Yerevan and Mt Ararat

Another travelling day today. It’s goodbye to Rafig and Baku, and off to the airport. As I watch my driver negotiate the traffic there are two overriding impressions of the Azeri driver; they like to “give it that” with their horns, and they will always make five lanes out of three. Apart from this seeming mayhem, the drivers seem fairly relaxed; I don’t see any road rage, large or small.

So, my route today is to Yerevan via Tbilisi. There are no direct flights because Azerbaijan and Armenia do not have relations because of the Nogorno-Karabach issue. How many of you can cast your minds back to the early ’90s and remember this bloody dispute over a small bit of shared land. Every bit as horrible as Bosnia, and still unresolved.

Anyway, for this reason I have a 5-hour stopover in Tbilisi airport before getting on an ancient A320 for the short and, as it happens, quite brutal hop to Yerevan. There’s a bit of thunder about and, as we pass over the lesser Caucasus, things get quite bumpy.

But salvation was to come. As we dropped down towards Yerevan we were rewarded with the most amazing view of Mt Ararat, completely clear in a cloudless sky. Absolutely breathtaking – a 5000 metre mountain climbing sheer from a plain with no other peaks around it other than its 4000 metre brother at its side. I have said it before – this is one of the wonders of the world. Come and see it!