Back
to the main road and the Arni no.1 Cave. This is where the wine
making paraphernalia was found and the seeds of grapes. The oldest
found wine making site in the world. 4000-3800 cal BC. 
It
was only a small cave, and only a fraction had been excavated. An old
shoe and basket were also discovered.
We
went next door for wine tasting. It is not a winery but a store that
collects wines from the local region and further abroad. We found
some nice wines and walked away with 4 bottles. It was still raining a
little and the flats looked great.
We
explored another old graveyard. A group of 4 very drunk young lads
wanted to interact but didn’t quiet know how. We had been a bit cautious of them and I had maintained my distance from John thinking
that it’d be harder for them to approach both of us without
showing their hand. However
all was good and they just wanted a photo taken…
Once
again some of the head stones were just that, flat pieces of stone
lying on the ground some had a cross or date others nothing. Some
shaped and engraved. I guess it was what one could afford.
We
were driving up the west side of lake Gegharkunik in Sevan National
par, when lunch called, we found a little track up to a church. The
track needed 4x4 but EC just crawled up. The dirt here tends to get
very slippery when wet. We had roll ups and had a look at the old
chapel. What a great place to camp, overlooking the lake, but we did
need to make some more miles. Just as we were getting ready to leave
a short wheel base Pajero tried to come up and couldn’t. They
parked off the track a little then walked up. They kindly invited/told us us in no uncertain terms to get out and come drink vodka with them. We
declined polity. John and one guy walked to their car to move it.
One guy again tried to convince me to go drinking…
We
made some good miles on the red road. John found us a camp on the
old road over the Pushkin pass, a tunnel now goes through. A windy
rainy night.
238km
238km