26th July 2010, Yerevan - We crossed the border between Georgia and Armenia as experts of frontiers. Waiting, visas and passports ready, worn out among smiles, pictures, jokes and water bombs. Part of the delegation has gone ahead to get to the meeting with the Armenian Catholicos on time and they are already in Yerevan.

This is the last stop off of the friendship trip in the South Caucasus. Turkey is waiting for us behind the corner but, from here, it doesn’t seem so close: the mountains and views of Armenia faithfully render the reality of that antique and traditional taste of the Caucasus which is present in the traveler’s mind.

All over the fields and at the shade of the mountains full of vegetation, we saw men, women and children whose stories do not appear in the dictionary of known existences. In this land everything has remained unsaid. Everything but its landscape. The faces, characters and scenes: this part of the world breaths a life which is totally inconceivable for us. We meet children riding horses, women by the side of the river, alone for miles. Families standing at the gates of little houses camouflaged among the stones and the green mountains.

The bus goes fast along the road and the reality of this land goes by in cars and caravans that give us funny moments of contact with people and their daily lives. Some of us are sleeping: the ‘suit and tie’ delegation of the institutional meetings looks different when it’s sleeping.

To wake us all up, thou, the many stops at unlikely toilets along the motorway and hunger. Pity we were not able to show our gratitude at the pizzeria covered with Italian flags that gave us a traditional dish made of rice glued together by starch and chicken. After finishing a diet mainly based on kajapuri (a pizza with a cheese filling, typical of Georgia) it really seemed paradoxical to leave the plates untouched! Back on the bus with grumbling stomachs: Yerevan is close!

AZ