During the pandemic’s “Great Travel Disruption”, travelers have found solace and hope in strange and unlikely places.

Chained to our quarters by an enemy we couldn’t see, the darkness seemed darker because, among all the other things this virus has stolen from us, it has stolen the purely random moments adventure travelers live for.

In the bowels of the ‘Great Travel Hiatus’ you may have dreamed of late July afternoons in Cinque Terra or sipping margaritas and Mexican mules in Cabo, but my visions hadn’t had such a glow. nor form. I’ve always wanted things that I haven’t seen yet, in person, in print, or in pixels. For 18 months, I dreamed of putting my iPhone in airplane mode and following my nose again, trusting it to enchant me astray.

I subsisted on a vivid flashback to the last time I went outdoors, just before we were slammed into our proverbial cages. The time I stumbled upon a tacitly forbidden space, recommended by no one and few remember, on the shady outskirts of a town on Middle Earth in northern Armenia.

I have long wondered why this dark and spooky place has become my pandemic light. Finally, I’m ready to answer the question: why did I parted in the tall grass to wander among the grim shadows of an abandoned Soviet amusement park?