Days 19-20

We arrived in Nagorno Karabakh today.  The road torturously wound through the mountains, making me nausous even though I held back on the oghee last night -- the mashrutka stunk of garlic and onions adding to the nausea.  Nagorno means mountainous in Armenia.  It's no misnomer.  The people here are even more curious than their comrades in the rest of Armenia -- but very friendly.  Every child in the street says hello and then gawks in anticipation to see what we'll say or do.  I was thinking maybe I'll start doing a little jig for them.

Yesterday was a great day, one of the best of our trip so far (in my opinion).  It didn't start out that way though.  We decided to share a taxi with a pair of indecisive Czechs to a town called Tetav -- to cut back on costs.  Very friendly Czechs but insufferably indecisive.  The plan was to take the taxi to the town, see the World Heritage monastery (which was actually quite beautiful and interesting) and then hike down a deep canyon to a Satan's Bridge and have the taxi catch up with us there later in the day.  Just planning that rendezvous took hours, mainly due to the language barrier but also because of the Czechs who didn't know what they wanted to do and a little girl who looked just liked my niece (Sydney) and who told us in her very broken english that we couldn't "go down there" but she couldn't tell us why and that there were alot of poisonous snakes that bite tourists.  But once we got underway it turned out that all the hassle was well worth it.  The trail descended into a canyon and at the bottom was a 14th century monastery that had succumbed to the strangles of the forest.  It hadn't been dug up and looked like it was melting back into the earth.  We had the place to ourselves -- a memorable experience.

Last night an Armenian staying at our guesthouse spoke some english and told me that there is or was a town in southern Armenia named "Halaj."  He thought that might be where our name came from.  We tried to find it on the map but it wasn't there.  He thinks it's just north of Kapon, a town in Southern Armenia about 30 k or so from the Iranian border.  He also opined that the name could have Turkic roots.

There was also a family from St. Petersburg at the guesthouse last night.  The grandfather was 96 and looked like he was 60.  He poured me and one of the Czech's a shot of oghee and we all clinked glasses.  The Czech and I took a sip.  The Russians, including the 96-year old grandpa, threw them down.  The old man put his empty glass on the table and looked at both of us and politely asked "Is the vodka too strong?"  Called out.

For the first time in my life I have a crush on a car.  They're called Nivas, made by Lada I think.  They are 4-wheel drive hatchback Chevette's.  They come in white and red.  They go over anything.  I feel all atwitter when I see them buzzing around town.  I want one.  Erin doesn't feel as strongly about them as I do.

In and around Goris there are thousands of caves dug into sandstone spires.  They apparently date back to the 4th century, places to hide from the hordes of persians and parthians and mongols and turks over the centuries.  Now the townsfolk use them to stable livestock.

Karabakh is heavily militarized as expected.  Lot of dudes in fatigues.  They want to know exactly where you're going and you get a permission slip to go to those places only.  The guy at the border checkpoint looked at my passport and said "you're armenian but you don't speak armenian."  I've gotten that more than a few times.  My peps are disappointed in me.