Don't get me wrong I love Vanadzor, and I wouldn't trade my lovely home for the next two years, but Kapan is wonderful to visit and it reminds me of Pittsburgh.
Crazy, right? I lived there for four years as an undergrad, and I still have fond memories, despite not really being sure I'd like to live in Pennsylvania again in the near future.
Kapan has two rivers that flow and maybe (?) sort of meet? I was told they don't, and I never saw them really meet, I think perhaps one is diverted for use by the city, but either way you still have rivers that carve up the cityscape, and mountains that hem everything in. It all feels pretty nice and different from most of the cities that I've seen here.
Shortly after I made this comment about Pittsburgh and Kapan it was mentioned by another volunteer that, in fact, the Lonely Planet entry on Kapan calls it the Pittsburgh of Armenia! Go figure.
I had a relaxing weekend in Kapan, got to hang out at various cafes, we went to this one with live music, the restaurant of a hotel, and we were the only ones in there being serenaded by these two Armenian men playing piano. They would take a break between each song for about 5 minutes to smoke or just discuss who-knows-what, and then eventually they did some Beatles karaoke for us.
The actual trip down there was pretty nice. I got to see some amazing scenery. I was coming out of my Marz (region) and I always drive around Aragats, Armenia's largest mountain range. The way I drive to Yerevan I see the shady side of the mountain, as it were, and the whole side of it is covered in snow. Even where it looks pretty close to our level, there's just all this snow. I've seen a little bit on the tops of the mountains around vanadzor but this was totally covered, with harsh black rocks hidden underneath. It was one of the most striking images I've seen in Armenia and of course I didn't take pictures, it was like 8 in the morning and my camera was in the trunk and it's not even a camera it's more like a video machine that takes pictures. Could go and correct my saying video machine so I don't sound like an idiot but I don't care. Lazy.
Then we get into Yerevan and I'm supposed to meet this taxi driver who I called about going to Kapan. I meet him and then wait for some others to show up, and really we're about to get on the road pretty quickly, I've heard it's not easy to get a trip to Kapan unless you catch the 8 am bus. We were a little held up waiting for someone who never showed up, but then we decide to leave without them, the driver starts the car . . . and then stops. He gets out and starts pointing to his tire and yelling at some other Armenians. There's a flat. So they grab a jack out of the trunk and we throw the spare tire on there. Awesome the crazy 7 hour trip to Kapan (The last 80 minutes I was told are switchbacks as you climb down, up, down, and up multiple mountains) on a spare tire.
On the way out we stop to get gas, which is really strange and for some reason it takes almost an hour. But while I'm doing this I'm looking out, it's bright but in the distance it's a little hazy, not a totally clear day, and I'm looking out, and then out of nowhere this phantom mountain hovers along the skyline. It's Ararat. When I say hover, I really mean it looks like it's hovering. I have maybe once seen the base of this mountain, the other times because of clouds or the vague hazyness in the distance I don't see the actual base and it looks like it's floating on the horizon.
Okay this is getting long and I realize I've written about my Kapan trip in reverse chronological order more or less, and the paragraphs went from really short to really long. Sorry about that.
I wanted to talk about the Armenian landscape, I was gonna wax all dramatic about it but I'm too tired right now so it will have to wait.
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