nivio & sabine's road adventures

Hello friends, family and outside world,

So finally the second enstallment to our travel journey. At the moment I'm sitting in a cafe shop in Kazakstan. We have to wait a couple of days while our car is getting repaired. The brakes have gone. So now we have some time to catch up on our diaries.
So a brief update where we've been since we last e-mailed:

Georgia
Has beautyful montains, the people are so friendly, it's cheap, we loved it. Highly recomended.

Azerbaijan
Baku, the capital is like a mini Dubai; development everywhere; very nice architecture with attention to details; it's funded by a large reserve of oil; a lot of wealthy people driving expensive cars like Hummer, BMW, Mercedes etc. However in the villages outside Baku the people are very simple and poor.

Kazakstan
Very big country with a lot of dessert with tempertures rising above 40°; common to see camels and horses on the side of the road; people contact is more difficult; they have beautifull little houses; even though the infrastructure is now minimal, they also have a large reserve of oil  and the government is investing in infrastructure work. So there will be big improvments in the next 10 years with roads, technology etc.

From Azerbaijan we caught a ferry accross the Caspian Sea. We've travelled over 21'000 km now!!! And spend over 2000 Euro in diesel.

Some facts people might be interested in:
- diesl cost: 0.37 Euro per litre (Kazakstan)
- cigarette: 0.30 Euro (Azerbaijan)
- 1/2 litre Vodka: 1 Euro (Georgia)
- Police: bribes are commen in Ex Soviet countries
- Kazakstan: over 40 ° in places
- worst road took us 8 hours to travel 200 km in Kazakstan, but it's getting better
- Everyone speaks Russian

The toilet situation has also got more interesting as we left Turkey. The toilet nowdays is two planks of timber with a whole in the middle. It's full of flies and this is no place to back splash; you never no what can come up. The smell...well you can't imagine it, because theres nothing like it. So in the nature is where we try to go (Simona, you would never go to the toilet here).

So I'll include one story: In Azerbaijan we had our car broken into while we're in the Kazakstan Embassy. This area has police everywhere but they must have been a sleep instead of protecting the Embassies. So someone broke into our car. He broke a window and stole our digital SLR, phone etc. (we we're gone only 20 minutes). So we report to the police and police arrive from everywhere so one stage we had about 15-20 police touching all the evidence and one local police even had the theory that we've done it ourselves by pushing our side mirror into the window. Well he kept trying this theory everytime a superior office came, although we told him no, this can't happen. But after his third attempt at this theory Sabine and I went off it him, calling stupid idiot, go away you dumbarse. His superior realised we are now mad and told him to go away. So then comes the forensic for finger prints. We just laughed at him and touched the window with our fingers, as all colleagues have already touched all the evidence, so his wasting his time.
There were a couple of undercover cops, they went inside to look at the surveillance camera from the Kazakstan emassy. Sabine and I said we aren't getting our stuff back so let's get a report written for our insurance. The officers said it's late, we can't get the report written until tomorrow. But Sabine said no, I want it now so I can get out of Ayerbaijan. So after an hour they managed to get a whole of a translater. So we have to go to the Police department. As we go, an undercover cop said to me in Russian: "Don't worry, I'll get your stuff back". He was the police I said to Sabine: If anyone gets it back, it would be him as he was the only who went straight to the surveillance cameras.
So now we got to the police station, a young boy arrives with an English diploma - he is our translater. So we are explaining what happend (the office was always full with other police who were curious). Than two hours pass and in walks the undercover cop with our camera around his waste, saying: Here it is! I got it back like I promised!
Sabine an i just looked at each other in complete shock and amazement. Behind him was the thief in handcuffs. They actually caught him so we got everything back except Sabines SIM card. So then we finish writting the report (it was after 12 am) and we wanted to go for a beer to celebrate. The undercover cop said I take you guys, so we drive around town and we end up in a night club, music blairing. Imigine this: the cop is like in T.V.; he walks in, orders drinks (we had about 4 each) and we just walk out, don't pay anything, instead the club pays him...unbelievable! We go to another bar full of hookers and order drinks again. He doesn't like the music so he calls the DJ over and tells him to play European music. Of course we don't pay for anything. He said: "I pay", and shows us his pocket full of 100 $ bills.The undercover cops here do whatever they want and get money from everywhere such a mafia. So at around 3 am we get in his car, all 3 of us drunk. We drive with his sirrons on and he got this speaker system that he can communicate outside, so we are driving around the city and he keeps saying: "Sabine, Nivio, I Love You", to the people on the streets with sirons blairing,people stopping and staring at us it was so funny. he was driving like schumacher - he was unbelievable! (By the way: Our story appeared on the local news!!)
Any way, the next day i had the worst hangover with over 40° in Baku - not recommended.

A lot of interesting things have happened, but to many to write about. Sabine and I are really enjoying our time. It's definetly travelling like we've never done before. It can be difficult at times, same time rewarding. We can't really recommend it to everyone but we love it. We've met amazing people and seen amazing landscapes!!