Yesterday evening we left the run down town Alaverdi, and wild camped on a meadow on the edge of Debed Canyon some 20 kilometers from Alaverdi. We had a fantastic view over the canyon. The nature is fantastic here, everywhere there are huge fields of bright red poppy flowers, white fields of daises and blue fields and pink fields of other wild flowers. This must be the perfect time to visit Armenia.

We planned for a 3-4 hour walk to a mountaintop today. We put on our boots and packed a picnic lunch. But soon the trail turned in to a jungle trail through the thick woods and turned in to a muddy and slippery struggle to pass. After en hour we decided to turn around and to go to Lake Sevan instead. Lake Sevan is a big lake and it is the beach place for the Armenians. We did not find it that nice and we decided not to stay there.

Wow what a great place we found that we are staying now, spotlessly clean, pool, big garden, kitchen and laundry machine. It is a Dutch couple that has moved to Armenia who has started this place. Here we will stay for some days to have a rest, do loads of laundry and plan ahead, book a ferry to the Ukraine and book a visit to Chernobyl.

Bert helped the owners with some nice pictures of the facilities to put on their website etc. They got really pleased with them.

Next door to the place we are staying there is a car mechanic. We decided to try to fix our car. When he checked the car he found that the spring was completely broken and the attachment was too rusty to be able to use anymore. But the mechanic had an idea for a solution that we could try, he took a couple of parts from a Lada and welded them together. We paid 18 Euro. It looks good. We will see how this will work. Hopefully long enough for us to fix it in proper way later. It is nice to know that there still are real mechanics out there and not only spare part jockeys.

We told Sandra who owns this place that we had staied more than 1 000 nights in our car by now. On the first trip for two years, on this trip for one year and on top of that quite a few nights in Sweden and Europe for shorter vacations. That has to be celebrated she said. And today she showed up with a chocolate cake and flowers!

Today we also visited Gerhgard Monastery just a few kilometers from here, it is a very old Catholic monastery partly carved out of the rocks.

We have had a great and relaxing day at the pool today. But we have also booked tickets for the ferry across the Black Sea from Georgia to the Ukraine. The ferry is 500 Euro for us, the car and all the meals. The crossing will take 3 days. It is not a luxury crossing we are talking about. It is mostly truck drivers taking this ferry. We have booked a cabin for two, with toilet and shower in the hall way. All the cabins with toilet and shower in the room were already taken.

Now, when we know exactly when we are going to be in the Ukraine we also could book our Chernobyl visit. It has to be done at least 10 days in advance since they have to process our applications for visiting Chernobyl. We booked a one-day trip from Kiev for 90 Euro per person. We are really looking forward to this. We have been talking about this for years.

Yerevan is the capital of Armenia. The town is modern with flashy wine bars, nice restaurants and cafes. This could easily be like in any town in Europe.

In the center there is a huge sculpture park climbing a steep hill. The sculptures are both inside the building by the escalator and outside by the stairs.

After a day in Yervan we started to go north towards Georgia. We wild camped at the top of a hill made potatosallad, a piece of meat and had a bottle of local red wine. The wine was not bad at all actually.

Now we have left Armenia for Georgia. We have heard so many good things about Georgia, out hopes are high and we hope that we will not get disappointed. On the Georgian side it is very beautiful too with big meadows of flowers, green hills and butterflies. All the time we say ah look at this, look at that… It is wonderful.

Along the way we found the greatest boogie van ever. In the afternoon we arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia and found a great spot to park for the night, with a fantastic view over the city. It looked great in the evening and in the morning too.