Thursday 19 January - the highlands day1

Early start today . . we left the hotel at 6:30 to take our flight to Armenia. Everything was running on time and we set off down the runway fairly fast . .  then slowed down and turned off. We waited in line again and attempted to take off again, again the pilot aborted the takeoff and went back to the terminal. Finally an English announcement was made and apparently a warning light was coming on. We all had to get off and wait for another plane, luckily they had a bigger one and our third time taking off was fine. We ended up being three hours behind schedule so the sight seeing was re-jigged a little.
We are now in the coffee growing region, a UNESCO World Heritage region. First stop is Salerno, one of the oldest towns.
We visited a coffee plantation and walked in the field, looked at plants, saw the factory (small), people hand sorting the beans, and had our tastings. We were there about two hours and left with a gift bag containing coffee to bring home.
We managed to get to the hotel for half an hour before going out to dinner. The group is split into two hotels as there wasn't one big enough for us all. Ours is a nice Eco lodge and we had to get to it via Jeep Willy's, basically you climb in and sit in the back. Our guide Chris seems to have put the most able bodied (4) couples in this one. Went into town for a nice dinner but it stared raining so the drive back was 'interesting'.