was i a mountain goat
and a past life
or am i just the king of the world
well hello from gores armenia my friends
we are currently in one of the largest
centers of the south which isn't very
large about 20 000 people but this is a
great little city to have as a sort of
base if you want to
spend more time in the south see the
different sorts of attractions like to
tev and where we will be going today
this is a great place uh that has
restaurants good hotels all that kind of
stuff so where we are going today
is definitely one of the most impressive
and mysterious parts of armenia
which is the nedzoresque cave village
there's actually even a bit of a cave
village here in goris just on the
outskirts of the city but the center
that we are going to today is apparently
much larger and at some point had housed
up to 15 000 people
literally living in the mountains in the
caves nobody knows exactly when the
first caves were built they do estimate
that they are thousands of years old but
apparently they were partially inhabited
up until the 1950s so to get to the
villages we will have to take a taxi uh
you can usually just catch one from the
main central square uh but before we get
going i'll give you a little preview of
goris
dream itself
you
all the time
and in my dreams
you make me feel alright
it's only dreams
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i already know how not fun it's going to
be to go up
these stairs at the end of this day when
i am leaving apparently it's like
426 stairs i believe is
the number and if you combine that with
how much
climbing i'm going to do in the cave
village itself
today may as well be a marathon
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i am so
impressed right now this is so much
bigger than i was expecting it's strange
because there is a certain element that
does remind me of uh cappadocia in
turkey when i was there but there's
almost something more modern
about these caves just from first
impressions of the first few that i'm
seeing because i guess people were
living here um basically 70 years ago up
until the 1950s
so
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what's actually really interesting about
this spot right here where we kind of
see the rubble of
a former man-made house is that this
area in later times wasn't just
cave homes it wasn't just built into the
rock they did take materials from the
area and make more modern sort of
structures
in the later times that these caves were
in use but they were still very
protected uh from outside forces and
enemy attacks not only because we are so
isolated here in the mountains but
because the bridge that we crossed here
to get over to this side was only built
in 2012. so anyone who was living here
at the time would have quite a journey
ahead of them if they had to climb down
the cliff and then back up again
to reach a normal road and then do the
same thing to come back
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do
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is
yes
foreign
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i'm pretty sure these are blackberries
let's see
pray don't die
tasty
little tart
not quite done let's try this one
famous last words
i'm told not
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this is such an oasis when today is like
plus
30 outside and it's the middle of the
day with the sun beating down on you
it's definitely at least
five six degrees cooler in here and
you're in the shade it's just so awesome
guys like they have all these little
passageways and arcs all around here
and from my understanding they also had
tunnels
underneath or through
some of the cave homes from one to the
other there are a lot of homes that are
completely um closed off here like
there's fences and stuff and you can't
get up there it probably isn't too safe
to try and do so but it is just
extraordinary that they built this kind
of system literally into the rock
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well i officially just
see the first person
in over an hour there's a guy on
horseback
i think not many people come out to this
far right
higher up enclose
because you can see some caves right at
the entrance right near the bridge
most people will go to see the church
and that's about it i've been here
already three hours
so you really can spend as little or as
much time as you want here but i would
say to schedule at least
a couple hours to really get the scope
of this amazing place
also
little tip from you to me
make sure you ask yourself the question
not can i get up
the hill or the mountain
it's can i get down
because there's so much loose gravel
and it's so easy to slip
that it really doesn't matter if you can
get up
it matters if you can get down
sometimes i'm just such a crazy maniac
it's so hard to live with myself
sometimes you know guys
the stuff i feel i have to do
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i'll level with you guys
things haven't gone
according to plan anymore
um
i thought that i could just
jump on over
to that side once i got this high up but
i keep
getting lead in these
loops that still don't get me over to
this other side
so
either i have to go back
the way i came and that's
sure is heck of a long way back
or a miracle happens and i do find a way
across but
i have drank all my water
which sucks
and i'm getting hungry so i'm eating my
granola bar
and
i hear civilization
so i should be okay
okay i found something pretty epic
literally on the side of the cliff of
course
look at this cave
holy oh that is deep oh that is so deep
okay we got to be careful here guys
let's be careful but look at this
whoa
this guy's a double decker here
no i am not going to try and climb up
there i've risked my life enough today
but look at this view this is incredible
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so
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foreign
is
foreign
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do you know how ridiculous it is
that i just spent
seven hours
climbing mountains
with no problem
and i just stepped out of my taxi
tripped over a rock
got this because i hit my head on the
[ __ ] gravel
my face is covered in dirt
i have no it's this hand scratched the
side of my hand
and my knee is bleeding
how the hell
does that happen
well this evening certainly hasn't
turned out um
how i would have liked
on many different levels
um
besides this i wanted to take you guys
to my favorite restaurant so far here in
goris it's called wine garden but for
whatever reason they're not open today
so i walked all the way back
to this one other restaurant called
business lunch i haven't been here
before but i'm getting the most basic
things just like a hamburger salad fries
because uh i just don't want to walk
anywhere else
so that is it guys i hope you enjoyed
the video let me know your thoughts in
the comments i hope you're all having a
great day
keeping your own kind of beautiful and
stay safe when stepping out of taxis
you