We arrived in Yerevan at 20:20, it took an absolute age to get through passport control. The long queue kept getting longer due to the fact that some of our delightful travelling companions didn't get the concept of queuing, and either snook under the guide ropes or just walked up the queue until they were challenged. When we finally got to the front we had to go to separate kiosks, and both of us were left hanging around when the passport control officers went into flaps about us having Azerbaijan visas in our passports. Tine was left waiting much longer than me, so I hung around in the duty free shop. We picked up our baggage and for the first time ever we had a baggage receipts checked. We entered the arrivals hall and spotted a man in the crowd with an Explore "sign", an A4 sheet of paper with "EXPLORE" printed on it in red. He didn't say much, we never exchanged names, I just showed him the explore tag on our bag. We followed him out to a car park by the airport and arrived at on old shape Vauxhall Astra estate, the driver offered us some sweets, Tine had one, but I declined, I had an underlying fear of being drugged and waking up in a compromising situation, so I thought one of us should be safe! We drove off trusting that the driver was taking us to the right place. The car had a video camera filming the road ahead, I remember reading that Russian drivers in Siberia use these a lot, so that they have proof if they are stopped by the police, who are deemed less than honest, I assume it may be a similar situation in Armenia. As we entered the city and progressed through, in my paranoid state I was making notes of landmarks as we passed, but eventually we arrived at the hotel, only to find that we were not on any lists that the hotel had for the Explore group, so effectively we were not booked in! The hotel staff were great and did all they could to help us, first asking if we could share with some of the guests from Explore who had already booked in. When we explained we didn't know the other people they contacted a manager and put us up in a room. Once in the room we rang the Explore emergency number, and Tine said the guy who answered didn't seem too pleased to be disturbed, he said that he would contact some people and call us back, he didn't bother, he just sent us a text saying the hotel was sorting it out, this was not what we paid our money for!
