Taxi Driver

So like I said in the previous blog I have to take a taxi back to the highway where I just came from.

I told the taxi driver, well, I didn't tell, I held up one finger. In the past this meant a one hundred coin. When he gets to the stop, where one boy is waiting, the taxi driver tells me there is no bus to Dilijan. He will take me there for 4000. Fuck that - no way! I asked the kid if there was a bus to Dilijan and he said yes.

Now I've dragged the kid into this mess. The taxi driver yells at him. I give the driver the 100 and tell him to get lost. He tells me he wants 300. Fight insues. the driver yells at me, the kid and another man nearby.

The kid doesn't really know for sure about the bus to Dilijan, because he's not going there. I can tell he looks concerned. At this point I just want to get out of Sevan. If I have to go back to Yerevan I will. I think driver finally leaves but he just goes to the other side of the median and yells from over there. I see him get on his phone, then he comes over and tells the kid that the bus to Dilijan leaves at 3 pm. It's 10:30.

I want to get away from that driver. If the bus leaves at 3pm I'll go back to the hotel and hang out. The walk to the hotel is still quite a ways down the highway and I know that driver will drive and harass me the entire way. A private van pulls over and adjusts something in his engine. The boy knows him and goes over there to talk. The taxi driver yells at this guy too from across the road. But he doesn't come over. I see the boy start to get in with this guy. I run over there and beg with my sign language to please just take me a short distance. He does. They drop me off at the hotel entrance. I'm so happy to get away from that taxi driver.

I walk up the hill to the hotel and ask the receptionist if she knows when the bus goes to Dilijan. She doesn't know. "Well I stayed here last night and spent a lot of money. Maybe you could make some phone calls and find out." She does and says (She speaks English) that she thinks it leaves at 11:00. Then she asked a couple of employees and one uses his cell phone and makes a couple of calls. "Go now!"

I run down the hill and within 15 sec. a mini van pulls over. I'm on my way to Dilijan.