Living the post-Soviet industrial detritus dream.
Hankering for some extreme twitching. The Debed Canyon in Lori Province up north is a hotspot for Black (bald) Vultures and Golden Eagles. Oh who needs the lesser-spotted-whatevers when you’ve got those floating about overhead?
There are few places you can get 5* luxury for £50 a night and have the place to yourself. So thank you mock-medieval but brilliant Tufenkian. Some of the basalt stone buildings look disconcertingly like they’re in some mill town in Yorkshire – heavy stone buildings on rivers. Except the backdrop is more akin to Arizona. Yeah that backdrop…
Enough was enough with the drinks. It was time to export London’s finest: the Espresso Martini. A brief workshop and some very reluctant mixing of *shock horror new and unfamiliar flavours* from the barmen resulted in a new addition to his repertoire and a decent drink at last. Though I won’t knock the vin out here – it really is better than a poke in the eye.
The food is dead good bar the yoghurt overload – and it just appears as if it comes out of the land itself: Yezzz this is a yoghurt-cheese. This is a cheese-cheese-yoghurt. This is a sour-yoghurt-cheese. Just about everything but Laughing Cow and a Fruit Corner. Also had some weird taste synaesthesia from this dry, spiced pot of something or other. It was as close to a blended up Persian rug as you could possibly get, not wholly successful: it felt as if it had been dragged along the silk route picking up every odd and sod of spice and bit of dust it could accrue en route. I have just fleshed out the worst of the food here – it is actually some of the very best I’ve ever got my mitts on.
Advertising is well and truly stuck in the 50s here!
