Azerbaijan and across the Caspian

Azerbaijan: 28th May 2011 to 1st June 2011

Total distance travelled: 7,055km

Total days travelled: 45

Accommodation breakdown thus far :

Bushcamps: 12

Campsites: 18

Hostels: 4

Homestays: 4

Hotels: 6

Boats: 1

After all the palaver we suffered (mostly that Jim suffered really) to get the bloody Azeri visas the border crossing was pretty smooth and all done in about 2 hours, the only sign of any change being the border guards hats getting ever bigger (sadly no photos).

We were only in Azerbaijan (or Abijan as some people on the trip insist on calling it) for three days, but seemed to do quite a lot, starting with staying in this really cool Caravanserai in Sheki/Shaki/Seki.  The Caravanserais were like big hotels/markets/stables operating as stopping off points on the silk road.  In ye olden times animals would be stowed on the ground floor (in modern times it was the more unlucky members of the group) and people on the upper floor in these great little rooms all arranged round a huge courtyard.  

Caravanserai with huge big entrance door

Caravanserai from the inside

Also in the lovely Sheki was a very small, but very ornate Khan palace which was worth a little wander round.

Sheki Khan Palace

Jim leading the girls off to market (we got shouted at by
hotel management for this!)

Local transportation

This guy was so proud of his bike

From Sheki it was off to a bush camp in a very strange landscape which was slightly reminiscent of New Zealand or Bolivia in that there were active mud pools all over the place, but very different as there was no sulphur smell and the mud was cold (thankfully, as a couple of people fell through the crust).  Noone seems to be quite sure what causes these pools (they're known as volcanoes but it's rather over egging it).

Bush camp in the middle of nowhere

Bubbly mud with a shallow muddy lake in the background

There's always one!

Muddy feet (from paddling in the lake)

From there we went to Baku which is quite a flash, wealthy place from (I guess) all the oil and gas money coming through.  I managed to go out and abuse the credit card in some of the western branded clothes shops and take a wander around the pretty (but rather rebuilt and sanitised) old town while the boys were down at the port sorting out our passage across the Caspian.

Maiden't Tower in the old town

Loads of building work was going on including these lotus
flower/ships prows 

Mosque in the old town

Azerbaijan: Eurovision winner 2011

The boys announced that we were due to board a boat at 3am so it was off to bed for a wee kip and then up again for a taxi ride to the port.  I use the term port in the loosest possible sense here.  It's got a dock and ships coming in and out, but it's down a wee side road and the taxi drivers didn't have a clue where it was.  This is possibly as the ships only really transport oil and gas (rather than trucks and people) and the whole lot is dragged in and out on train lines which run directly onto the boats.

After taking bets on what time were were going to board and to leave I was only out by an hour when we finally set off at about lunchtime, but we were entertained in the intervening hours by trains coming to get the oil of a previous ship, stray cats and general wandering around.  And it was warm and didn't rain which is about as much as you can ask for!

Trains coming in to pull oil off a ship.  They work in pairs (don't want
any capsize drills!) and pull off two sets of carriages each.  We reckoned
each ship was carrying about 28 tanks of about 1,000 barrels each.
In other words, lots of cash!

Camp at the port

More trains in the morning (you can just about see the boat in the background)

Baku port.  What you don't see is the massive oil slick covering much of the Caspian.

We were promised a journey of anywhere between 16 hours and a few days, but we were really lucky as the Caspian was as flat as a mill pond and we were done in the minimum of 16 hours.  Which was probably a good thing as the captain (or someone who claimed to be) had taking a liking to me and some of the girls who tried to sleep on deck received a bit of unwanted attention too.  And none of us were really able to contemplate using the one available toilet ever again (see pic and note the poo on the floor!).  

So after a few hours sleep in our luxuriously appointed cabins (there may have been a little sarcasm there) we were awoken at 5am by a squat scary loud russianesque battleaxe of a woman and told to bugger off.  Sadly it took another couple of hours for us to get off the boat, another couple of hours to be processed by the Turkmenistan border control and a further few hours to wait for the trains to come get the tankers off so our little truck could squeeze off too.  But we were on our way in Turkmenistan, complete with up-his-own-backside guide at around 130 which wasn't too bad in the grand scheme of borders.

Our environmentally friendly boat

The dreaded toilet.  It was like someone had built
a normal western toilet then got confused and added
the footplates for squatting.  Not quite sure what you
would do in high seas. And not quite sure why noone
ever seemed to flush it.

Georgia (also a while ago)

14 May 2011 - 28 May 2011

The border crossing from Turkey was pretty straightforward, although we had to dodge the construction site on the Georgian side.  There was a marked contrast in the roads, with Georgian roads being somewhat more potholed than the lovely smooth Turkish ones, but other than that and the writing (see pics - it's weird and very pretty), there was really very little difference between the two countries.

We went straight up to the  Black Sea “resort town” of Batumi which was a lesson in bad roads and worse architecture.  The buildings reminded me very much of some of the worst of new Latin American buildings, with too much of  a fondness of concrete & brick cube construction, overlaid with garish finishes and topped with ever tasteful colourful mirrored glass.

Tasteful architecture

Black sea

Local beer

Apparently the town is a magnet for holidaymakers, but it seemed a bit desolate and there are much nicer places in Georgia to visit.

From there we went on a mammoth drive North into the hills to the town of Mestia close to the Russian border.  It was pissing with rain for most of the morning so we stopped at a derelict factory (?) building in the middle of nowhere to have lunch.  However, we were soon joined by a bunch of locals (men in black leather) who plied us with brandy and homebrew wine and even ran off at one point in their little white lada to fetch us a rather bemused Australian teacher.  One guy in particular was kind enough to say I was the prettiest girl in the whole local area which, of course, was extremely flattering!

My admirer is to my left

The road was on the bumpy side with sheer drops down to a silty grey river below and it took about 9 hours to cover just 70km.  The journey was made immeasurably worse by the shouty out of key singing in the back of the truck. 

The road to Mestia

Landslide with teeny weeny digger clearing it from the other side

Scary overhanging bit of road (and the only railing I think we saw!)

The following day we met a local guide, Keti, who was just 17 and fluent in English, and skiving off school for the day to take us around.  We went up to one of the old villages (a few of them are now connected up and make up the town of Mestia) called Margiani (which is also her surname, it being her ancestral village).  The village consisted of a bunch of stone farmhouse type buildings, a cemetery with black headstones etched with the deceased’s portrait and amazing siege towers which are endemic.

Siege tower

Graveyard

Street sign with lovely Georgian script

Keti took us first to a museum which was a preserved traditional house.  The ground floor was semi submerged and was used for storage, the first floor was the living floor and upstairs was for cattle feed.  The living floor was just one big room with animal stalls around the edges, some seating (elaborately carved for the men and plain for the women) and a hearth in the middle.  Most interestingly was a dowry chest carved with 5 suns (although Georgia was the second country converted to Christianity the people held on to their sun worshipping beliefs also) which represented the 5 daughters that a family could have at any one time.  Any further daughters were the victims of infanticide.

Dowry chest

Keti's sheepdog

Our laundry after a few days camping!

The main street in Mestia (they are working on it)

Me and Keti

The butcher

From there we went to climb on of the siege towers which was just damn scary, all rickety ladders and packed dirt floors.

Keti also took a few of us up to the next village to see an amazing 11^thc. church built over a 6^th c. one.  Both had amazing frescos.

After a similarly long drive back down the hill (the fun added to with the occasionally induced landslide being cleared as part of the road rebuilding) we camped in some open ground near an old fort with just cows, the ever-present stay dogs and a police escort for company (two burly men squashed into a teeny tiny lada!).

Camping

Market

Cheese in the market

This was some kind of dried fruit

The weather really picked up for a visit to Kutaisi and Bagrati cathedral, and we went from there to Gori and camped at the Uplistsikhe Cave City on a football pitch by the river.  The weather was still really lovely and warm on arrival so I went off for a wee clamber over the ruins of the cave city (added bonus was that it was free as it was national museum day).

Bagrati cathedral

Bagrati cathedral

Cave City

Cave City

Cave City

From there we went back to Gori (in the rain again!) and visited the Stalin museum which was a strange experience.  We were led around by a girl called Tamar wearing over the knee, shiny black high heel boots, a black mini skirt suit and red satin shirt.  She spoke good English but with a strong accent and really fast so couldn’t understand her except we caught the drift that Stalin was a hero, misunderstood and he didn’t do bad things.   Outside the museum they’ve built a temple like structure around the house that Stalin was born in and (according to which version of history you read) lived in until he was either 4 or a teenager.  They’ve also got his (allegedly) bullet proof personal train carriage parked up outside, but clearly the town doesn’t love the association as much as they once did as they’ve taken down the huge Stalin statue that apparently once stood in town.

Stalin: less unattractive in his youth

Then it was on to Kazbegi, also in the north on the border with Russia, but this time with much better roads, including some snow tunnels which we had to use as there was still plenty of snow all over the place.  Luckily we descended from the snow line to camp just outside of town in the shadow of Mt Kazbek which is around 5,000m.  We had a strange red themed party that night on the truck and were joined by a few other tourists that had seen us from the road.

Me and Aoife at the red themed party

Camp at Kazbegi

Mount Kazbek

Red squirrel

The following day a few of us walked up to the Holy Trinity/Tsminda Sameba church/monastery which is supposed to be one of the holier sites in the country.  It was really beautiful up there with great views all around, but I had to wear a slightly strange outfit to get in, throwing a dress (ladies must wear dresses/skirts) over my hiking trousers and long sleeved top (ladies must cover their arms) before donning a headscarf (ladies must cover their hair)!

Tsminda Sameba

Fashion

We then spent a few days in Tbilisi which is a fairly pretty place.  We discovered the local Irish bar (run by a scary old American woman with terrible waist length hair extensions and a tartan miniskirt), a really good icecream parlour and, when the hangover abated, had a lovely walk around town.  We also spent some time door stepping the Azeri embassy as they were being a little slow in issuing our visas.  Those of us without visas were missing them because the embassy in London had closed for 3 weeks unannounced, just at the time we were applying for them.

Brand new and massive cathedral, Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi

And then east again to the Davit Gareja area which is near the border with Azerbaijan.  The area is really beautiful, all rolling green hills, dotted with monasteries and full of sheep and snakes.  We visited a really lovely monastery and then returned the same way to the town of Sighnaghi where I accidentally purchased a couple of carpets…..

Sign in the middle of nowhere

Davit Gareja monastery

Davit Gareja monastery

More fashion

Accidental Iranian carpet purchase

Accidental Dagestani carpet purchase

We spent a soggy couple of nights camping in the woods and visiting another monastery and a convent, when Jim returned, triumphant with our Azeri visas and we all headed off to the town of Telavi where the girls all stayed in a Russian General’s house which was a little plain on the outside but really ornate on the inside.

Denis, Jenn and me in abandoned monastery

Huge wine making jars at the monastery

Soggy bush camp

Steve (my cook group) looking very proud of his artistic arrangement of
salad items

Clothing rules at convent

CJ

And from there it was across the border to Azerbaijan.