This past Friday, my sitemate Alex and I decided to go hiking on the neighboring mountains. I’d forgotten how peaceful hiking can really be, and it was great to get away from work for a while. My own little Walden’s Pond, I suppose. Anyway, during our hike, we stopped at a clearing overlooking the next mountain range, and we saw what appeared to be a little house on the side of a cliff. Naturally, our curiosity was piqued, so Monday we went out again, binoculars in tow, only to discover it was an old church perched on the side of this mountain. You can see our view below:
So, we set out to find it close-up. Being Armenia, we didn’t really have a “map” or “idea of where we were going”, so we just set out in the natural direction – straight towards it. As you can probably discern from the photos, the mountain we climbed was very high, and very exausting, especially with a pack on. After about two hours of walking through the woods, and a lot of “it’s probably around this ridge” comments, we finally gave up. Fortunately, this is often when most good things happen to me. We were walking (sliding) back down hill, when I stop to whine about where we were, and I looked to my right to see none other than a steeple of a church!! After about 5 minutes of convincing Alex I wasn’t being dillusional, he hiked back up, and 10 minutes later we arrived!
There are actually a lot of these random churches/monestaries scattered about the mountains of Armenia. This perticular church is called Soop Sarcis, which I believe is Saint Sarcis. Anyway, it was a pretty beautiful, and offered great views of the surrounding countryside, and the leaves which are just starting to turn. Unfortunately, there was some graffiti on the church, which is kind of sad, but even more disheartening was the random chicken beaks on the windowsills. Don’t ask, don’t tell…although I will if I ever figure it out.
The walk home was uneventful, except for “finding a trail which leads directly to the church and would have saved us 1.5 hours of hiking blindly through the woods”. But as they say for most things in Armenia, “vo ching”! So, moral of the story kids, don’t give up, things will work out, and there’s always an easier way of doing what you’re doing. But you’ll figure that out later.
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2 Responses:
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Hi, Kyle,
Thanks for the interesting journal! It’s always refreshing to see Armena through the eyes of an “odar” (foreigner):-)!
I guess the chicken beaks you saw was the “the God’s due” from the poultry that had been sacrificed;-) Have you ever seen a “matagh” (sacrificing ceremony)? Just ask people around and they’ll tell you more about this. Usually we offer “matagh” when we’ve survived a bad accident or a big dream has come true:-) Chicken (usually a rooster) and sheep are the common sacrifice animals here in Armenia. AND when you cook the meat, you’ve got to share it with at least 7 neighbors (7’s the required number:-)).
Anyway, keep on posting, please and have a nice service:-)