It was a long, slow drive from Saki to Baku and we finally arrived late
afternoon on Monday 12th May. Baku is a city going through its second
oil boom and it certainly looks the part. New high rises are being
built as fast as they can find the cranes to put them up. BMWs, Mercs
and even a few Hummers zoom through the streets. Everyone is dressed
up to the nines, with gold dangling off wrists and diamonds of
fingers.
Our hotel, The Absheron, was just off the promenade on the edge of the
Caspian Sea. Not a bad place except it seemed that every floor was
owned and operated by a different company. Due to delays to the ferry
across the Caspian we stayed on three different floors in our four
nights there. Each floor was different in floor and room layout,
cleanliness, bathrooms, Internet access, even the TV channels were
different.
Spent the first day doing a walking tour of the Old Quarter. Saw the
Maiden's Tower, named after the young lady who threw herself off it
instead of giving in to the advances of her incestuous father. Also
went into the Palace, a few Mosques, and another Caravanserai. Went to
a Pub that night filled with British BP workers, and large Russian
"working girls". They spent most of the time dancing on tables that
creaked ominously beneath their weight.
Our second day, Wednesday 14 May, we headed out of the city and to see
the Mud Volcanoes. It might not sound it, but watching mud bubble up
from the earth was actually pretty interesting. At least it must have
been since I took about fifty photos. Then it was on to see some
pre-historic cave paintings.
That night we were supposed to load up on the ferry, but when George
went down to the port not only had the ferry not arrived. In fact the
port officials said they had no idea where the ferry was. "Somewhere
on the Caspian," the helpfully told George. So we checked back into
the hotel and hoped that the ferry would arrive the next day.
No such luck. The ferry didn't ended up arriving at the port until
1900 on Friday 16 May. By which time our transit visa for the truck
had expired. Despite it only being a ten dollar fine to extent the
visa the office was already closed and no one at the port was
officially allowed to do the extension. So George had to stay behind
with the truck, pay the fine the next morning and then jump onto the
next available ferry, which would hopefully be that afternoon. So we
all trooped off the truck and walked onto the ferry wondering when we
would see the truck again.
