Next morning, the Traveler wakes up refreshed, eager to restart the Hike. Now the rugged canyon scenery contiues for a while, but it get clearer and clearer that he's approaching civilization. Actually, three: There are houses along the road... but also a row of houses with cozy little gardens by the river far below. Then, still invisible to him, there's actually another town high, high above on the plateau at the top of the cliffs.
 
Finally the road that I'm on reaches the bottom of the gorge and the sizeable town of Alaverdi, squeezed at the bottom of the canyon . Here there is a bit of life--even a big industrial plant at the edge of town that's still in use. There's a market and a pleasant feel to the place.
 
But the real attraction is way up at the top of the cliff: the Sanahin Monastary, which as he was told back in Yerevan is one of the "must see" sites in Armenia.
 
Believe it or not, he's really not sure he wants to go up there. If he takes a bus, it will create a break in the Hike--and the Traveler doesn't want that. There's something beautiful about an "uninterrupted trail of footprints"... And if he walks... it's going to be a long tiring climb which will take up a lot of time... So he just keeps walking past the road that winds up the side of the mountain to Salahin.
 
But then, around a bend, a sight of something that he can't resist: a cable ride to the top. Looks like a slow, rickety, Soviet Era cable car, that probably hasn't been checked since the fall of the USSR... but it's working. So, yes, I'm going to the top.
 
He climbsup the stairs to where the ticket vendor, in her communist era uniform, charges him the equivalent of 20 cents for the ride (let's hope at least 2 of those cents are spent on maintenance!) The cable car is crowded with high school kids who I guess use this as a school bus ... And away they go.
 
As the car slowly creaks its way up, he notices that the window is broken--and is now held together with screws. That's reassuring... But he soon forgets about the broken window as he soaks in the amazing view. There's the stunning Debed Canyon which he can now appreciate from a whole different angle. Then, right at the rim of the canyon is another town perched at the edge of a grassy plateau, completely invisible from below. Two towns, just a few hundred meters apart horizontally, and yet they look like they're worlds apart.
 
They safely reach the top. It's a weird feeling to travel to the top of a mountain by cable car and find a full size town with apartment blocks and all! You think "how?... why here?" he wanders about just soaking it all in, until he finally reaches the entrance to the monastary.
 
His expectations aren't too high. He's seen a couple of Armenian monastaries already and they are kind of all very similar. But this monastary complex is actually really cool, tucked into the forest, partly overgrown, it definitely has an Indiana Jones-ish feel to it . Here you can wander from from chamber to inner chapel with khachkars (intricate stone engravings in the shape of a cross) and read about the monks who suffered torture and death protecting the manuscripts hidden here.  
 
He decides to go ahead and walk down, that way this experience can be a part of my Superhike. Not going to make much progress in his hike to the Georgian border today, but oh well. Heading down the road he sees what looks like a trail, and figures it must be a shortcut. He should've learned from his experience yesterday with the waterfall not to trust Armenian trails, but I guess not... so he heads down the trail.
 
Sure enough. After a couple hundred meters of steep descent the "trail" turns into a mess of brambles. Once again, he tries to keep going. Once again it just gets worse and worse until it becomes practically impassable.
 
He knows he should just give up and head back up the mountain, but no, he keeps going, finding a new use for his guitar: bramble crusher. He tosses the guitar onto the bramble, pressing them down, allowing him to climb over the top... and this is how he finally reaches the bottom of the mountain.
 
Never again. Never again.