, and this one has no shortage of it. Incredibly intricate carved stones, beautiful shades of stone, and, like all the monasteries of Shamshadin (and most in Armenia) a very beautiful setting.
Again running low on light, we left our relaxed picnic and rushed to Shkhmuradi Monastery. Bad roads caused us to hike the last portion, which allowed us to enjoy the very cut off location with again lush forests, and sheer cliffs. The monastery was small and charming, but we could not dawdle, we rushed back to find accomodations in Berd. We ended up at the hotel, which was not nearly as bad as we expected. True, you could not shower, but otherwise the "luxury" room, at under $4 per person was very clean, nicely remodeled, and comfortable. If there had been a toilet seat that would have been icing on the cake :-)
We had a great dinner nearby, and asked them to bbq some of the marshmellows I had brought with me to enjoy on my 4th of July weekend. They were all amazed by the marshmellows, and thought they were like "barbequed ice-cream". When was said you can eat them as is, they were impressed you can also eat the things "raw". :-)
So the next morning we headed off to fund our last monastery and then head home. Kaptavank was hard to get too, and after taking our pictures, we were happy to be heading back. We were taking a different route back to Lake Sevan, via Chambarak-Shorjha. The spectacular scenery was something we could only appreciate with our eyes, because the haze of the weird humidity greyed out the more distant mountains and forests. We did get some fantastic shots though, and after an hour of working on the car (thank goodness Jack knows something about this), we finally made it to Sevan hours later and ate another delicious meal of fish. I just had the BBQ fish which had some tomato sauce marinade, and the others ate bbq and fried too. While there, I somehow noticed a tiny tick had gotten under my skin, and when we headed back to Yerevan, Jack pulled it out for me. The digital pictures all came out fantastic, and I am just so glad to have another day off today to recover from my trip!
posted by Raffi K. at 10:51 AM
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