Azerbaijan

The "Professor Gul" ferry floated serenely across the calm Caspian Sea, the largest inland sea in the world. I was lucky. When storms arrive, the far-from-fit-for-purpose ships have to throw down anchor and sit it out, often for days. Narrow and top-heavy, they are the wrong dimensions to safely continue when the weather gets rough. Because of the good conditions, my journey was well inside the usual 30-hours, with memorable watery sunset/sunrises.

Approaching Baku in the early hours of the morning, the ferry passes close to Neft Daşları, an entire functioning town built at sea complete with more than 300kms of roads and 2000 people, the town has served the worlds first ever offshore oil platform since 1951.

All ferries now serve the new port at Alat 70kms south of Baku, rather than the city of Baku itself, but that was just fine, because there is an interesting set of mud volcanos close to the port. Azerbaijan is home to more than 50% of the world's mud volcano's, and it would be rude not to take the opportunity to have a quick look. Hugo and Florian (the 2 cyclists I met in Kuryk - the port in Kazakhstan) decide to join me.

It's a very rough ride in, and the mud on the dirt track is of the super-sticky variety, and before long I'm stopping every km or two to try to unglue my wheels from my mudguards, as thick layers of mud jam in the space between the two. The "volcano's" (technically they are not really volcano's in the usual sense) splutter mud out in amusing spirts and, rich in sulphur, are supposed to be great for the skin - so why not? I apply away. Now I look like a 21-year old.

After riding back down the dirt roads, and once much of the clogging mud is cleaned off, it's an easy, flat ride into Baku and the miles fly by. 

Dogs seem to be a much worse problem here than in Central Asia, and the most worrying attack comes about half way between the port and Baku. A group of about 5 or 6 quite large dogs give chase, and are relentless in their pursuit. They are close to catching one of the French cyclists when clang, there is a noise, followed by a yelp. The biggest and angriest dog has been paying so much attention to us, that it didn't see the metal pole at the road side and ran full pelt into it. It wobbles a bit on it's feet before stopping the chase - it's size and visiousness would suggest that it is the pack leader, and sure enough, the other dogs stop straight away. Though I'm not some mad potential serial killer who enjoys animal cruelty, all three of us laugh out loud in relief at the comedy moment, it was a cartoon-like chase scene.

Hugo and Florian turn off well before the city centre to go and stay with their warmshowers host (cyclists version of couchsurfing) in the suburbs, but I have decided to stay in a hostel right in the middle of the old town.

Unknown to me, the Baku Formula 1 Grand Prix is in town, with testing starting tomorrow and road closures all already in place. This means that my hostel is trapped in the island in the middle of the city street race course created by the road closures, the only way to get there is via one of the few underground station stairways. I take to foot and push my bike, winding around the many obstacles created by the race barriers, until I find an underground staircase. It's a struggle, but I just manage to bump my 60kgs of bike and gear down to the bottom. I push through the tunnel, and am then faced with a long staircase back up to street level, and busy crowds. My tactic is to look a bit pathetic, make a feeble attempt to push the bike up the stairs, and hold up as many people as possible, and before long 3 guys have grabbed a corner of the bike each and between us we reach street level with ease. Sneaky but effective!

I reach my hostel and transfer all my bags up to the second floor. My bike needs a good clean just to fully function again - the dust of the Ustyurt Desert and the Mud of the Gobistan Mud Volcano's both conspire to bring my bikes drive train to a halt, but for some reason the hostel make a big fuss about me cleaning the bike. They're happy to keep the filthy bike inside their nice new, clean hostel, but under no circumstances will give me a bucket of water to clean it! I explain that I want to clean it out in the street, not indoors, I have my own cleaning cloth, and soap; but no this is IMPOSSIBLE! So, I decide I need to find a new hostel, and it's back out through the F1 cordon - the same trick to get help up the stairs works again, and finally I find a place to rest myself and clean my bike.

I would imagine I'm not alone in my awareness (or lack of) regarding Baku. I mean, I knew that the city existed, that it's the capital of Azerbaijan, and that it is made rich by oil, but knew almost nothing beyond that, and was very surprised to find such a large, vibrant, historical, exciting-modern-architecture-filled place. As well as the old town, the stand-outs for me are the iconic 3-pronged flame towers, and the Heydar Aliyev museum designed by Zaha Hadid. Food options are also pretty good - not that I disliked Central Asian food, but (outside of the major cities), the options are very limited and broadly the same all the way from the Chinese border to the Caspian Sea. Suddenly, I have multiple new tasty choices on the menu!

A day trip from the city also took me to a couple of interesting sites quite literally made possible only by the same rich mineral wealth that also has made the city wealthy - the Ateshgah Fire Temple and Yanar Dag, the fire mountain. The former used to burn permanently with natural gas escaping from deep within the earth, that led to first local Zoroastrian, and then Hindu's coming all the way from India to establish religious centres. Now piped gas keeps the ceremonial flame burning at what is probably Azerbaijan's premier tourist attraction. Yanar Dag on the other hand is the real deal, a bare rock on a mountainside permanently and bizarly on fire thanks to mother nature's flatulence.

I hang around Baku till the Sunday so I can, after a long break, once again attend an English language church service (there are probably close to none in the Western half of Central Asia), and then I hit the road. It's formula 1 race day, and so it's a bit of an effort escaping Baku. I want to take a few more pictures at some of the main sites, so it's 3pm by I finally make my way out of the city centre.

I manage a 65km ride before it starts to get dark, and as there is no paid accomodation anywhere nearby, I head to a spot marked on Maps.me as "warm homestay camping". It's a kindly old local man who lets passers-by camp in his barn for free, and surprise, surprise - 2 other cyclists have arrived not long before me - it's Hugo and Florian. Sadly the owners dogs aren't so kindly towards visitors and it's a poor nights sleep, disturbed by dogs who get their kicks from sneeking into the barn and barking at the foreigners.

We ride on together next day into the Caucasus mountains, and camp out at another camp spot mentioned on Maps.me. It's a beautiful wild spot, overooking the valley below, and as the darkness fills the night sky and an incredible show of stars paints the overhead canopy, a chorus of howls breaks the silence - wolves! I've researched the creature so I know what to do, and as I'm with the 2 French boys am not too concerned. Whilst it's very rare for wolves to attack a lone camper, it's unheard of them to attack a group, so I am able eventually to put all thoughts of wolf attacks to one side and get at least some sleep.

We ride together, and then go separate ways - I stay in hostels in mountain villages for the next 2 nights - Gabala and then Sheki, whilst they camp out again. Over these next 2 days I start to feel pain in my spine, and by the time I reach Sheki, it's feeling quite a bit worse. I don't know if riding the mountains is the sole cause. Maybe a couple of nights rough camping without much sleep has played a part, or a pretty rough river crossing between Gabala and Sheki:

I took a "shortcut" from Gabala through the town of Bum (teehee), and the dirt road from there eventually led to a river where the bridge was out, and I had to haul everything through knee deep fast flowing water and then up and over bolders and rocks to get up the other side of the river bank.

Whatever caused my spine to play up again for the first time since restarting my tour in March, I decided I needed to take some time off the bike to recover.

Thankfully Sheki, the town I was nearest to, is the main tourist centre in this part of the country, so it was easy to find a cheap hostel bed, with other foreign backpackers for company, and interesting sights to see. In particular the Sheki Caravanserai and Summer/Winter Palaces of the Sheki Khans are a reminder both of the Khan family reach, and that this is still very much a part of the Silk Road - both these 2 threads connect me east right back through my long journey from China.

I also managed an easy hike to a nearby fortress, but mostly just concentrated on resting my spine, stretching, strengthening exercises and short walks around the town. After a week the pain was less, though not completely gone, and I really needed to ride onwards, so it's back on the bike.

A short ride (just 40kms to see how well the spine has really recovered) to the deliciously named Qakh gave me a day in a town that probably should be a popular tourist town (it has a pretty old town, is set in the mountains, and is very picturesque), but happily for me is much more "authentic" than any of the more touristy towns. The locals are super friendly and curious, and the hotel and food are very cheap.

One final push from here, a hilly 80kms, and thankfully the spine is behaving itself, till the border. At the last shop before the border, I try to get rid of my remaining money (with last nights hotel and food being so cheap, I have a few dollars worth left, but not enough to keep and change). Prices away from the tourist centres are so cheap that I end up with half a rucksack full of sweets and chocolate! It's a 10km uphill slog to the border and I'm there, Azerbaijan done, and Georgia lies before me.