The route to Meghri that I took this weekend is beautiful, through stark mountain scenery and over a 10,000-foot pass, but the road is terrible and incredibly curvy: On the way back the various cars I was in had to stop three times for people to throw up.
It’s also treacherous for truck drivers: this Iranian truck had been going around a hairpin turn when its load, huge rolls of aluminum sheeting, fell off. When we got there an Armenian crane had arrived to lift the rolls back onto the truck, and traffic was stopped. As proof that men everywhere are alike, all the guys whose cars were backed up came to the scene and shouted advice. Several were like me and took photos.
I really thought this was going to end in disaster, and you can see right at the end that it almost does. But shortly after this they got everything sorted out and traffic got moving again.
Incidentally – if anyone can identify the language(s) being spoken here, I would be very grateful. I was told that, ironically, the Armenians and Iranians who do cross-border trade often speak Azeri with each other, as the former know Azeri from their former neighbors and the latter because most people in northern Iran are ethnic Azeris.
Interesting video, it reminds me of the soda truck that lost part of its load when we were driving through Lesbos. I wish I had taken a picture of that. Great blog Josh
Posted by: Russ | May 31, 2007 at 02:43 PM
Difficult to say what language it sounds like. However, I can identify just a few Azeri words at the very beginning, such as 'Ay kishi,...' etc. translating 'man, what the...'
Posted by: Azer | May 31, 2007 at 04:10 PM
Can you please make a correction to the word at the very top of your webpage - should be 'through', not 'though'.
Posted by: Azer | May 31, 2007 at 04:25 PM
Russ, glad you like it!
Azer... thanks for the correction... I can't believe no one, including me, has noticed that yet...
Posted by: Josh | June 01, 2007 at 12:37 AM
Besides the little Azeri already identified there is also a lot of "hey akhper" as in "hey brother" uttered in Armenian along with other useless advices.
Pleasant journies...
Posted by: Ara | August 24, 2007 at 06:28 AM