An Excerpt from "Landscapes: Drifting in Armenia and Georgia"

A shot from my travels through northern Armenia

          Off I went into the afternoon. Another cheap car ride, and a conversation with a

large middle aged woman where she asked questions in Russian and I asked her to

repeat, repeat, repeat. A stop for coffee, a cigarette by the highway while the driver filled

with gas, and contemplation of the windswept plains. An hour later, it was the Georgian

border, and the Russian-speaking woman went back to Armenia in another car as she had

forgotten her passport. I presented my passport, and we proceeded to Akhalkalaki. Akhal

means new, and kalaki means city.

          At Akhalkalaki, the new city, we first stopped by an automotive shop to pick up

motor oil. I stepped into the store, curious, but when I asked for a toilet was directed to the

grassy passage behind the building. I returned to the car after stepping out back, and the

driver took me another few minutes down the road. Finally, we pulled over at what I

assume was near his house, and he explained that he lived in this town. I told him I

wanted to find a bus to Akhaltsikhe, which was at least another hour's drive, and he

somehow got across to me that he wanted fifty dollars to take me there himself. I chuckled,

and shook my head. I grabbed my pack and started walking. I pointed down the winding

road toward a river, which the road crossed on a bridge before darting down a canyon.

          “Akhaltsikhe?” I asked.

          “Da,” he responded in Russian. Yes. “Autostop?”

Out for a walk in Akhaltsikhe

       
          I nodded. Autostop is a French word, but perhaps has become rather universal, and

means hitch-hiking. That is precisely what I hoped to do. I walked and walked and walked.

The canyon was beautiful, fraught with old caves and debris along the river such as an

armored personnel carrier that was being used as support for an irrigation pipe, or a

railroad car that had been propped up as a bridge. Georgia was already slightly more

beautiful than Armenia. I felt, somewhere deep inside, that I was at home—I knew I could

camp out here and survive if I needed to. I walked seemingly endlessly, however, but

eventually a van pulled aside and picked me up, whisking me away to Akhaltsikhe. I would

make it after nightfall.

Once a train, now a bridge 

         

*           *           *

           Landscapes overtake the soul. They are bigger than us, larger than life. They are

the scenes and settings for events as small as just a beautiful day and as large as great

battles or migrations of civilization. The word landscape makes me think of a sprawling

mountain valley replete with bison, with a cool wind under the late summer sun. Taken

from a distance, it is one large picture, but in focus there are more details than one could

ever notice. Landscapes tell stories, and landscapes never forget history. Whether it is the

steppes of Central Asia, which perhaps describes the part of Armenia I was in at the time,

or whether it is the enchanting threshold of the Grand Tetons—the place I always wanted

to call my real home—landscapes have a unique ability to inspire awe and reverence in

mankind.

          The ties between landscapes, or even nature as a whole, and our emotions, are not

easily denied. People travel the world every day seeking beautiful places. Yet beauty is in

the eye of the beholder, we always hear—and that is the key. Beauty is something we

visualize, which in turn strikes us deeply and moves the soul. Our sense of awe is tied to

our other five senses, and our vision is one of the most important. Touch, taste, and smell

can have strong effects on our emotions, but perhaps nothing truly riveting. The greatest

potential effect from those three senses is really a negative one, as pain, bad odors, and

repulsive tastes will inspire an energetic and forceful reaction, where as good feelings,

pleasant smells, and pleasing flavors will inspire a gentle, restrained sense of approval.

But sight and sound can be life changing.

Windswept plains and the mountains beyond just outside Gyumri, Armenia

           
          Words. Music. Being witness to events, or an observer of great visual beauty or

horror. The possibilities are perhaps boundless. But to seek to constantly stimulate and

even overwhelm these two senses, as a goal in life, as a mission, is to really live. My own

travels were a pilgrimage in search of awe. Others chase sights and sounds with an equal

sense of religious fervor. Majestic mountains, the sound of silence, or simply the sound of

people living, of languages that I didn't speak yet that I realized were all viable and

understood by people somehow—this to me was holy. In some of my time, I took a deep

interest in languages, in finding that I could speak to another human being in words that

my own brother could never recognize, yet it would convey real meaning. That was Beirut.

But in Georgia, I began to sink into the scenery. It is not necessarily the most scenic

of countries, as I would be loathe to describe it that way a tourist may describe the beauty

of Yosemite Valley. To me, the value was in the way the landscapes touched my soul. The

way it made me believe that I was experiencing something holy and divine, rather than just

seeing the sights and calling it a vacation. What I was seeing was true, real, and primeval.

Older than time, older than words, the cradle that raised a segment of the vast human

civilization, and an environment where the results turned out differently than the next.

People did not worship these mountains, traditionally, but in an even more divine sense

they simply existed alongside them.

*            *            *

          I spent the night in a feasible excuse for a hotel room, located above a nondescript

shop adjacent to the parking lot that was called the bus station in Akhaltsikhe. The early

evening before this sleep was spent on the town, where I made vodka toasts with young

Georgian rascals excited to meet an American, who asked me to meet them in the same

square the next morning to make a hike to the monastery of Sarapa. I later ducked into the

nearest restaurant, and once again my dollar went miles in bringing me a sumptuous meal.

I tried the khinkali, which although touted to be a unique and staple Georgian food was

little more to me than a variation on the potsticker.

          I awoke the next morning beneath a pile of warm wool blankets, feeling toasty and

rested. I stepped into the bathroom, which consisted of a toilet, a bucket next to it, and a

waist-high trash can full of water to use as my imagination pleased. I was quick to pack

and move on—the six dollar room had served me well. I started out of my room, waved

thank you and goodbye to my hostess, and descended the stairs into daylight. I

immediately followed the road, then the train tracks, and felt delightful in the golden sun of

an early morning in November. As I walked the tracks, I looked up at old medieval walls on

the hillside, thrust high above the rest of the city and unavoidably the center of attention.

A village street on a winter morning, southern Georgia