In Love With Lastiver

This is a very late post but I've had this written for a while and decided it was time to share.

October means that my Facebook feed is flooded with status updates and memes concerning Pumpkin Spice Lattes (you're either for or against them), apple picking and pumpkin carving.

I wasn't missing fall in New England until this past weekend when I joined a group of fifteen Birthrighters, civilian Armenians and honorary Armenians (Go Armenia Volunteer Corps!) on a camping trip to Lastiver.

As our marshutka wound its way down into the Ijevan valley, I peered over my motion sick friends and out onto what could have been the backwoods of Connecticut.

I was excited to see trees that hadn't been planted in the last 20 years; trees that were rooted deeply in the earth and that spread their branches to the sky in a persistent effort to reach the sun. The metaphor of fall foliage resembling a fire is played out but that's only because it's an accurate description. The mountain side was ablaze with leaves that glowed from within and appeared to undulate from yellow to orange to red to russet brown and back.

"This is what my home looks like" I told my peers, most of whom are from the west coast and don't know the joy of crunching a particularly crisp leaf underfoot on their way to school.

I'm not a pumpkin spice kind of girl but my heart twanged for a moment there with the thought of home.

But really, what better place for me to be missing home than Lastiver? Nestled in the Ijevan State Sanctuary in Armenia's Tavush Province, Lastiver is really like a more dramatic New England, with bigger mountains and deeper valleys.    

Our group picked our way down a well worn path strewn with dried and shriveled skeletons of leaves. We scaled moss covered boulders and for a time I felt like I was walking that final scene of The Fellowship of the Ring where Boromir realizes too late that he has become corrupt by the one ring.

We had a few squabbles along the way but luckily nothing so serious as to require a bout of invisibility or a crossbow. Any disagreement we had was quickly resolved as one or both parties glanced around them and again realized the humbling beauty of our surroundings. You just can't stay angry when you're walking in a fairy tale forest. Even if you have been carrying several kilos of meat for khorovadz and three bottles of cognac for the fire. Yeah, we take our camping seriously.

After two hours of hiking the sound of running water reassured me that I had made the right decision by following my friends blindly into the woods.

I had been skeptical when I was told we would be sleeping in tree houses. I expected a hunting platform stuck in a tree. I was told we could rent sleeping bags, a prospect which was ominous to say the least. But I was more than pleasantly surprised to find, upon arriving at the campsite, small Keebler elf cabins perched on top of tree trunks fifteen feet in the air with sturdy, hand made ladders leading up to them. Later on in the evening I was even more pleased to find a clean and fluffy sleeping bag deposited in my cabin for me to crawl into.

Despite it being mid-October and not having brought towels or bathing suits, a few of us more adventurous hikers (or reckless depending on how you look at it) decided to take a dip in the frigid mountain stream that flowed past the campsite and pooled in areas just deep enough for us to submerge ourselves in. When I say take a "dip" that's exactly what I mean. The water was so cold that my muscles immediately seized up and the prospect of moving them quickly enough to actually stay buoyant became an impossibility. But I squeezed my friend's hand and bent my knees until I was up to my ears in ice water and then stood up and got out. I think that is officially the end of swim season for us here in Hayastan.

Upon drying off and bundling up, we set about collecting wood while others prepared the khorovadz and the rest built up the fire. There's something very satisfying about working as a group, even with the inevitable disagreements over how to execute the simplest tasks. I don't think a camp fire has ever been built without at least one person saying "No, you're doing it wrong..." And did you know that there is a wrong way to skewer meat on a stick?

If ever you get tired of your hiking buddy’s company, Lastiver is home to several affectionate and attentive dogs. They greeted us upon arrival at the campsite and didn’t leave our group until we hiked out the next day. The khorovadz we cooked may have had something to do with it, but I like to think it was loyalty that kept them by our side for the better part of twenty-four hours.

My nostalgia for home was placated by beautiful scenery, excellent company and the unconditional adoration of our canine companions.

It was unanimously agreed upon that this was the best weekend any of us had spent in Hayastan.

As much as I love Yerevan and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city where I meet fascinating people every day, I have consistently found that I feel more at peace and connected to the country when I’m out exploring nature. Maybe it’s just easier to think when I’m hiking or maybe it’s just easier to feel confident in my abilities when I’m climbing over boulders, but I feel most Armenian when I am in the mountains.