Back at his Yerevan "base camp", the Traveler decides to hike out of the city once again, this time heading north to see what there is to see. To get there he must climb up a beautiful stairway-garden with all sorts of really cool sculptures at each--like a really fat naked woman... a giant head peaking out of a pool... a single sculpture of a bunch of gazelles jumping... Nice to see some fun and beauty mixed together.

At the top, however is what was supposed to be a museum of sorts, but the project looks dead in the water . I guess the money must of run out.

The city continues for a while along this plateau high above the city center. Here he does find some upscale housing where the better off folk live, but the upper class population does seem to be pretty small. He continues on a dusty side road rather then continue along the highway and soon finds himself in the quiet little village of Balahovist.

Here in a little park a group of young fellows join him. Luckily one of them speaks English and explains a little bit about the town. "This is called radio tower town. During the Cold War, the Americans were sending propaganda by radio from Turkey, and here there was a radio tower to block those signals"

But quickly the topic turned to more current events. Pointing to a nearby memorial to the war dead, he notices that that the date of one of the dead was just a couple years ago.

"I thought the war with Azerbaijan ended in the 90s" he points out .

"No--Supposedly the war ended, but there's always shooting going on along the border with Karabakh. That guy from our village died in a border clash."

Wow. I guess this stuff is more fresh than I'd realized, the Traveler muses. But none of these guys seem to be depressed about it.

"Armenia is strong" the guy continues.

"Why do you say that?"

"We f----d Turkey... we f---d Russia.... we f---d Azerbaijan--nobody can f--- with us!"

...Uh... never mind. I probably just shouldn't say anything...

At the edge of Balahovist is the hill they'd told him about with a little shrine at the top--so he figures he should climb up to get a view of the region. Here he gets a full 360 view of the large plateau with its mix of villages with metal roof houses surrounded by trees... hulking industrial zones (or industrial ruins).

It feels nice to get a panoramic view of the region he's been exploring for the last week.