Onwards

It has been quite a day. 

I was out of my apartment at 10am to get a marshrutka minibus to Yerevan, in Armenia.

It is 173 mile (277 km) drive from Tbilisi. It took 5.5 hours, which is normal according to Google maps. The road is not good. The traffic is very slow in places. A lot of the road is through hills and mountains.  

We were lucky with our stops at the border, and it only took us 20 minutes. The Armenian immigration officer was unimpressed by the Azerbaijan stamps in my passport, but let me in. 

We also stopped for fuel - LPG I think. I could have bought lunch there, but had no Armenian money. The currency exchange booth at the border declined my English notes. In fact the guy gave me a “do you think I’m daft?” look. 

Just before the border we stopped for the driver to buy 10kg of oranges at a roadside stall. I guess they looked good, or cheap, or both.

He also stopped to buy a car door just after we got into Armenia. Then he discovered there was no room for it in the van. We had to leave it for him to collect another time. 

Google does not factor in these random stops, so I guess we made good time. His driving was wild, but no more so than that of other drivers. 

The other thing of note on the journey was passing 4 surface-to-air missiles in a field. 

When we stopped for fuel and had wifi (but no lunch) I saw we had been right beside the Azerbaijan border when I saw the weaponry. 

Arrival in Yerevan led to my first Lada experience in decades - the taxi to the apartment. Many memories dredged up. 

The driver - nice chap in his 70s - had Armenian hiphop blasting out on the radio as he tried to squeeze more schoolboy Russian out of me (diversion tactics, so I would not notice him taking the long way around).

I had time to find a Blip after I had settled into my apartment. It is just a shot looking towards Freedom Square in the city centre.