Today’s hotel breakfast was the same as yesterday, but except for chicken balls or chicken skewers, there was chickpeas and rice. The coffee is still terrible but we tried the tea. 

This morning, Gor, our driver from yesterday, took us on another brief excursion. During our drive, I told Gor briefly about the trip I took 30 years ago and how I was at a camp in the town of Yeghenadzor. His face lit up and he said that’s where’s from. He immediately called his Mother to ask about the name of the camp near their village. He said the Camp is now used for refugees from Artsakh and he recalled the camp as being run by “a servant of God.” He said if we have time this week he’d take us there.

As we drove out of Yerevan, passed a broken down Soviet bus which reminded me of the bus we took all over Armenia 30 years ago. It broke down constantly so to see the same type of bus abandoned on the side of the highway gave me a chuckle. 

We also had a great view of Mount Ararat which, to give you scale, is three times the height of Vesuvius. In the Bible, Mt. Ararat is referenced as the landing place of Noah’s Ark after the Great Flood. Mt. Ararat is in present day Turkey and we could clearly see the Turkish border, which is patrolled by Russian guards, from our next destination.

After 40 minutes we arrived at the Khor Virap monastery. Here’s a “cliff notes” version of why Khor Virap is an important site not just for Armenians, but Christians as well. In the late-200s AD, there was a guy named Gregory who was raised a Christian. His employer, King Tiridates, was not pleased with Gregory since he would not worship pagan gods. The King was mad and threw Gregory in prison (a 20 foot pit) for 13 years. At one point the King got sick, and the King’s sister had a dream that Gregory could heel the King. When he was heeled, the King allowed Gregory to evangelize Christianity, and in 301 AD Armenia became the first Christian nation. Armenia subsequently built churches on top of Pagan temple sites. We will see the only remaining pagan temple in Armenia later this trip.

Also later in this trip we will visit Etchmiadzin…the location where St. Gregory had a vision that the first Armenian church should be built there. It’s the spiritual center for the Armenian Church.

St. Gregory is also venerated by the Catholic Church. His feast day is September 30, Italian nuns protected relics of St. Gregory’s and Pope Paul II returned them to Armenia’s spiritual leader (Catholicos), there’s a status of him at the Vatican, and in Nardo, Italy, there’s 3 days of celebration for St. Gregory because in the 1700s they believe he helped save their city from an earthquake. 

Paul and I descended a steep ladder to climb into the pit, which at the bottom is 14 feet wide. After coming out of the pit, we entered the church where there were priests saying mass, and A TON of tourists, including a busload of Asians taking selfies everywhere. We climbed the rocky hill next to the church to get a good view of Mt. Ararat and the church from above.

After visiting Khor Virap, we went back to the Mika Sport Complex to watch the USA East team beat France in soccer, and then watch D’s basketball team easily beat a team from Canada.

Six years ago D traveled with three families to Disney on vacation; he had met the NY kids at Armenian summer camp and the families had offered to bring D along on their trip. We didn’t know one of those families was going to be in Armenia this summer, and D saw the daughter at a club in Yerevan last night and the son and parents came to the basketball game to support him and the Eastern USA athletes. It was nice to catch up with them after all these years.

Lunch between games from a local supermarket: crackers, refrigerated canned iced coffee, and a Marianna smoothie. We’ve driven by supermarkets and seen the Marianna brand advertised on window posters promoting the brand, but didn’t know what it was until today. I enjoyed a mango and papaya Marianna smoothie and thought of Miss M already back at college.

After the games, we took a quick Yandex Go (aka Uber) back to the hotel and relaxed by the pool for the next few hours.

For dinner we ate at Mayrig, which means Mother in Armenian. We saw some of D’s teammates and a family who we ran into last night at Baron. We ate hummus with puffy pita bread, mini za’tar lamejuns, manti in a tomato broth topped with yogurt and grilled lamb with slices of potato.