Made it!
Trip Start
Feb 13, 2011
1
24
25
Trip End
Jul 21, 2011
Şǝki, Şǝki, Azerbaijan
Monday, July 18, 2011
So obviously I did in fact get my new Azeri visa in time and I caught my 18 hour train ride to Baku for the 2nd time in a week. It was really strange because I was almost hoping that I didn’t get the visa. I’ve never had that feeling before, of not actually wanting to go somewhere. I think in part it was because I’d had such a disastrous first attempt that really knocked me down, and I was almost afraid of a repeat… but I also think that I knew the end was in sight, and I just wanted to get home. But like I said, it was a really strange feeling, one that I didn’t really know how to deal with. Even once I had the visa in hand I almost didn’t go. But ultimately I decided that I would probably hate myself for going through all of that just to give up at the last minute. So I came. I’m really glad I came because I wanted to see the country, but it’s also been the hardest few days of travelling, emotionally at least.
The train to Baku was quite uneventful, especially since I already knew exactly what to expect as far as the borders were concerned. I actually ended up on the same car with the same attendant as last week and at the Georgian border she asked me if I’d gotten a new visa and I said yes. Then she mentioned my tears from the previous attempt and I assured her there would be none this time. Of course she didn’t actually speak any English so it was kind of a strange conversation, and a little bit embarrassing that she brought up the crying but oh well. Like I said, otherwise it was a pretty boring train trip. I did however, meet a man from Richmond Hill and I ended up giving him a bit of a UofG schpiel since he has a niece in grade 12 who’s going to be starting the university application process this fall! It was definitely the most unique liaison setting I’ve had to date, and it really started to get my juices flowing to get back to work in a few weeks time.
Once I got to Baku, I took a cab to my hostel and got settled for a short time. Another guy from the train that I’d met briefly at the border ended up staying at the hostel as well so we decided to go exploring together. Luckily there were no strange events that prevented us from seeing anything that we wanted this week so that was good. I got to climb the Maiden’s tower, and go into the Shirvanshah’s Palace (which I’d wanted to do ever since reading Ali and Nino, a love story between an Azeri man and Georgian woman, at the beginning of the trip). It was really nice to not feel so rushed and stressed wandering around and really getting to absorb the feeling of the city. Our next stop was to Martyr’s lane, a cemetery and monument dedicated to those who lost their lives to the Red Army at the beginning of the 90s. The bonus of Martyr’s lane was that it had a great view of the city. After taking plenty of photos, we headed back to the hostel and organized a taxi to Arteşgah, a Zoroastrian fire temple. Although the temple was quite sparse in general, it was really interesting to see something so different (and add another religion to my list of things I need to do more research about). Originally this eternal fire was due to a pocket of natural gas, but of course today it’s only run off the city’s main gas line – a bit of a disappointment to find that out.
Back at the hostel I met some other travelers who I ended up joining for dinner at a little hole in the wall place at the end of the alley where our hostel was. Besides one local man, we were the only people there and I think the owner was pretty excited to have some foreigners come in. We had some really nice food, dolma (vine leaves stuffed with meat/rice), and köfte (meatballs and potato in broth), along with the standard tomatoes and cucumber that seem to have accompanied just about every meal I’ve eaten in the last 5 months. My favourite part about this place was that when we ordered our beers, the guy disappeared for a while then came back, clearly from the nearest shop, with our beers in a plastic bag. Randomly, the local guy who was also hanging out in there happened to speak Polish, as did the other Canadian in our group. They happily chatted away for a while with occasional interjections to inform the rest of us what was happening. Eventually the local guy said he had to go but that he’d be back shortly and then would take us to see something. He’s a builder and was working on the renovations of a flat with a great view and we were definitely interested in checking it out. It turned out that it belongs to the wife of the British consulate! This place was really cool, right in the heart of the old town, the top level of small building, and of course the best feature was a huge rooftop patio. There was a lot of work being done be we were all impressed with the place. I was shocked though to find out that Baku recently underwent a huge housing market crash and the woman who owned the place was going to have to sell it at a big loss (selling price probably around 500-600K, which if that place had been in any large city in America would definitely be getting closer to 1million, which is what she originally paid for it a few years ago). We finished the night off by drinking some beer back at the hostel, a nice chill evening.
The next morning I set off on a tour out to Qobustan, about 60km south-west from Baku, where there are tons of ancient petroglyphs carved into the stones. Most of them were about 6000 years old, and it was interesting to see the progression of the different sizes depending on the age of the carving. Nearby there was also a roman carving done by roman soldiers dating from around the first century! My favourite part of the tour though was visiting the mud volcanoes. These are simply formed due to natural gas mixing with mud underneath the earth’s surface, and eventually bubbling up to the top. Unlike the mud volcano type things I’d seen in New Zealand, these had no sulphur smell (thankfully), and weren’t hot. In fact the mud was quite cool to the touch. I probably could have spent all day just wandering around amongst these cool mud towers, listening to them making funny sounds, and watching the bubbles pop every now and again. I got to see a few decent eruptions too, which sent some mud flying around. We had one more stop to make on the way back to Baku though and it was at one of the really old oil fields along the coast. It’s nicknamed the James Bond Oil Field because it was used in the filming of "The World is Not Enough" at the end of the 90s. Seeing all of the oil related stuff in the area was really interesting. It’s one of those things that of course I knew existed, but don’t exactly think about on a regular basis, you know “where does all the oil come from”. Oil has been harvested from Azerbaijan for a really long time and is one of the largest producers too. All along the coast you can see platforms out at sea, where most of the drilling happens today, as well as these few old fields on land, where only a small proportion of the oil comes from these days. On the drive to the mud volcanoes there were actually a few areas of ground that were black from the oil seeping out to the surface, and of course there was always a bit of a gas station smell in the air. Apparently that one section of land is being kept as a reserve by SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic) and will not be sold to any other company. The drive along the coast in general was quite interesting as it’s a mix of nice coastal views, and awful industrial sites. The oil fields, a cement factory, the beginning of the BTC Oil line, the soviet era buildings, all combined with quite a desert-like environment was very intriguing.
After the tour I went back to the hostel and met two Hungarian-Canadian girls who had just arrived that morning. The three of us set off for a bit of shopping and exploring and to get some food. We found this great place (thanks to the Lonely Planet of course) who’s interior design was extremely posh, the food delicious, but the prices nice and low. We had a nice little walk along the water and went back for a rest from the heat. Apparently I needed that because when we got back I wasn’t feeling too well, I think a sign of being out in the heat all day. I’d say it was probably over 40 degrees both days I was in Baku, which is definitely a bit hard to handle. I ended up just having a low key night, and getting to bed early.
Yesterday morning I got up nice and early so that I could get myself to the bus station in decent time. I’d been told that the busses for Şeki, my destination, would leave about every hour or so but didn’t have any specific information besides that it would take about 6 hours to get there. So I showed up around 830 and was happy to hear that there was a bus leaving at 950, not too bad of a wait. But then thing started to go downhill. First of all, it took me a while just to find the ticket counters where they told me what time that bus was leaving. But then the lady said I had to go to a different counter to buy my ticket. Ok, so I show up there and the woman confirms that there’s a bus a 950 but then she also tells me to go to another counter around on the other side. Ok, so I go over there and that woman tells me to go back over to the other side. I tried to tell her that they already told me to come over here, and then she suddenly just got frustrated and said “No Şeki”. By this point I was really confused and getting quite upset of the unhelpfulness of people, and of course the obvious communication barriers. Luckily there was a man standing by this last window who saw how upset I was and asked if I was going to Şeki. Turns out he was one of the drivers, and even though his bus wasn’t leaving until 11, I was happy to have someone start to look out for me and take me under their wing. We ended up going out to the parking lot where he loaded my stuff onto the bus and then we just sat around for an hour before driving up to the actual loading area for the rest of the passengers to get on. I felt really defeated by all this, which is another feeling I’m not very used to when I travel. I think I’ve learned my lesson to try a lot harder to pick up some local language before going to such an exotic destination. Also, I should try not to leave the hardest destination for the end when I’m tired and don’t have the energy or enthusiasm for adventures that at other times I would probably find frustrating, but ultimately just part of it. Of course there was no real way for me to know that this last part of the journey would be so difficult, but anyways, I’m still surviving and am really learning as I go.
So I did finally make it to Şeki where I’m staying at this really cool hotel. It’s a Caravanserai, an old historic travelers inn. It’s got amazing brick work and arches, and the walls in my room are just exposed stone. It’s interesting because it’s probably the most famous play to stay in town, and yet it’s also the cheapest! Many people come to see the building itself even if they aren’t staying here, so I’m really excited to be here. The rooms are far from luxurious, and last night I actually had a sizeable rodent keeping me up during the night with its scurrying, but I guess it’s all part of the character right? (well maybe not the rodent, but that wasn’t the end of the world, I just switched rooms and am hoping it didn’t follow me). When I got here yesterday I met 4 cool guys from New Zealand and have spent most of my time hanging out with them, eating dinner, and seeing the sights today. We ate at the restaurant here in the hotel last night and got to try Şeki’s famous dish, Piti. It’s a stew that you eat in two parts. It’s brought out in a mug, but you pour out the broth into a bowl first which you then eat by ripping up pieces of bread, but them in and then enjoy. It’s really tasty but I couldn’t finish all the broth since I knew it was basically all fat. The piti is topped by huge chunks of fat from lamb, which flavour the rest of the dish and give it moisture. So that broth is a lot of the drippings from the fat. After you’re finished with the broth, you mash up the remaining parts of the dish (not the fat, thankfully) which just consists of onions, chickpeas and chunks of lamb. It’s really simple, but tasty and filling! We also had Şeki’s famous halva for dessert which is their version of baklava. Instead of pastry layers though, the top and bottom are kind of a crunch honeycomb-esque layer, and then inside its lots of nuts, spices and tons of honey! It’s super sweet so you can’t eat much at once. We enjoyed the rest of the evening sitting in the courtyard of the hotel.
Today we did the sights of the area. There isn’t all that much to see here, but it’s a nice relaxing way to wrap up the trip. We’re just at the base of the Caucasus mountains that I love to much. It’s great to be out of the city and in slightly cooler air again. Today we visited the old Khan (King)’s Palace, the local bazaar, an Albanian church (Azerbaijan used to be called Caucasian Albania, completely unrelated to Albania in Europe), and some old fortress ruins. It was a nice, relaxing day…. Which I just realized was basically the last day of my travels! In the sense that tomorrow I’m going back to Georgia for a little over 24 hours just to back my things and say my goodbyes before embarking on the journey home.
So that leaves me with another adventure at the bus station tomorrow morning. I’ve read multiple sources that all give me the same time information for departure, but when I stopped by today there didn’t seem to be anyway to purchase a ticket beforehand so we’ll see how that goes. At least this time around I’m a bit more prepared for the uncertainty that the bus station will hold for me and I’ll be able to cope. The plan is to take a bus to Balakan, the closest town to the Georgian border, and then a taxi to the border, and then either taxi or marshrutka back to good ol’ Bodbiskhevi from there (which is only about an hour away). It’s going be a whirlwind of reuniting with the family, but then packing all my things again before setting off for home. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown and that its already that time!
Until next time…
