I had already decided when planning out the trip that my best option to see sights outside of Yerevan was to either take a tour, or go wild and pay a taxi driver to take take me everywhere. But the tour groups would be significantly cheaper, and ticked the boxes.

And so, the first tour would be to Khor Virap, Noravank Monastery, Areni-1 Cave, and throw some wine tasting in there too.

I could see the mini buses as I approached the pickup, but then the giant tourist bus loomed over them all. Yep, my tour was the 48 seater bus and I watched in dread as it filled up every seat. So, so, many tourists… and I was one of them. I had become a bus tourist.

First stop was Khor Virap, a old monastery sitting on a hill with the glorious mount Ararat standing sentinel on the Turkish side of the border. The mountain was once under the stewardship of Armenia, but Soviet Russian had loaned it to Turkey, who threw away the rental agreement and kept it.

Mnt Ararat is also the home to Noahs Ark (maybe, possibly, probably not), giving it additional spiritual significance to the Armenian people. One day Armenia might see the mountain returned to them when Turkey has a moment of kindness (maybe, possibly, probably not).

The monastery is quite magnificent to behold when mount Ararat was in view next to it, despite it’s cruel beginnings. Christian convert Surp Grigor Lusavorich found himself in a snake pit for defying the King, refusing to make a sacrifice to the pagan god Anahit. However Grigor survived, and so amazed was King Tiridates III he converted the kingdom to Christianity in 301. This monastery standing today was built over the pit in 1662, itself built over a ruined church dating back to 642.

Continuing on, we hit up the Hin Areni winery for a tour of their facilities, and had a small wine tasting of their white, rose, and red wines. All three award winning, and all three very, very nice. The red particularly tempted a purchase of a bottle, only costing around $20AUD, but it was a wine would have liked to take home to let others try it and discover Armenian wine.

The areni grape is unique to Armenia, and was the first known wine every to be produced in the world. This was uncovered in a cave, Areni-1, where archeologist discovered the oldest leather shoe dating back to 3,500BCE, then digging deeper they found clay pots with fermented areni grape seeds dating back to 4,100BCE. A very impressive cave.

The cave itself is a micro-climate; it remains 15c throughout the year, regardless of the weather outside. This made for the perfect temperature control for making wine. Archeologist recently have found evidence of child sacrifice, however at this stage there is a lack of evidence to why. Yet the site is estimated to be only 5% excavated, so more answers and mysteries lay await beneath the earth.

Finally, my personal favourite, we visited the Noravank Monastery. This incredible stone stone was home to one man, Momik, who built this marvel high in the Armenia mountains in 1205. The location is astonishing, and due to his height in the mountains, it was never touched by foreign invaders such as the Mongols.

It was now a 2 hour drive back to Yerevan. We’d had great weather the past few days, but now the sky gods remembered this was shoulder season, and the weather shouldn’t always be pleasant. And so, the rain came hammering down.

Along the highway, we past one… two… three car crashes. They were all those weird small Russian cars, Lada, and honestly you wouldn’t even need a tow truck to remove the wreck. Just one strong lad could pick one up and throw it to the side.

As we entered Yerevan city, the tour guide (a really amazing guide, I must admit) announced it would take another 45mins to the drop off point due to the rain and traffic, and we slowly made our way back as the rain eased up.

Naturally the bus has a mind of its own, and it’s brakes cut out. We slowly, dream-like, rolled back into a car behind. I wasn’t even sure what happened at first, I felt and watched the bus roll back, but it didn’t sound like we hit a car.

Needless to say, the driver of the car was screaming and carrying in, the bus driver tried his best to quell the situation, and tourists started chaotically leaving the crippled bus, against the tour guides advice (we were in the middle of three lanes of traffic).

No sooner had I gotten up and about to leave, the bus came back to life, and so the rest of us stayed onboard. I’m glad I didn’t get off, it would have been a good 30mins walk back to Republic Square, and another 20mins to the hotel. I was already exhausted from the day, and another hour walk would have ended me.

And so my day of being a bus tourist wasn’t too bad. Definitely not something I’d run out and do again, but I appreciate now being able to see so many sites in a day while a bus takes you around, and for a reasonable price.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped into a convenient store and grabbed a couple of beers to round off the day.

I’ll sleep good tonight.