3rd - Return

We had a relatively early start today; breakfast at 0700 and departure at 0800 so we would have some time for some sightseeing in Van. I woke up a few minutes to 0600, the 11 hours of sleep felt great.

We were soon on our way down to our pick-up point and 3 hours later, much warmer we were on our way back to the hotel where we had left any unnecessary luggage before going to Ararat.

Oh, by the way, the weather and mountain gods apparently hate us. We could see the summit the entire morning until we were picked up and there wasn’t a single cloud near the summit. And it was less windy. It feels better knowing that both guides had never seen such weather at the top before during a summer climb.

Back at the hotel we retrieved our stuff, had a short rest (wifi- yay!) and waited for our luggage to arrive in the second bus which had stayed behind waiting for “our” horses to get down with our bags. Finally the bags arrived, we all moved to a larger bus and we were soon on our way towards Van with a quick lunch stop on route.

We arrived at our hotel in Van where we had 40 minutes to shower before we would be leaving again to visit an island on which there was a small Armenian monastery. The island itself was quite small, not even one km long or wide, and with only us and a couple of local employees on the island it was a pleasant calm after the hectic climb.

Sailing back to the main land we had dinner on the beach.

The drive back to Van was eventless, and after getting off from the bus across from the hotel most of us went to a bar to have a couple of drinks. I shared half a bottle of raki with two others, and I’ll admit it tasted good until getting halfway through the glass, after which it got too much. No worries – the others were more than happy to help me with it.

After enjoying our drinks we were a few who went down to the street to get some durums – mainly to compare them to the ones you get at home. Conclusion by just looking at them being made was unsurprisingly that they naturally were in a completely different league. We were allowed to eat them in the hotel bar as long as we bought beers/drinks, which we of course dutifully did. After a couple of fun hours (Bo has some amazing stories from his climbs around the world) we went to bed.

Panoramic view of base camp after coming down. You can see the shadow of Mt. Ararat with the sun behind it.

The Armenian monastery.