30th of June, 2022.
Crossing 2 borders and hitchhiking in 3 different countries on the same day? Sometimes it happens…
I used to think that I have a good memory. Well, perhaps it is not that bad because I can still remember things that happened in Turkey, but now trying to remember how I got from Dilijan (before Vanadzor) to the border with Georgia, I cannot. I have glimpses of talking with people about the names of the towns I would pass by, like Gyumri and Ashtok, but that’s all.
** The beautiful thing is, by continuing writing about that day, and keep looking at my notes, I finally remember what happened. A pastor, called Gor, picks me up and tells me he is going to drop me off somewhere before Ashtok. But in the end, after hearing my story and because he is probably just a good man, he drives me all the way to the border! Yep! It is probably around one extra hour driving for him, but he does not care, he wants to help me. He calls his wife on the way, and now, after arriving at the border, I understand that he probably was telling her he would be late. Laugh. How sweet! **
At the border, no problems. And I finally get the courage to ask the police officers if they can stamp my passport in used pages. They all seem very whiling to help and even show me the passport after stamping. I think that’s cute!
When I cross to Georgia, just outside the border, there is an open area by the road, so I decide to take out my tent and sleeping bag, and let them to dry in the sun. While I am waiting, two police officers come by in a pick-up and start to annoy me. They cannot understand English? Fine, I am OK with that, but how difficult is to understand what I am doing, even more when I try to explain with gestures? How can you not understand someone drying a tent and a sleeping bag under the sun? So, they ask to see my passport and call another police officer who can speak English. I am not happy and let that very clear to all of them, including the guy in the phone. They all just keep repeating it is procedure because of the border. If you would use your “procedures” and energy only about 10% in the bad guys and not innocent travellers, the world would be a much better place!
There are very few cars crossing the border into Georgia, so I decide to walk. I don’t think I have any food and only a bit of water, so I ask for some in a small container by a construction site. There are two workers on it, just having their lunch, and they invite me to join them. Yay! How sweet!
The views around here are gorgeous! Flat greenfields, with lovely hills far away in the distance. I am in the opposite side of the fatty Georgian mountains of Svaneti Region, or the Caucasus Range, but it is still Georgia!
Two elderly man in a van stop for me. I have written on my sign the town name Martuni, because from there I can take left and take a kind of “short cut” to the Turkish border. But the men don’t recognize the name immediately. When I explain a bit better, they finally figure out and tell me they are going further that point, so they can take me. Yay!
They were doing some shopping in Armenia, where they are originally from, so the driver gives me some apricots! Yummy! I get out right at the intersection and start walking towards the border.
A nice man in an old jeep tells me he can drive me for a little bit but not all the way to the border. I accept!
When I start to walk again, I also start considering already camping somewhere around here, perhaps asking in one of these houses if I can camp by their garden. Perhaps I should have done that…
But I carry on and the next people to stop for me are an elderly man and a young lady, in a van. They also have some supplies in the car and are going only a bit further. When I come out of the van, the lovely young lady gives me one Armenian soda, like these local one’s people make, which remind me the ones we used to drink in Brazil, when we were kids. It is so kind of her and I am very happy! Later, when I try the soda, it is so delicious! I know there is a lot of sugar on it and bla bla bla, but honestly, it is so much better than any Coca-Cola or Fanta. It is pear flavour!
The queue of trucks waiting along the road it is huge! But they are not queueing right away to the border here. They are just waiting. A pick-up stop and two men from Azerbaijan tell me they are going to their company, before the border (nobody is going to the border!), so they can drive me a bit further. But after talking for a while, the driver decides to take me to the border. It is only a few minutes, he says. They are engineers working in the project of a bridge nearby here.
The officer at Turkish border is not so pleasant, so I don’t ask him for a stamp in a used page. What does he do? Uses a clean one. Karma.
10 Years Around the World 