August 22nd
Another day spent waiting for a ferry that never left. Everyone ignored the (poorly conceived) suggestion to return to the dock at 9am. Instead, we sat in a restaurant in the old city all day – eating and enjoying the air conditioning and wireless internet. Not much fun, but a lot better then sitting on the hot, dusty dock.
There were rumors that the boat would load at 6pm and leave at 8pm, but nothing happened. At 8pm, we went back to the hotel in the old city and went to bed. The plan is to wait here until the ferry eventually leaves. Once we get across, we'll likely miss more cycling and bus ahead in order to keep to our original timetable. So much for riding all the way from coast to coast. I'll have to come back sometime and ride from Kars to Ashgabat below the Caspian, through Iran. I think that's about 2,000km...which I could do in 3 weeks...assuming I don't throw my bike into the Pacific at the end of this trip!
Henry (the tour owner) has returned to Canada. Nitzat (our local support, and the only one that speaks Azeri) has left as well. This makes it much harder to know what's going on, and to make last-minute arrangements at the hotels each night. I think this is ridiculous. They should both be here until the situation is resolved. (Captains go down with the ship, so to speak.) Fred, Al, Graeme, Mike and some others have been camping out at the dock to watch our bikes and bags. Henry and Nitzat should be doing that!
Hope we'll get to leave tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
A nice park in Baku:
One of the many nice buildings in this nice part of town:
The cafe Mozart...where I sat for 7 hours today:
3 comments:
What a crumby situation! I am sure there will be some strongly-worded emails to the organisers ... or there should be. Thank goodness you never signed up for the Africa trip. I had visions of this happening during that trip because of the political unrest in so many countries, but hoped this one would be better. Let's hope everyting is resolved soon.
P.S. Don't plan any trips thru Iran any time soon!
Bonjour Daniel,
je vérifie à chaque jour le trajet que vous suivez depuis Paris; je revie un peu la traversée du Canada de 2004. Dans les moments difficiles je crois qu'il faut suivre son instinct! If the shit hit the fan come back to a country that is more safe. En 1994 j'étais en Turquie et les Kurdes faisaient exploser des bombes artisanales et nous sommes revenus au pays plus rapidement que l'on voulait: la sécurité est plus importante que tout. Si tu as de la difficulté à comprendre ce que je te dis , j'essayerai de te le dire en anglais.Paul Maguire tdc 2004 et puis bravo pour ton courage.
SNAFU x 2.
...at least the hotel restaurant looks quite comfortable.
LFL
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