At the closest point, I was about five metres from the Azerbaijani border. It was just a lane's width between my location in Armenia and one of the nation's enemies. In fact, had we been driving on the other side of the road I would have been less than a metre away from Azerbaijan.
Crossing from Tbilisi into Armenia was an easy, if a little expensive, endeavour. Whilst there was an overnight train, the much faster and more regular services were shared taxis from Tbilisi to Yerevan. You'd pay for it by the seat so if, like me, you got off in a town on the way to Yerevan, you'd still pay the full fare.
I decided to spend my first few nights in Armenia in Dilijan, a small hikers' resort town two hours north of the Armenian capital. After crossing the border, I saw that there were two roads on the map. One road headed south along the western edge of the country, next to Azerbaijan, and one headed south through the centre. The road on the western edge ran very close to the border, almost deliberately. With these taxis running a dozen or so times a day in each direction, I expected that the route would be the less-risky, central route.
I was wrong. The road weaved its way through the mountainous terrain of north-western Armenia, shuffling around corners from town to town. As the road started to get closer to the border, Armenian military buildings and flags started appearing more frequently. There were army groups doing regular patrols up and down the road.
Looking out the window, I could see the remains of buildings that had been abandoned and a small, disused military tank sitting on the side of the road. On the top of a hill very close by was a tall flagpole flying the Armenian flag. About two hundred metres from the flag was a long chain of barbed wire hugging the ground. Continuing another two hundred metres or so in the same direction was another hill with another very tall flagpole. This time, though, the flag was Azerbaijan's.
I thought this would be the closest I'd get to the border but Google Maps suggested otherwise. In fact, according to the application, the road I was on was set to weave in and out of the international border. It didn't feel that way when we got there but it is a safe reminder that borders are still interpreted differently depending on who you ask. Atlases and maps used to have different features or versions of political geography depending on where they were printed. Only very recently have we started using global maps which assume everyone agrees on where every border lies.
Soon we were next to the border wall running beside the lane on the other side of the road. Given that the border was so close, running where a footpath would have been, a wall had been erected. It was only about five metres high and edged the road for only two hundred metres or so. But that border was very deliberate. I could see on my map that, on my side of the road, there was a small town. And next to that town was a small Azerbaijani enclave. Whether Armenian maps acknowledged that enclave, I wasn't sure. But, needless to say, I was in a tiny slither of Armenia between two pieces of land that Azerbaijan had laid claim to. It felt a little precarious.
However, with the COP29 global summit still running in Baku it was probably the safest time to be in the area for the last few decades. The world's eyes were on the region so neither side wanted to engage in military action. Conflict was always possible but, for the minute, not very likely.
I stared out the window, intrigued and hoping, for the first time in my life, that the driver would wait a few towns before stopping for a toilet break. And all the while a Chinese video blogger sat behind me, fast asleep and unaware of everything we'd seen.
