Day 15 - September 18, 2023 Visit to Ani and entry to Georgia

The luxury in the hotel is over. We enjoy a civilized, decent breakfast with a buffet and are back on the road. Our first stop is in Igdir. Here we check the PTT toll, do some last-minute shopping and continue on to Ani. In the 9th century B.C. C. the first fortress was built here by the Urartians and a city was added in the 900th century. This was made the capital of the Armenian Empire in 961. We look over the heavily guarded border to Armenia again and then we head to Georgia. Great landscapes accompany us. We pass a huge lake and have to cross a 2153 m high pass. A huge queue of trucks awaits us at the border, luckily we can drive past them. Nevertheless, the border formalities take 1.5 hours. It's dark now. At the gas station we take out liability insurance for the van and drive another 10 km to a nicely located but somewhat littered rest area. We spend a restful night here. 4964 km