Armenia & Georgia with Explore
I took the 15-day tour “Land of the Golden Fleece,” June 24-July 8, 2006, with Explore (booked through Adventure Center, 1311 63rd St., Ste. 200, Emeryville, CA 94608; 800/227-8747, www.adventurecenter.com).
The land price of the tour, $1,550, included breakfasts and most dinners. (The tour in 2008 is 14 days and $1,690.) Additional meals, local fees, tips, etc., came to $400. Airfare from San Francisco on United and Austrian airlines (the latter was very good, even in economy class) cost $1,800.
My trip had an abysmal start. I left my itinerary and voucher on the train on the way to the San Francisco Airport. The flight was overbooked and I had no seat assignment; however, I ended up with the bulkhead aisle seat. I called the travel company and found out where I was supposed to meet the tour in Yerevan, ARMENIA.
Transfers in London and Vienna went well. On the flight from Vienna to Yerevan I ran into two Australians who were also on the tour, and we shared a cab from the Yerevan airport to our hotel.
We had a big hassle with the cab company over money. They asked for $30 and agreed on $20 and then the cab’s engine died. The dispatcher brought a second cab but asked an additional $20, which I refused to pay. He then tried unsuccessfully to get us out of the cab. Finally, the cab driver indicated we were to pay $10 to him and $10 to the dispatcher, which we did. Then THAT cab’s engine died, but a push by several locals got us going. I gave the driver $2 for the hassle, which was the dispatcher’s fault, not his!
There were 10 in our tour group: three Americans and the rest British and Australian. It was a good group; everyone had done considerable traveling.
The tour leader was young and enthusiastic. The local guides were excellent. Young women in their twenties, they each had a good command of English and an encyclopedic knowledge of their respective countries. The pacing was fine, except there were visits to an awful lot of religious institutions, which were in magnificent old buildings.
Accommodations ranged from homestays to resort hotels. Outside the hotels, facilities often were of the “squat” variety. The bushes looked more inviting.
We did a city tour of Yerevan, climbed to an old fortress and enjoyed a folk dance performance at the Opera House. Driving out of Yerevan over mountain passes, we stopped at various monasteries, including Haghartsin, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We also explored an ancient caravanserai from the days of the Silk Road.
In Tsapatagh, on the shore of Lake Sevan, we stayed at a lovely resort hotel, Avan Marak. Too bad we couldn’t have stayed another night; it was really comfy and they served a wonderful breakfast.
Tbilisi, GEORGIA, is a cosmopolitan city with a synagogue, a mosque, an Armenian Christian church and a Zoroastrian temple all within a 15-minute walk.
We visited the basilica at Mtskheta, where Sidonia, a first-century Christian convert, is said to be buried holding Christ’s robe, and the town of Kutasi, where Jason stole the Golden Fleece from King Aeetes. We saw neither the robe nor the fleece!
But Kutasi is an interesting old fortress town where we stayed in a private home modified to take in small groups. On several evenings, neighbors came by to perform folk songs and dances for us. Once I got lost returning to our residence; I recruited four little girls and a boy on a bike who guided me back — delightful kids who had a good time testing their English on me.
In Georgia we visited the obligatory churches and monasteries and crawled around Vardzia, a magnificent cave town. At one time there were around 3,000 caves in 19 tiers, but earthquakes, including a powerful quake in 1456, destroyed many of them.
At the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, his birthplace, we saw his railway carriage, learned that he was originally planning to be a priest and were given the impression that he wasn’t that bad a guy.
From there we took the Georgian Military Highway into the High Caucasus Mountains. There was little evidence of road repair, badly needed. We stayed at a ski resort in Gudauri — very comfortable although still a work in progress. In Kasbegi we visited a winery and lunched with the grower in his backyard.
On our last night, one of the group had a diabetic reaction and we got to see a mobile Emergency Room crew in action — very efficient, and at no charge to the patient!
By the way, everyone except myself and the guides had Delhi belly to a greater or lesser degree. Most of us drank bottled water, but we couldn’t resist the fresh produce.
My only regret — I didn’t book the extension into Azerbaijan and Baku.
JO RAWLINS GILBERT
Menlo Park, CA