Full Circle?

Climbing the highest mountain in Armenia, and looking back on how I got there

At this point in the summer, with about a month left before school starts, I’m starting to learn how to get around and feel at home in Vanadzor. I have my preferred running route, my gym (where I’m training wrestling/jiu-jitsu in Armenian), and my favorite places to relax, eat, and get coffee. It’s like a strange, Armenian mirror of my past life in Silverlake and Los Feliz. Most days, I see at least one person I know in the street. I’m still learning the language, and developing as a teacher, but things sometimes feel normal - almost too normal, but not quite. I still sometimes look around and marvel at where I am or what I’m doing. In hindsight, last week was a great moment to mix things up - including climbing Armenia’s tallest mountain - and look back on the journey, and the people, that led me there.

I’ve been looking forward to a visit from my Armenian friend from high school, Armen, since I arrived in Armenia for Peace Corps in March. It was interesting to reflect on whether that time has passed quickly, or slowly - I’m honestly not sure.

As I like to share with everyone I meet here, I first visited Armenia in 2023 with Armen and our friend Felix. It was a spontaneous travel experience that ultimately helped inspire my decision to both join the Peace Corps and to specifically apply to serve in Armenia. One benefit of choosing Armenia as my country of service was having a connection to the culture through a close friend, and having contacts in the country from my previous travel experience.

When I arrived in Yerevan, Armen wasn’t picking up my calls, so I decided to just walk around and find a place to sit and cool off until he called me back (Yerevan is 95-100 degrees right now). I walked a few blocks, heard my name, looked up, and he was right in front of me. His phone had died, and he had decided to walk around and hope to see me (or charge his phone and call me). It saved us maybe 30 minutes, but it felt like a sign of good luck. We found a cafe, sat down, and spent the next few hours talking about the state of the world and what books we’re reading.

Mt. Aragats

The next day, we met up again early, this time with Armen’s cousin Nare and her friend Sarkis. Nare had been our informal guide for much of our 2023 trip, and had also come to visit me in Argel during PST. Nare and Sarkis are both very experienced hikers, and they were taking us to Mt. Aragats, a dormant volcanic mountain with 4 peaks.

From a distance, you can see the four peaks of Aragats.

When we first made the plan to hike, I hadn’t realized we were climbing the tallest mountain in Armenia (the more famous and symbolic Mt. Ararat is just across the modern-day border, in Turkey). All the better, I thought. I’d always wanted to climb a big mountain, and this way I had experts to guide me and provide gear.

Along the way to the mountain, on a one lane road through the foothills, we stopped at the locally famous gravity hill, where we put the car in neutral and watched as it rolled uphill. We theorized that it was due to some sort of magnetic effect caused by underground metals. In reality, it’s just an optical illusion (but one that I don’t really understand, so still pretty cool).

We started the hike at sunny Kari Lake, from which it was about 2 hours up to the first (Southern) peak. We hiked through rain and hail to reach the top, where we were greeted by clear weather and a group of friendly fellow hikers (including a semi-famous local theater actor, a Persian couple, and some Los Angeles Armenians). As is the local custom, we all shared our food and drinks, and they joined in on our birthday celebration for Armen. I’ll let the photos and videos below speak for themselves.

After the mountain top birthday party, easily one of the most unique and cool moments of my time in Armenia so far, we descended from the first peak, and the group decided we should climb a second one. At this point, I began to feel how physically challenging it was (for me) and started lagging behind more. Some of the slopes we were descending and ascending were rather steep and made of gravel, or mud, requiring strong leg muscles and our hiking sticks to keep from sliding down.

By the time we reached the top of the second (Western) peak, I felt burnt out, and my fear of heights was kicking in as I thought about the steep descent back down. At the same time, I kept catching myself laughing at random things, and the views were even more beautiful than at the first peak. Everyone agreed we were feeling the altitude - we were 12,000 feet above sea level.

We made it back down without any trouble, and I started to figure out the technique behind walking downhill on the steep and unstable ground (it’s a little like ice skating at times). We lounged by the lake for a bit before heading back. My head was pounding, and I felt more tired than I had after running a marathon. They told me the headache is a common effect of the change in altitude on the way down. I slept most of the way back home.

Like with any meaningful journey, it wasn’t always easy and fun, but it was totally worth it, even when my head was hurting from the altitude change. I was lucky to have experienced hikers to guide me - and I now have a much more realistic idea of what higher-difficulty hiking looks like (while also realizing I’ve barely scratched the surface). Later on, I kept thinking about the circumstances that led me up there in the first place, and feeling grateful.

Vanadzor Summer

Back in Vanadzor, I got to bring a close hometown friend along on my usual routine. It felt like a mixing of two distinct worlds, but one that Armen was uniquely equipped to appreciate, given that it’s his country of birth that I’m living in. We went to my favorite coffee spots - Poodle Cafe, where we met up with my fellow PCVs in Vanadzor, and Boo Cafe, where we rented mountain bikes and biked on their trail for a bit (a Vanadzor bucket list item for me that was good to do with someone who knows more about mountain biking than I do). After, we did some work and had lunch at the cafe.

The view from Boo.

We went to my martial arts gym. I earned some extra respect from the guys at the gym for bringing an Armenian from LA to the class, especially one who is skilled at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

The most meaningful activity was bringing Armen to each of my English clubs as a guest speaker. Armen had said prior to his visit that working with kids would be the most valuable thing he could do during his trip. The students got to ask him about his experience moving to America and learning English at the age of 8, and discuss Armenian and American culture in the context of the diaspora. I felt that it was a great way to connect with my students and expose them to a unique perspective, and I appreciated not having to lesson plan for the week.

Family

Armen’s relatives have been incredibly generous to me, both during my first trip to Armenia, and again this time around. It’s nothing special for them - that is how guests are to be treated in their culture - but coming from a different culture, it still feels special to me. It was great to be able to see all of them again after two years, and this time actually communicate with them in their language.

The kids were all several inches taller, and there was one new baby, but otherwise everything and everyone was as I remembered.

There was the inevitable question, “Why did you come back?” Or the assumption, “So, you loved Armenia so much you had to come back?” Both provoked lots of great conversations.

I got to attend Armen’s birthday party, at an excellent restaurant in Yerevan. At certain moments, I took in the scene - everyone happy, dancing, laughing, kids running around - and was rather awestruck by the joy of it all.

The group at Armen’s bday dinner.

It was particularly strange to see Armen’s relatives in Vanadzor, who I had met once before, but got to spend a bunch more time with over the course of last week. I ate dinner in the same apartment that I had visited two years ago, which is just a ten minute walk from where I live now. One day, they invited me to an art show at the local museum (for an artist from LA who are they distantly related to). It’s good to know your neighbors.

We also visited some relatives at their summer house in a rural village, where we spent the afternoon picking cherries in their garden (to be used for vodka-making). It was sweaty work, but we were rewarded with the best khorovats (Armenian BBQ) I’ve had so far.

I began to return the favor for all of this, in a way, by having Armen over to my host family’s apartment for dinner along with my Peace Corps colleague David. It was cool for my host family to get a better sense of my initial connection to Armenian culture through my friend, and for Armen to see where I live.

This week was exactly the kind of experience that I had hoped for when I chose Armenia. It added an extra layer of meaning - of cultural understanding, and community, and a sense of belonging - to my service.

There was an obvious sense of “full circleness” - of a resolution of a journey - in seeing all these people again, years later, but in a completely new position as someone living and working in their country rather than as a tourist, and of bringing Armen in as a guest to spaces that are my own.

Yet, I’m still only at the beginning of my time here, and nothing is really finished. It got me thinking about the many future “full circle” moments I imagine I’ll have during my service and beyond, like greeting new cohorts of volunteers, and eventually saying goodbye to people and places that are still new to me right now and returning to America. At some point in between, Armen will probably come again and see an updated version of my life. And someday much later, I’ll hopefully get to return to Armenia as a visitor once again.

So far, being in Peace Corps is a little like climbing Mt. Aragats - challenging and frustrating at times, fun and interesting at other times, but always deeply worthwhile.

Here’s to future challenges, and future circles becoming full.

The content of this website is mine alone and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.