No Journey Too Far: A Race Through Azerbaijan

Time to move on to Azerbaijan. We had been warned by Simon and Teresa that this would be our first 'serious' border crossing and could take several hours. We got out of Georgia no problem - getting into Azerbaijan was where the issue lay. As I think I mentioned in my previous post, Armenia and Azerbaijan are very hostile towards one another - there is a region occupied by Armenia called Nagorno-Karabakh which the Azerbaijanis claim as theirs. They went to war in over it 20 years ago. That's where the problem lay - as soon as they opened our passports to check that we had been stamped out of Georgia they saw our stamps from Armenia and alarm bells started ringing. Despite us all having Azerbaijan visas we actually wondered if we were going to get through. We had all of our bags searched, many people had their cameras searched and were made to delete photos of Armenia. They also confiscated anything that was clearly bought in Armenia - I had my bottle of Armenian water taken during the bag search. When the truck was searched they took 22 cans of Armenian beer, my carton of Armenian tomato juice and my newly purchased bottle of shampoo! We were also all quizzed about what we had done in Armenia, where we had ben and what we knew of the conflict between the two nations. After a few hours they were finally convinced we were just tourists and no threat to national security and they let us through. We happily got on Calypso to head on our merry way when David and Warren checked their passports to find that they had not been stamped into the country. This would pose problems on the way out of Azerbaijan so a quick U-turn was done and we had to head back to the border for them to get the correct stamps. Fortunately this was fairly quick and we were soon on our way again. We were headed for a place called Sheki which was a lovely little town......

We were staying at a hotel called Karavanasery - it was beautifully done, lovely courtyard and restaurant areas. The rooms themselves (an in particular the bathrooms) were not the best but it was only for one night and the rest of the surroundings made up for it......

Next morning bright and early we headed off to the Summer palace of the Khan. Unfortunately I can't put any pics of this on as we weren't allowed to take any inside. However, it was very beautiful with only a very little bit of restoration as the rest was very well preserved.

After the visit to the palace it was back to Calypso for our onward journey. We only have a few days in which to get through Azerbaijan as the truck can only get insurance for 72 hours. The main reason for going through Azerbaijan is essentially to get across the Caspian and into real Silk Route territory. To be honest, this short stay in the country annoyed me. In my opinion the whole point of doing the journey this was was so that you were getting a chance to see things and experience a bit of the country which I felt that I was not getting the opportunity to do. Also, by this point we were 5 nights on the trot staying in different places and to be honest I just wanted to stop somewhere for 2 nights - camp or hotel. It's tiring being on the road all the time! Anyway, there was not much we could do. The plan for the day was to drive to some mud volcanoes near Baku (the capital and our point for catching a Caspian sea crossing) then bushcamp. It had been a glorious day but just before we got to the mud volcanoes the heavens opened - not good for driving through mud! Simon, our driver, got as close as he could but then the inevitable happened - the truck got stuck! After a few attempts to get out of the mud, it was decided it was best for us to walk to the volcanoes whilst Simon, Teresa and Andy figured out how to get Calypso out.

Andy digging Calypso out

The walk to the volcanoes was hard but only due to the fact that the ground was complete mud - my feet were about a kilo heavier than normal due to the weight of the mud - some people went in their bare feet as it was easier! A good time was had by all, including Phil who managed to fall in!

Phil falling in

When we got back to the truck we were all happy to see that it was no longer stuck so we headed off to find a bushcamp. By this time it was getting late, everyone was tired and covered in mud and it was going to take at least an hour to set up camp and have dinner ready. At that point I'll admit I was not in the best of moods but I just had to get over it and get on with it! An early start was required in the morning so that once we got to Baku Simon could go to the port and try to arrange passage across the Caspian Sea for us. In addition, he had to get Calypso to clear Azerbaijani Customs as then the clock would stop on the 72 hours insurance. It was a sedate evening as everyone had dinner then went to bed early.

We got to Baku early and dumped the bags at the hotel. We needed visas for Turkmenistan so we had to visit the embassy first thing. Thankfully this was a visa that was issued in one day so whilst we were waiting we all headed off to the supermarket to spend our Azerbaijani Manat on snacks to keep us going through the sea crossing. Once we had visas the plan was to meet back at the hotel at 3 for an update on where we were with crossing info. That only really left us enough time to have a shower to get rid of any lingering mud and grab some food. At 3 there was no news other than we would reconvene at 6 so we went off to have a bit of a look round Baku....

At 6 we were told it was likely to be the next day at the earliest before we would be leaving - this was greeted with some cheers as everyone was looking forward to a decent night's sleep in the hotel. The plan was to reconvene at 11 the next morning. Perhaps it's best for me to explain the crossing a bit. The Baku-Turkemenistan route is a cargo route and there are no scheduled ferries. Basically Simon had to turn up at the port and see if we could get on a cargo ship - preferably one that also had passenger quarters. This was a part of the trip that a lot of us were a bit nervous about - blogs from previous years had reported a number of horrors such taking 3 days to cross with no food facilities, maggots in beds, women having to be protected by male passengers due to unwanted attention from randy sailors etc so we were pretty apprehensive. As such, the prospect of a guaranteed night in the luxury of a hotel was very welcome. Most people took it easy that night, myself included. However, just as I was about to get ready for bed at around 10.30 the phone in the room rang - it was Teresa saying that we had got a ferry and it would be likely that we would be leaving at 3am and to be ready at 10 minutes notice. Panic! Everyone then made sure all bags were packed and ready to go and tried to get a few hours sleep. As it turned out we didn't get the 10 minute warning phone call until 6am so at least we managed to get a decent amount of sleep.

Once we got to the port we of course had to clear Azerbaijan customs and passport control. Given how much trouble we had getting into the country, we were hoping our exit was be easier. Whilst there were a few eyebrows raised and some questions about our visit to Armenia, all in all it was quite smooth but just very time consuming. It was around 9 am before we got on to the ship with more than a little trepidation - how bad was it going to be??? In truth, we totally lucked out. We were shown to a common room area with leather couches and tables that we could use. We were then shown to our cabins that were clean and best of all had brand new, maggot free mattresses! We were all very happy and relieved travellers :-)

Then the 3rd mate came down and gave us a tour of the ship - taking us up to the bridge, showing us the equipment etc which was great. The journey itself once we got started was to take about 17-24 hours depending on weather conditions. Then we would have to wait for a slot at the port before we could dock which could take another 12 hours or so - we knew we were in for a long journey but the weather was good, we had lots of snacks and were in clean and comfortable cabins - couldn't ask for much more. We set off around 1pm once all the cargo was loaded. We dropped anchor overnight as the port in Turkmenistan was busy, we finally got going again around lunchtime and docked around 4pm - about 34 hours after leaving the hotel. Not too bad.

All in all I did enjoy Azerbaijan and wish we had a bit more time there - especially as I don't think I'll be back any time soon due to the cost of the visa and the trouble we had getting in with Armenian stamps on our passport.

Below are some pics from the sea crossing - I'll pick up the next blog from the wacky world of Turkmenistan.

Caspian Sea crossing....