Boulevard of Broken Camera Dreams

I actually moved on from Yerevan already, but didn’t want to post too much about my new location. Things are a little sensitive here, so I’m holding out with public updates until I’m out of the region.

Unfortunately though, my plans seem to have suffered a bit of a setback: I dropped my camera (a Canon PowerShot S95) today. Since I’m a dumb-ass, it wasn’t on a strap and its casing cracked. While the damage didn’t seem too serious at first, a few hours later it started acting up and it now seems to be out of order until I find a repair shop (lol, right).

I’m worried that I’ll either have to make do with my phone for the rest of the trip, or double-back to Yerevan and buy a replacement for more than double of what it costs on Amazon.com. As a famous philosopher once said, ‘well, fuck.’

Seeing how bad of a deal I’d get in Yerevan, I went as far as checking flights to neighboring countries to see if there might be an alternative way to get my hands on a well-priced replacement or upgrade. However, all that research resulted in, was driving home the point of exactly how isolated the country is. There’s not a single return ticket to be had for less than 600 USD, regardless of how close the destination is. So that’s a no-go.

I’m asking around a bit to see if I can find a cheaper alternative that can measure up to my old S95 without breaking the bank. There’s also a chance that some local camera store here carries something decent after all. Neither would be ideal, but it might work as a temporary replacement.

While waiting to see if that turns up anything, I’m playing around with some pictures I took with my mobile phone in Tbilisi, Georgia. All the pictures seen in this post were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S4. Filters do help, but I wonder how many over-saturated pictures I can post before I start throwing up in my mouth. There’s also a sepia and a black and white filter…

Looking at the big picture (ba-dum-tsh!), it seems all huffing and puffing won’t help: A proper camera is a must-have for this trip, price-sensitivity be damned.

This definitely puts me behind schedule. I’ve already considered cutting out China and Kazakhstan in order to allow for a more relaxed itinerary. If things continue like this, then I might not even have a choice in the matter. Another alternative would be to skip Tajikistan. Of course, before all that comes to happen, Turkmenistan still needs to approve my transit visa. I don’t expect any trouble there, but you never know.