Georgia and Azerbaijan

After our second big push through Turkey, and our previous night of questionable sleeping arrangements, we were pretty wrecked when we got to the Georgian border. They made us go through the pedestrian line-up instead of the car line-up, which was fine, but it seemed sort of silly to make us weave our loaded bikes through turnstiles and narrow corridors when we could have just rolled through with the cars like at every other border we’ve crossed. Oh well, the lady who stamped us in was friendly and welcomed us to Georgia with a big smile.

The very first thing we did was buy a bottle of wine from a guy selling it out of his car beside the road. He waved us over to taste and it was so good we couldn’t resist. He was prepared too, big canteens sitting in the trunk of his car and plastic bottles from 500ml to huge. We bought a litre, though I wish we had bought more. It ended up being the best wine we found in the whole country!
We spent about five days in Batumi, resting and generally being pretty lazy. It’s an interesting city, but also sort of weird.  There’s the old part of town, where you find 19th century houses and buildings that have mostly been converted into tourist cafes and shops. Then you have the newer parts of the city, which almost have a Las Vegas feel to them. Picture big skyscrapers, lots of glass, bizarre angles and irregular shapes that look almost futuristic. There’s a big zoo with exotic animals and a tall building with a ferris wheel built into the side of it. Then you have the unfinished part of the city; dozens of concrete shells that seem like they’ve been under construction forever. The strangest part about these is that many of them are being built next to already finished buildings that are sitting empty. Batumi must be busier in the summer. In early April the place felt pretty empty and all these construction projects seemed doomed to fail. The city does have a gorgeous waterfront though. I can see the appeal of the Black Sea beach resort experience, if that’s what you’re into.

It took us four days to ride from Batumi to Tbilisi, the capital. To be totally honest, I don’t have much good to say about these four days. Our initial plan had been to take quieter mountain roads, either north through Mestia or south through Khulo. We heard that the Mestia road was still closed for the winter. Karen and Jamie (who were about a week ahead of us at this point) had tried the Khulo road, but had been turned around for the same reason and had to ride all the way back to Batumi. So, we ended up on the busy, narrow, main road through the middle. It was not an enjoyable experience. Georgian drivers are by far the worst and most insane of any country so far. The whole way was heavily populated which made camping, eating lunch, and even peeing a challenge to do without being surrounded by people. We were happy to make Tbilisi, but the traffic getting into the city was just ridiculous. We spent a day exploring Tbilisi on foot and then another 3 days getting to the Azerbaijan border.

The day we left Tbilisi was one of the worst days of the entire trip. It was raining, we were grumpy, the road was narrow and just slammed with cars, and every single driver was a giant asshole. We made it about 40km before finding some soggy trees and pitching the tent at 2pm. Our jar of Nutella, which we’d bought on the way out of the city and was supposed to last us a week, was devoured in less than an hour as we tried to cheer ourselves up. The next two days were not quite as awful, but we were still pretty happy to get to Azerbaijan.

So what did we like about Georgia? My favourite part was the food. There were so many delicious dishes to try and lots of variety. For meals there were dumplings and vegetable salads and sauces and dips and they were all so flavourful and colourful. For snacking there were endless roadside stands selling breads and fruit leathers and churchkhela! Churchkhela is a long string of either hazelnuts or walnuts, dipped into a mixture of grape juice and flour. You can also get ones dipped in honey or pomegranate juice. They are hung to dry and look like colourful candles when they’re ready to eat. I think snacking on these was my favourite part of Georgia.

We also enjoyed exploring Tbilisi, without the bikes. I actually think I would have enjoyed the whole country more if I’d been on a different mode of transportation. The roads were just too stressful and not the type of terrain that I like to ride through.  I prefer more wilderness and less people. I’m sure the roads we’d wanted to take would have delivered this, but on a trip of this length it’s hard to hit the perfect season in every country. We timed Turkey just right, and the desert stretches coming up are only going to get hotter and hotter as the summer approaches. Unfortunately, something has to give, and in this case it was Georgia. I also think there’s always going to be highs and lows while travelling, especially over many months. At this point we’d been on the road for 6 months, and Georgia was our 15th country. They can’t all be winners, and the high we were riding after Turkey couldn’t last forever. For what it’s worth, Karen and Jamie loved Georgia so much that they extended their route to spend more time in the country. We were getting messages from them about how awesome the place was, but the magic never happened for us. By the end we were just trying to get out, hoping that Azerbaijan would be better.

Azerbaijan definitely started out on the right foot for us. I had no idea what to expect; this is a country that I barely knew existed before planning this trip. I would never have been able to pick it out on a map. I’m not even sure I knew it was a country, and not a city or something. Here we were though, riding towards the border, to a place I’d never even considered visiting. When we got to the border it was closed for lunch, so we waited for a bit while having a pleasant “chat” with a couple of the soldiers. One of them pulled a pack of cookies out of his pocket and gave them to me. How did he know?

The crossing was smooth, a soldier asked us about what was in our panniers but didn’t seem too concerned. The officer who stamped us in gave us a huge smile , threw his hands over his head, and said “Welcome to Azerbaijan!!” as he handed our passports back along with a handful of candy.

One of my first impressions of Azerbaijan was that, of all the Muslim countries I’ve been to, it seemed like the least Muslim. For a country that is 97% Muslim, (according to Wikipedia) we hardly saw any mosques, and only heard the call to prayer a couple of times. This was a sharp contrast to Turkey where we could tell the time of day by listening for the muezzins every few hours.  I also noticed a difference in the way the women dressed; knee-length skirts and T-shirts were common, and most women had their heads uncovered. Tea culture had also returned! We were back to being offered Cay as we rode through towns and villages. The drivers had relaxed noticeably since Georgia, which meant that we could relax a bit more too.

We spent two days riding from the border to Sheki. One of the oldest cities in Azerbaijan, it’s also billed as one of the country’s main tourist attractions. The town used to be an important stop on the Silk Road routes that linked Baku to Tbilisi, and both of those cities to Russia. It has old palaces and fortresses, but by far our favourite sight was the old Caravanserai. These were essentially hotels, and there were many located along the old trade routes where travellers could stop to rest and share information with other travellers. The Caravanserai in Sheki dates back to the 18th century, and is still being used as a hotel today. We didn’t stay there, but we did wander around the inner courtyard and through some of the hallways where the rooms are. It’s beautiful. They’ve done a great job with the restoration and the upkeep. Just stepping inside the door makes you feel like you’re an old trader, finally arrived at your oasis after a long day’s travel. You can feel the history, you can picture so clearly how it would have looked 300 years ago, in it’s prime. Part of the appeal for us was that we’ve seen quite a few other caravanserais in different parts of the world, but most of them are in various states of ruin. To see one so well-preserved made all the previous ones come to life a little bit more. We were impressed and glad we’d taken the time to visit it.

From Sheki we took another three days to ride to Baku. The first part of the ride was great. At this point we were following the base of the Caucasus Mountains so our views were incredible. The roads were   calm and quiet, lots of shady kilometres underneath huge oak trees. We had a great campsite among these trees too, right next to a creek that bubbled soothingly all night. On day two, a storm caught up to us, so we got grumpy and wet. As we got closer to Baku the landscape changed, from forest and mountains to flat and dry. We had a distant view of the Caspian Sea while rolling down one of the last hills. Unfortunately, as the terrain flattened out, the wind picked up, and in addition to being grumpy and wet, we also had to fight a headwind for the last 50km or so. Nevertheless, we finally reached Baku, which felt like a pretty big milestone.  We’ve mentally divided this trip up into stages; Iceland, Europe, the Balkans, and this section from Turkey to Azerbaijan. With our arrival in Baku, we had not only completed our 16th country, but this leg of the trip as well.

In Baku we met up with Karen and Jamie again, the first time we had seen them since Cappadocia. It was nice to catch up and talk about everything that had happened since then. We also had errands to do: some TLC for the bikes, getting our Uzbek Visas, and figuring out how to catch the boat to Kazakhstan.   Even though we were there for five days, we somehow managed to procrastinate enough that our last day turned into a mad dash around the city. In the morning we went to the bike shop for some last minute parts. As we were doing that the embassy e-mailed us to say our Visas were ready. So then we had to run to another part of town to pay the Visa fee at a bank. As we were doing that, Karen messaged to say she had found out that there was a boat leaving tonight and we had to be at the port by 8pm. So we rushed to the other end of town to pick up our Visas. While we were running around, Karen and Jamie packed up all of our stuff and checked us out of our apartment. They had gotten their Visas a few days earlier, so were able to help us with our impossible timeline.
When we finally had all our things, we got back to where Karen and Jamie were waiting with all four bikes. It was now around 2pm, and we set off to ride the 70km to the port. We managed it thanks to a slight tailwind and a flat highway. At the entrance to the port they tried to turn us around. “Go back to Baku to buy your tickets”, they said. “No. Bicycle.” was our reply. They repeated it. We insisted. Finally, they let us in and sold us a cargo ticket with our names listed as the “cargo”.

We’ve heard stories about people waiting days, even a week for this boat. Because it’s a cargo ship that runs depending on weather and how full it is, there’s no schedule. Even when they tell you there’s a boat coming, there’s no guarantee when it will actually leave. We chatted to a French couple in the parking lot who had been waiting there with their camper rig for 3 days. In the end, we got lucky. They put us through customs and let us board the boat around midnight. By 1am we had been assigned a cabin and could get some sleep. They spent the next few hours unloading and reloading the boat, and we passed out hard after our long day. Around 7am we woke up to the ship slowly pulling away from the dock as we set sail across the Caspian Sea.

The crossing itself was pretty uneventful. Decent food, calm seas, and communal bathrooms that progressed from slightly gross to an absolute nightmare as the hours passed. About 100km from Baku we caught a glimpse of Neft Daslari, an entire offshore city built on top of sunken ships that serve as its foundation.  It was the first oil platform in Azerbaijan, and the first operating offshore platform in the world. Now it is actually a fully functioning city, with a population of about 2000 and over 300 km of streets built on pilings, dirt, and landfill. It rose eerily up from the smooth, oil-slicked water as we floated past.

The next morning we woke up to see the shores of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the distance. It’s sort of funny to think back to September, before we left home, looking at all these unknown places on a map and trying to imagine what this trip would be like. I always figured we could make it to Greece, but I don’t know if I ever believed that we’d make it much further. Maybe it was just too far into the future to seem real, and there was so much to think about in between.  Especially with how close we came to pulling the plug in Turkey, it felt pretty good to have made it this far. Central Asia is somewhere we’ve both wanted to ride for years. One of the motivating factors to keep going through Georgia and Azerbaijan was that the closer we got to Baku, the harder it was to think about going home. Once we were in Baku, there was no way we could leave without crossing the Caspian Sea and giving it our best shot. At noon, around 30 hours after leaving Azerbaijan, we pulled into the port at Aktau, Kazakhstan. It took us a little over six months, about 8000km of pedalling, and a whole lot of effort, but we had finally made it to Central Asia, and the next leg of our trip.




 The Round-ups!

Georgia

ODO Start: 7162 km
ODO Finish: 7728 km
Total kms: 566
Actual country name: საქართველო
Days in country: 13
Nights camped: 5
Closest we came to dying: Sharing an unlit tunnel with crazy Georgian drivers.
Flat tires: 0
Crashes: 1 (Elaine, tires skidded out on a wet road edge.)
Languages related to Georgian: None
Other cycle tourers met on the road:
-Victor, a Spanish guy headed to the Pamirs
- Frances, a Scottish girl, riding London to Mongolia
- An Iranian guy, riding a loop from Iran to Turkey
- Marc, a French guy, headed to Kazakhstan, started out hitchhiking but picked up a bike in Istanbul.

Azerbaijan

ODO start: 7728 km
ODO Finish: 8210 km
Total kms: 482
Actual country name:  Azərbaycan Respublikası
Days in country: 10
Nights camped: 3
Flat tires: 0
Other cycle tourers met on the road: A French couple, travelling east, with their dog!
Weirdest tourist attraction: Naftalan, a spa town where the popular treatment is to bathe in crude oil. Yes, seriously. No, we didn’t go.