Apologies for the time lapse …. no excuses.
So here Nelly and I are arriving in the middle of the night in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
The local agents are there to meet and greet. Alexander (or Sasha) and his wife Elvira. Oh my oh my, how I wish you could all see Elvira as she really is a sight for sore eyes (no, probably a sight to GIVE sore eyes). She is scrag end of mutton done up like lamb chops of the youngest variety. A mid-forties woman tarted up like an 18 year old and boy does it show ! Tousled blonde hair a la Brigitte Bardot, for those of you old enough to remember that look. Basically she had spent hours making her hair look like she had just got out of bed. She had about every type of makeup that you can image, applied by the trowel and the mascara over the false eyelashes is in veritable clumps. Looks like the oil you see on the news washed up on beaches from spills. There was so much stuff there, she could have probably balanced a dead seagull too. Lips are full and two or even perhaps three tone. The body is that of a middle aged woman but we are in denial. so the chest pushed up, up and away and there is a cleavage on a par with the Grand Canyon – a vast dark abyss. I try not to stare but can’t help it…. I bet she has a Victoria’s Secrets catalogue at home. The top is black and white knit, and around the midriff it is all white see-through, so the spare tire can be appreciated in its full glory. The pants are toreador tight and you can feel the stitching screaming. But the best are the gold shoes. We are on stilts, with the super pointed mules that everyone here is tottering around in. I wonder why they look vaguely familiar. as who do I know who could even stand up in them. let alone walk ??? Then the penny drops.. they are out of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul ! The points were so long at the front that they had turned up at the ends, to give an ever more Ottoman appearance. It just had to be seen to be believed. But having said all that, she was very sweet and we got on tres well .. and amusingly in the end, it was battered Arabic that brought us most in contact as it turned out that she worked also for Syrian Airlines, so I called her habibi and we are now mates for life ! I just don’t want to go shoe shopping with her, as I saw no less than three pairs and they were all a disaster.
So we are kissed and warmly welcomed and jump into the battered old Lada and lurch into town. Most amazing sight half way was a mini Las Vegas … I kid you not. Lines and lines of garish casinos (casini ?), all with neon running amok and many people around and it is 4.00am. Seems we are big on gambling around here. The enormous Armenian Brandy factory is much pointed out .. they are very proud of it. My old-style Russian hotel is big on ceilings and short on creature comforts and a sort of Armenian Manuel takes me to my room and makes a big production of showing me how to open the door with the card, which I was prolly doing before he was born. I am allowed to collapse for 4 hours. as WE HAVE STUFF TO DO.
And so it goes on for two days … was supposed to be 2 and half but have you ever heard of an airline rescheduling its flight no less than 14 hours EARLIER than your ticket ? Well Siberia Airlines did and I was not happy. Instead of departing at 1630, we are now going the same day, but at 0230. That is not my fave time of day and it cut down on vital time here. But there was no escape. (I did find out later when I went to the airport to see what the aircraft handling would be like, that everyone’s flights were resked as they were doing runway work for three weeks, which may also have accounted for the plowed field that we landed on – and more worrying too. we will try to take off from again…I DO worry about these things and just hoped that will remembered to take all their shovels home with them ….).
Anyway we spent one and a half action packed days seeing what there was and it’s not bad. Yerevan wud be quite a pretty place if they were not digging the whole town up. It has been decreed that the trams must be gone, so all the old lines are being removed, which of course is sad as they give character as well as being a cheap and fuel efficient and non polluting way to move the masses around, but probably they are seen as backward and we want modernity. Pity that someone didn’t tell them that places like Zurich and Vienna still have them and would not give them up for anyone.
Two tour guides became attached to our mini expedition, one Lily (and of course very dark of hair and eyes) and another whose name defeated me. Both young, I had them giggling pretty soon and they said afterwards that they had not had such a good time showing the sights ever and I was welcome back anytime. The said Lily, I suspected, was also after, shall we say other pleasures. as I suddenly got the wink and a very direct LOOK and she had to sit next to me at dinner and all that sort of stuff. I was expecting the hand on thigh routine…. It was too late to invent the wife and kids and grandchildren which I have been known to concoct when necessary…. (and in just in case you are worried. I escaped unscathed.. ).
There will be more …
timothyvalentinestravels 