Caveman life in Khosrov Forest State Preserve

For May 28 this year (a holiday celebrating the first republic's independence day in 1918), we took a trip deep into Khosrov Forest State Preserve. I had seen Jacob Majarian's photos of a very cool cave with ruins of an ancient settlement in the cave, and had tried before unsuccessfully to find the cave, but decided to try again - but this time with a guide. Having hiked around in the area in the fall, and seen pictures of the cave before, I knew we were in for a treat, but the day was just magical, from beginning to end...

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I uploaded more than ten onto my flickr page (a few of which you can see right here). I just couldn't narrow down the number of pictures to any less than that - the views were just so gorgeous (though I can't take the credit for that description :-)

In any case, the day started very slowly, but once the 9 of us squeezed into a jeep in Garni, starting the bumpy ride to the forests, it just kept getting better and better. The hills were as green as can be, the road as bumpy as can be, and the guide as mountain manly as can be. A two hour hike past where the road ends got us to the cave we wanted to see (there were many other caves around, but not quite like this one), and after we got back we had a fantastic dinner at a fish farm along the river, just under Garni. Driving back to the city we saw a lightening storm over Yerevan, and just as we got into town at 11pm, the sky opened up and a massive rainstorm hit...