4-14 A Crazy Driving Day from Tbilisi to Yerevan

We had a nice relaxed morning - didn't leave Tbilisi until 10 AM.  The driving through the Georgian countryside went fairly smoothly.  These photos are all shot from inside the car.  There were multiple problems - rain guards at the top of the windows, a big crack in the front window, several hanging toys from the mirror that kept swinging into the shot.  So please excuse the poor quality of these pictures.

This major road has only one lane each way.  But what happens when you want to pass a slow vehicle - easy, you just make another lane.  Most of the time the driver of that middle car would have been straddling the white dashed line.

 You can see where we are going in the far distance - to the snowy mountaintops!

You don't see fences to keep animals in - if you look closely there is a shepherd at the left edge of the barn keeping watch.

Lots of things for sale by the side of the road.  As we got further up there were a lot of stands with grills roasting sweet corn to sell to motorists.

 We finally arrive at the border between Georgia and Armenia.  Our driver had warned us how to answer questions asked by the Armenian government officials.  If you are asked about Baku or Azerbaijan - say you didn't like it.  Fortunately the question never came up. They did not look at our passport to notice that we had been in Azerbaijan - just stamped the passport and handed it back.  While the two countries are not actively at war right now - a conflict over a piece of land has gone on for more than two decades.  We were advised not to go directly from Azerbaijan into Armenia.  But instead to go from Georgia into Armenia. 

Below - the checkpoint is behind us - but our driver has to get insurance - which turned out to be quite expensive.  I don't think the drivers were any worse in Armenia than in Georgia - but there were a heck of a lot more potholes.  Drivers careened from one side of the road to the other trying to avoid the worst of the potholes.  I think this was even worse than the roads in Bali which were horrible!

This was all mountainous driving as well.  We had assumed that our driver had driven this route many times before.  But he had not - he had been to Yerevan 2 years earlier, but had not been driving.  His surprise at the insurance requirement was clue number one.  Clue two was shortly there after when he took off on a single lane steep road and kept stopping to ask directions.  The road back to the major highway was so steep his front bumper scraped the pavement as we made our way back onto the road.

Some Armenian roadside shots.

This is an old abandon Soviet era plant - long abandoned and falling apart.

We stopped in a town to get cash from the atm.  I stayed in the car and took this shot.  That is what the roads looked like all the way - only there has been some attempt to fill them in here.

We saw more Russian made cars in Armenia than in Azerbaijan or Georgia.  And below - a typical scenario.  A fairly new functional building right next to an abandoned one.

At the highest point - now above snow level.  We went through a tunnel in the mountain.

And came out to this.

Then climbing down we passed Lake Sevan which is well known for its beauty.

And finally to our hotel in Yerevan.  We walked a couple of blocks to have dinner at a local Armenian restaurant.  And then walked on to Republic Square.

Then back to the hotel to relax and collapse.