2 DAYS IN ARMENIA | What Else Will Go Wrong? Police Ticket & Closed Roads

Is this the first time that we've ever used the drone for surveillance?

I think it is.

Today is day five on our road trip through Georgia and Armenia. And a couple nights ago, we arrived really late to Lake Savan. And we woke up the next morning to absolutely beautiful views of the lake.

We've been traveling really quickly lately, and we wanted to reward ourselves with a little downtime on this black sand beach, which I think might be grounded up asphalt.

For lunch, we headed down the road to another restaurant that sat right on the lake, where we tried the local delicacy, Sevan whitefish kebabs. I like it. Tasty.

A bit like canned fish.

Put into a stick.

After lunch, I tried to talk Cara into taking a dip with me in Lake Savon, but it ended up being just me, cold, and I'm not even in the water yet.

What's making you do this, Nate?

Don't know. I just figured this is probably the only time I'll be at this lake in my life, so I should get in.

Did you end up watching the copper off the copper?

Yeah.

We read that Lake Savan was a.

Bit polluted, but last night we drove to a monastery that sat on top of a hill to watch the sunset. And it was beautiful at the top, but much colder than expected.

And that was the perfect way to end an evening in Lake Sevan.

And today, the road trip continues, starting with about an hour drive to a really cool monastery.

So it turns out that the road to go to the monastery is being demolished today. So there's a roadblock. There's no walking past it. There's no driving past it. So we're standing up here on a cliff. The monastery is somewhere in that direction, and we're trying to figure out how we can get to it. It's not looking promising.

Oh, goodness. It's very hot. Hey, y'. All.

The most frustrating part of this is that where the road was blocked, it's only two more kilometers to the monastery, so we could easily just walk. They would let us, but they wouldn't even let us walk past where the road was closed. So the goal right now is to find a way to drive as close as we can, park our car, and then walk the rest of the way and avoid the closed road. I think we're doing a pretty good job right now. Hopefully that's not how we end up.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely someone's house.

What makes you think we need a jeep?

Look, I just don't think it's designed for a Toyota Corolla. It Feels like we're going the wrong way.

But do you reckon we'll keep going? I think it's going to loop back around. We're turning around. This is not the right road.

Very frustrating. Trying so hard to make it to the monastery. We're putting our bloody all into it. Going down roads for half an hour and there's no route that we can find.

But it's just been like everything else we've tried to do on this trip. There's always some little road spot that we have to get past.

Yeah, true. It's like an initiation ritual.

Attempt number three, find a route to the monastery.

I think this is the road. There's some very big rocks.

Oh, dear.

I don't think we're going to make it any further up today. This is a very treacherous. Even in low gear in the Corolla, I reckon now we're on the hill line, we could just walk or jog all the way across the monastery. I feel like there's no landmines or anything in.

Nate just ran up the hill to scout out what the route could look like on foot.

I think we may be defeated.

No.

Yeah. I can't tell if the part of the road that I see is past the construction or not. So there's a chance that we could walk like a mile in that direction and then come down like right before and be stuck exactly where we were.

I think if we just had the whole day to do this, we would 100% spend our time getting to that monastery because this is like something we decided we wanted to do yesterday, but now that we can't, I want to do it even worse. But we still have seven hours of driving ahead of us. So I think we're not pulling into our guest house at 3am tonight. We'll be really glad that we decided to skip it back on the road.

So we said that we admitted defeat, but technically we're still looking for it.

We found ourselves on another tiny gravel road.

We're on another gravel road.

Our Kentucky drone. And you see that bit of gravel where the cut is? Because we could get around there. And we got that cut over to where that building is.

Yeah.

And the power.

No, the cows.

We are doing surveillance now to see if we can figure out route to get to the monastery. I think we're about 2km away. So I'm not sure if the drone will make it, but we're gonna give it a try.

Here's all the cars. Yeah. So it should be down that way.

Hello. As long as the mountains don't get in the way. Can you still see the drone?

No, because you've just gone dipped around the corner there.

That's what I was afraid of, because if I dip behind it, I'll lose signal.

If you go super high again, I'll be able to see see you.

So far, I think we've established that this is a very long walk.

How many meters away from us are you now? 4km?

400. There it is. 4,000ft at this point. If I can just see it, I will be happy.

That's it there, down in the valley? Yeah, at the end of the road, I reckon that's it right there.

I can't believe it still has signal. It's pretty incredible. Oh, wow. Look at that.

It's amazing.

I think I've seen it from here.

And do you just ask it?

Bring her home and call it?

Yep. It's too far to walk.

It's way too far.

Too hot. And there's lots of hills.

Okay, we are officially calling it quits on the hunt for the monastery. This was, like, the one big thing that we had planned today. The only other thing we had on the agenda was to visit the only pagan temple left in Armenia. So we're gonna go see if we can get in there. It should be close. And then we spend six hours driving back to George. We've made it to the pagan temple, and it looks like this is where all of the other tourists in Armenia have decided to come. Since the monastery is closed, the problem is we think we might have to pay to go in, and we have no Armenian money. We used it all to buy gas the other day. English Free. Free. Fantastic. Wow.

For the first time ever, our luck has just turned.

Can't believe it.

So this is the last remaining pagan temple in Armenia, and we've learned that in the first century A.D. this was built as a temple to the sun gods. And then in the 4th century AD, Armenia became Christian, and the king actually turned this into a summer home for his sister. And it's become what is obviously one of the most popular tourist attractions here in Armenia. It's crazy. It feels like we've had Armenia all to ourselves. And then we pulled up here, and there were, like, 12 tourist buses. I did not expect that at all.

We were all getting a bit hangry, and we were scared if we went to a restaurant, we wouldn't have the cash to pay for it. So we pulled over to the closest grocery store, got some ice cream.

Looks like cows.

We're getting pulled over.

That is a $10 souvenir, an Armenian traffic ticket.

We've just had our first brush with the law in Armenia. We've just pulled over for going a little bit too quick.

7, 17 kilometers.

I don't know that you're going 110. I feel like that's a stretch.

A bit fast. Oh, look, they've already got another one. Two seconds later, we came.

We came off an on ramp, and I think he just came up with a figure.

Yeah.

And we got pulled over. He was a lovely police officer.

He was very nice.

Who allowed us to pay in a foreign currency and in cash, but gave us a very lovely receipt. And, yeah, told us to drive safely but slower, which was a fair call.

Especially.

There he is.

Especially considering that I didn't have the international driver's license that he wanted.

Yeah, we had the wrong driver's license. We had insurance, which was a bonus because I didn't want to do that.

It's just adding to the day.

It's worth $10.

We are approaching the Georgia border, hopefully.

All right. Stamped out of Armenia. Next stop, Georgia. We did it.

Oh, I did read this is the most potholing road in the country. We did our first ever drama. Free overland border crossing, and we're in Georgia. There's about two more hours until we get to where we're going.

Marzia.

Marzia.

Wow. The road after the border crossing.

Keys are sliding in the lake that's.

Formed in the middle of the road.

They don't make it easy for you to escape into Georgia.

Later.

Bye.

Sam.

We are getting so close, but we had to make a quick pit stop because we just spotted this old rail car that's been laid across the river to form a bridge.

It's a real bridge.

Turns out it used to be a bridge, and I think now people use it for the toilet.

Okay, another picture from down here.

We've been driving for eight hours, and we're so close to our hotel, but we just found this fortress, and we have to go.

Let's get over there before the sun goes.

And it's closed.

Classic.

It's okay because we have another day here tomorrow. We're gonna come back. But we just climbed all the way up this hill. The sun is setting. It would have been so pretty.

Almost home. One more traffic jam.

Hey, beautiful.

Looking good there, girls.

Perfect, perfect.

Hey, Kara, we got you a puppy dog.

You're all welcome.

I'm not shaking the camera any extra right here.

You know what they say, Drive it like you sold it.