We are now in the Great Caucasus

We are out of the Stans and now in the Great Caucasus

Bacu, Azerbaijan                                              

Bacu was a refreshing change. Like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan is a former Soviet ruled country, but unlike their neighbours they have been able to embrace their independence and their old culture using their wealth from oil and gas build a modern city. The esplanade along the Caspian Sea has been landscaped to include parks and restaurants and when lit up at night is very impressive. There are records of Bacu dating back five thousand years.  We stayed in the walled city of old Bacu, where we enjoyed walking along narrow alleyways and cobbled streets.  There was a lot to see here, an old 14th century palace belonging to a ruler by the name of Shirvashah complete with mosque, mausoleum and baths, and remains of St Bartholamew’s chapel.  People live here and there are small markets and many small caves where carpets and souvenirs are sold, creating a great atmosphere. There is a restaurant, a caravanserai, where the silk road traders stayed, the original water font where camels drank from is still there. Another thing which impressed us was the rise in the standard of our accommodation, everything in our room was clean and worked, we had wifi  for the first time since Beijing and a lovely breakfast was provided. People do not spit here either which is a nice change after Asia and the Stans.

We left Bacu riding along the coast where Azerbainjan’s new wealth is evident in the many luxury houses built or being built here. The road then took us inland to a dry and dusty landscape, no trees or crops, no livestock.  We had a flat, narrow, busy road with a good surface. The drivers here take risks by driving very fast and passing when it is not safe to do so which means we cannot relax at all.  There were many cafes and restaurants all the way through Azerbaijan, most had outside tables under shady trees which was our preference. When we sat down a basket of bread and a bowl of salad was put on the table to accompany whatever we ordered.  Borsche was always available and we sometimes ordered it – a soup with vegetables and potatoes with a lump of meat, usually lamb or chicken. Salad was usually tomatoes and cucumber, sometimes there was onion and capsicum. The tomatoes are just divine, red and picked ripe, we see them growing as we ride and people selling them by the side of the road, if it was legal I would take some home to grow. We rarely saw women in cafes or shops, it was always men serving at the tables and behind the counter, in one café there were twentysix men and Heather was the only women in the room. In some places there was only a male toilet. The women we did see walked freely on their own dressed in jeans or knee length skirts and tee shirts, hardly ever a scarf to be seen.

As in Kazakhstan people would buy us drinks or the owner of the café would refuse to take our money, this happened about twice a day and always amazed us. We also had offers to stay at people’s places but managed to refuse because at the end of the day all we wanted to do was go to bed but if we stayed with someone we would be up late trying to have a conversation when neither of us could speak the other’s language. One evening Mike rode into a town close to where we were staying to buy a cold drink, a man paid for the drink and then insisted Mike join him and his friends for a beer, which became two and would not let Mike pay for anything.

One day as we were pedaling along a truck pulled up and it was one of the truckies we had met on the boat to Bacu, then not long after we were sitting under a tree at an outside café and three French men we had met in Almaty came along and joined us.  We have seen very few cyclists, none since Bishkek, so we were delighted to see them.

We had a rest day when we reached Ganca which has an aluminium smelter and not much else but it did have a hotel and we were glad to see it. Heather went into the hotel to check it out and if it was okay to book in, the staff, all men, kept saying “man”, when he was pointed out to them waiting outside they took the booking, and when we had to show our passport they insisted that they resister the “man’s passport”.  We wonder how women travelling on their own cope without a “man” The best thing about Ganca was the food, we found a place which cooked a pretty good shaslick.

After Ganca we started to have trouble with dogs chasing us, big dogs, so far Mike has always been able to scare them off. The countryside greened up and there were crops growing and sheep and cattle grazing. As we got within 60 kilometere from the border with Georgia the area looked like progress had forgotton about this part of the country, houses were not well kept, horses and donkey’s were being used to pull carts and the café quality took a slide.

We did not need a visa to enter Georgia so the crossing was smooth, no forms to fill in and no cost, we just had our passports stamped and we were free to go.