Day 19 - September 22, 2023 Geghard Monastery and trip to Tbilisi

After a quiet night we wake up to the lovely sun. The parking lot is still empty, so we can have breakfast undisturbed. At around 10 a.m. we are one of the first at the monastery and that's a good thing, because soon bus after bus rolls up. Today's monastery buildings were built in the 13th century. Surprisingly complex architecture for the 13th century awaits us. There are also the sacred rooms carved into the rock. As you can see from the photos, we were extremely lucky to experience a small choir with three women and two men singing beautiful old hymns. I was very reminded of Gabarek's Officium and the Hilliard Ensemble. From this calm and devotion we quickly fled from the crowds. Now it was time for the trip to Tbilisi. We had to get to just before Yerevan, then we headed north. As a border crossing we chose the easternmost one near the Azerbaijani border. Everything happened quickly and quickly. Now it wasn't far to the Georgian capital. Problem: We can't get our cell phone to work with the Georgian SIM card and feel quite helpless. There is one of our network provider's stores, but it is already closed. Luckily there are hot spot points in Tbilisi and we can manage everything. Things look bad with parking spaces. So I lead our van into a forest near the airport, unfortunately the worst place of our trip. At 12:30 a.m. we are in our sleeping bags. 6182 km