Swiss girl's adventure tour: SuzyBlue goes east 2019: Aserbeidschan.... surprisingly great. 01.-11.06.

Sunday morning we get back on the road towards Aserbeidschan quite early as we plan to get deep into the country and try out to get into the mountains there. Aserbeidschan doesn't have many roads and with the smaller ones it's not realy clear whether we can drive them. Leaving Georgia goes quickly and witgout any problems. We even meet a group of Swiss travelleres on a tourbus.

the roadsign coming from Georgia..... quite curious what they mean with that ;-)

At the Aserbeidschan customs checkpoint they obvisiouly are more accurate.
A young customs officer checks my papers and asks me whether I have been in Armenia or have a drone. No problem for me. From time to time other officers walk by and glance at my bike. On it goes with his questions: how old, what profession, married or single, average salary in Switzerland.I realise that is not the "normal" questionairy anymore. I can see that he counts the Swiss salary into Aserbeidschan Manat and lifts his eyebrows. He waves to another young customs soldier and as that one joins us he says to me: isn't that a goodlooking man? Hääääää?? Yes, of course he is goodlooking is my cautious answer. "So you could marry him" he says!! I really have to control myself not to break out in laughter as I still sort of depend on him. With my answer that I could easily be his mother he laughing stops that topic.

Unfortunately there is no possibility to take pictures or make videos within the border area. Would have been fun to "proove" that funny story.

During the whole procedure I manage to send Tommy a whatsapp-message. I’m a bit confused as he’s still not at the Aserbeidschan border. He writes me that because his bike has a temporary license for Georgia he’s not allowed to leave the country. Phhh...something we could not know as he had traveled with this bike already last autumn. Unfortuntaly a mistake, it would have been forbidden already by then. There’s no other way than to say goodby via whatsapp.

And for me that means changing of the plans again. We had planed to try drive into the mountains where the roads might be as bad as in Georgia. But that’s something I did not want to try driving alone. OK. I drive to the next bigger village and buy a new SIM-card. No problem at all just takes a couple of minutes as my personal data has to be approved from Baku. The further way is straight and quite boring. I try not to drive too fast as Aserbeidschan is famous for it's speed controls and high fines for tourists. And there are cameras everywhere, on every corner. Observation pure.

In Ismayili I find a nice B&B. Many people here rent their homes to tourists once the kids are not at home anymore. The next day I change my direction and drive to Ganja. The city looks quite nice and there are some mountain lakes nearby.

Outstanding on the road and in most of the villages are the flags and huge screens with Aserbeidschan's president......obvious who controls and leads the country.

In Ganja I get rent a bed in a small and absolutely new hostel. A former apartememnt that now has changed into a hostel. Everything neat and tidy. And we are just few guests: 1 Pakistani, 1 Irani, 1 Chinese woman, me and Rajab, the host. 5 persons from 5 different countries. We make an excursion the next day to the nice mountain lake Göygöl. During the trip we discuss about the ways of living in each country, about the different political differences and what we have in common. It's a really interesting discussion with lot respect of each other. The lake itself is not really very interesting-we do have much more breathtaking ones back home - but Rajab gives us many information about the winery in these region. And of course while eating at a typical street restaurant we try one ;-)

Back in Ganja I explore the city and walkt hrough the many little streets. Although it is still Ramadan there are many men sitting in restaurants and playing games as chess, backgammon, etc. together. Islam is the main religion here but probably because of the Russian occupation most of the Aserbeidschanis are quite "open" and not as strict as other islamic countries.

Wednesday then I drive directly to Baku, the capital city of Aserbdeischan. I will stay there for a couple of days and just make some daytrips from there and try to organise my ticket for the ferry to Kasachstan. The so-called "dangerous" driving style in the city is not really that bad, I#m meanwhile used again to drive different than back home. My hostel is located near the Boulevard and I even have an absolute safe "parking" in the backyard just next to a little police station ;-)

Baku is very "international" and therefor it is quite clear that there are many international guests at the hostel. But again many Pakistani, Iranis and Indians. But this time persons who are working actually in Dubai and who are just for a "long weekend" in Baku. Mainly to have party in some of the many bars and clubs in Baku. That's anyway something that I didn't expect: during the day Baku is quiet... but in the late evening you see more and more people, even families with their children are still "on the road" after midnight, restaurants and some shops still open around 2am.
Thursday I drive to the seaport of Alat. As there is no official passenger ferry to Kasachstan you have to try to get on the cargo ferry. I meet a young English guy on his bycicle and he shows me where I can buy the ticket. Buying the ticket is no problem at all. But there is no date on the ticket as they don't know exactly when the next ferry will leave. Only dring Monday morning I can give them a call to find out. OK, that gives me some more timeto explore Baku and the surrounding sights.

On Friday I reserve a place on a "tourist tour" around Baku, covering the most important sightseeings. Again we are a really mixed group and have nice talks about our lifes and our countries. .
First we drive to the "mud volcanos" in Gobustan. They are no vulcanos at all but because of the similiar look the call them "volcanos". A mixture of gas and water forces its way up to the surface and in form of exploding bubbles forms "little volcanos". The scenery is really bizarr and it's lots of fun trying to make a picture from a mud bubble exploding. ;-)

Driving again towards the village you can see some places where oil leaks naturally out of the earth. Only little but it shows where Aserbeidschan's main economy is. Oil and gas are absolutely important for the country and therefor they are always quite dependent from the oil price. That can cause quite difficult situations like in 2014/2015 when the oilprice fall dramatically. Everywhere you can see oil pumps, on- and offshore. There is a gas and a oil pipeline connecting Aserbeidschan with Europe which makes the country a little less dependent from Russia. And is better for Europe as well. But what is also quite obvious is the fact that taking care of the enviroment is no topic here (yet): incredible what emissions most of the trucks and even some of the newer cars have.

Later on we visit in the middle of the steppe a huge site of the Stone Age. There are numerous petroglyphs from different decades. Really impressing. The surrounding meanwhile desertlike, dry and stinted. And hot!! I'm really happy that I decided not to make this tour on my own. Not really fun to walk around all these sites in my motorcycle gear.

After lunch in a local restaurant we go on to the "fire temple". It is a place where in ancient days Hindu and Zoroastic priests built a temple around a place where natural gas leaking out of the soil burned. These days a clear sign for a holy place. After the Aserbeidschans started to retrench oil and gas the ground level sunk and this leak vanished. So no reason anymore to have a holy place there. For a while it was used as fortress as well but after that it was abondend. Only during the 20th century archaologists found out about the importance of that place and restored it. The "immortal fire" is not natural anymore but just because of the really interesting history worth a visit. Last but not least we visited the "burning mountain". Again a place where gas naturally leaks out of the ground and burns. No matter if it rains or snows. It is always burning. For more than 70 years now. Really impressing. So I had a great day, got to learn a lot about the country, its history and met great people.

In the evening Jürgen, Ruben and Katja arrive in Baku as well and we meet for dinner and discuss the further travel plans.
The next day I reserved for exploring Baku. It is a huge city but in spite of its modern touch with an immense history. The most famous modern sign of Baku are the "flame towers": three skycrapers built in the form of flames and which have a special lightshow in the night.

Next to the historic sites, Mosques and the wonderful old town the extraordinary way of living stands out. Never in my entire life I've seen that many luxury shops for clothes, jewellery and cars!! It seems as if it trys to be the same as some other cities like Dubai.

das Miniaturbuch-Museum.... einfach unglaublich!!

Another good example for the very strict observation of the Aserbeidschan people: while walking down from the viewpoint to the old town I pass the president's palace. It is an impressing building and I take a picture. Not a second after I hear somebody whistle and I see a guard on the lower terrace of the palace waving at me. It's immedeately clear what's it all about. Well-behaved I cross the street to meet him. He wants to see my picture on my camera and as he sees the picture form the palace he says: delete that!. Of course I do as he demands as I don't want to have any problems here. He checks whether there are mor pictures from the palace and lets me go. I'm quite happy that he did not demand to delete all the other pictures as well. It is really incredible how everybody, everywhere and always is controlled from the authorities. But at least that explains the uncountable number of police officers and cameras.

Monday morning we try to call the ticket office of the ferry company. But they still don't know whether or when the next ferry be leaving. Probably this evening. To be sure we nevertheless drive to the seaport and wait there. In the ealy afternoon they inform us that there willbe a feryy leavong son. Maybe Monday night. Maybe Tuesday morning. As all the trucks will beloaded before us we will have to wait anyway. We set up our tents and spendthe rest of the day at the sea port. There are sanitary containers, a shop in a container for the most common food and drinks. go to sleep. At 2am they come and wake us up. The ferry will leave defenitely Tuesday morning and we shall prepare our stuff around 7am. It is almost 11 until we can go through the customs. Normally every passenger has to scan all his lugagge. But the young man in charge seems to pity as and we don't have totake everything from the bike. What a releive. It is hard work to take everthing away and put it on again.

Once on the ferry we have to secure our bikes on our own. They don't have the necessary material as they normally don't tranpsort bikes.
We are the only tourists, otherwise only truck drivers. We have a four-bedded cabin and all the meals, water and tea are included in the price we have paid. Everything is really simple but the food is absolutely ok and as the sea is calm we spend a quiet night on the ferry to Kasachstan.