DAY 9: "petro-read and Petro-glyphs." Yevlax - Baku - Gobustan - Bilasuvar. 550 km
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After a sleepless hour I got dressed, gathered my things, my grandfather woke up to open the door because I was stuck inside, I said goodbye him and I left that place still in darkness. Rather than leave
think I fled, for many hours and miles later I realized that I had forgotten at home my super microfiber towel and my favorite shirt to go on a bike. Mecagoentodoloquesemenea! Azerbaijan definitely do not feel well ....
Yevlax Here is a photo.
Dawn is no little ...
Due to the advice of the taxi drivers I changed my approach route to Baku, combining two different roads to prevent wild section under construction. The result was faster, as there is a kind of highway, but instead the landscape was ugly and monotonous as most main roads in Azerbaijan fled to the mountains of North and South.
Trying not to fall into more radar managed to reach the Caspian Sea, when capturing these photos.
inevitably proliferate in the Caspian Sea oil rigs and gas, and oil and gas pipelines that are everywhere.
A while and came to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
must be said that Baku city is pretty good and has nothing to do with the rest of the country that is clearly more deficient. That was Sunday and played down some life into the city, but when visiting town, and then I saw the mausoleum area is a city that prepared for tourism, with a facelift result of his failed bid to bid to get the Olympics for which Madrid is bidding too. I even get to find a couple of guys who spoke English in the tourist area.
feature attraction Baku is the Maiden Tower (GYZ Galassy) is the tower of the maiden who is to enter the Old City from the coastline.
Also in the Icheri Sheher (walled city and Unesco World Heritage), is the Bazaar and shops Carpet. The museum itself is the carpet in the old Hammam.
Djuma mosque (Friday mosque)
Karvansarayi (inns for caravans of camels in their day).
Shirvansha Palace Complex (Shirvanshahlar Sarayi Kompleksi).
Baku Walls
Monument Murat Sabir at the door.
La Fuente Blanca or source frothy.
In the upper part of the city, next to the Parliament, is the memorial to the Martyrs (Martyrs Lane (Shahidlar Hiyabany)), both of the war with Armenia, as civilians crushed by Russian tanks in 1990. There's even a memorial to the Turkish soldiers and one for the British lost in the war with the Russians in the early twentieth century.
Deniyet Camii Mosque in
Lane Martyr
General Aslamov Soviet monument.
Eternal flame in memory of the martyrs.
accessed from Baku peninsula called Abselon to where I went looking for an alleged camping on a beach of the Caspian Sea had found online. I found the way
oil extraction pumps, whole fields of them. One of the James Bond movies I just remember that begins in an area of \u200b\u200bthese pumps Azeri.
found the beach and found the site but it turns out that camping had nothing, was just the false claim of a luxury hotel was not very expensive but I would not swallow the deception , that is not at all clear that I went on my own to the beach for a dip me in the Caspian Sea.
After the bath I decided to get by to the south, towards Iran.
Nearby is the Gobustan area a natural reserve protected by UNESCO of prehistoric petroglyphs. A little culture never hurt, right?
is amazing to think that these petroglyphs are not valuable in a museum as would happen in Europe, but they are there on the rocks, right in the open field without any protection and that most can be touched up by hand. I was the only visitor and petroglyph could start a whole and no one had noticed.
dance group known as "Yalla"
Red I've edited to make it look artificially good figure.
"The Sardana Azerbaijani?
The course is more or less indicated, and that do not get out of it will threaten the existence of snakes (as if they were alone and not to get closer to the petroglyphs! )
Gobustan
Further south is also a volcanic area but found no no sign of anything interesting to do, and if asked and researched some path came I did not see either no geyser or anything worthwhile.
When night fell I was unable to find any hotel at the roadside or in the villages that was going on (not looked hard), and already dark, near Bilasuvar I stopped at a gas station that are AZPetrol highly organized and "official." In these stations as well as the guys there a manager and a supervisor, or to engage in conversation easily. They invited me to Chai (tea) and in the end it cost me to give me permission to put up a tent next to the gas station despite the clear communication problems we had. I lied and told them I had already eaten to avoid trouble and get-together at a table sat mute think about 5 specimens. They could not understand how he arrived there from Spain, and the supervisor (older and had more lights than the others) could not understand how I managed with the issue of money traveling alone around the world. This topic when you ask what is thorny for your security and do not tell anyone that you carry a wad of cash hidden in the English, meaning that the right answer is that you deal with credit card and banks " money transfers "
Later" Johny " ie me as they called me, planted the shop next to the bike before the watchful eyes of about 4 or 5, and then slept like a baby in after they commit to monitor all night for my safety.
The "charge"
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DAY 10: "I have come to Persia!". Bilasuvar - Jalilabad - Lankaran - ASTARA (Iran) - Rasht - RAMSAR. 350 kms.
I spent a good Jalilabad tomorrow where they have a sort of amusement park with a big wheel, but banks I was looking for were still closed.
Before arriving at the border had to change the currency that I still had to Azerbaijan, and that passing the two nights of free spending was lower than I anticipated. This need to calculate how much money is always a bit tricky to spend but have not always sufficient, it is not easy to find banks to change money in these countries.
Lenkoran I got in right in the street market, with traffic jams of cars all honking at each moment as is usual in these latitudes. They did find a bank but I still had to wait to open, which I did happily exploring the local street market.
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Every morning in this hardware will be entertained in exposing their tools one by one on the stairs.
few kilometers before the border with Iran, I stopped at a margin to wear civilian clothing (long border waits, queues in the sun and procedures are nothing comfortable with motorcycle clothing.) A peasant grandfather watching me tells me to go and gave me some persimmons that he starts from a tree. Then depart to their cows and looking me some tomatoes (also called Pomodoros there as in Italy), and then some peppers. With the stock market over-filled tank and tells me to follow him to the other side of the road is home. I am looking for more persimmons, introduces me to his daughter and grandson and tells me to breakfast and invited me that if I take a shower. Enchanted, which took two days without a shower and the salt still attached to the body of the Caspian Sea! The man has a huge shower room, actually a full hammam patio. Camaraderie and neat and entered the house, very luxurious for the standard of the country, and I sit at the kitchen table with his grandfather. Then about his books grandson who taught geography at the map where "my home, I needed only light finger to nail ET ... The middle-aged daughter prepares us a kind of tortilla chips, yogurt, cheese and other things. The grandfather is being ex-military, particularly ocean, which I guess by their tattoos. We see that he has been a good pay ... Everything we eat, including milk and bread but tells me that he does on his land. What initially seemed a poor peasant it is a rich and hospitable owner.
I will find 5 "Pomodoro".
omelette breakfast a home of some kind strangers.
Provisioning
unexpected
I say goodbye and reconciled so grateful for the generosity of its people to the country so badly that I received at first. I get to the Azeri border where I feared another filthy hovel, but despite the gaping holes in the asphalt and the large pools, a border was actually much better organized than the "Red Bridge" and an officer who spoke English finally.
go smoothly from Azerbaijan and entered the Iranian border to get into one of the countries declared part of the "Axis of Evil" by the American administration ... To reach the same border Suddenly there was light, had gone back to civilization as we know it: buildings marked, people I spoke in English, administrative office windows with several managers with their wallets full of papers, which give me and I turn indicate where to go in English to see that I am a foreigner. Officials treat me kindly, I ask and manage the Carnet de Passage, fill it, photocopy it and tell me, even leaving the building, where I have to go next. However this border is full of parked trucks and is hard to see where to go, and the facilities are enormous. One of the administrative managers who spoke English very quickly offered nice to get on the bike and take me to the exit. And we do so, and even go further and we get into the center of Astara, the border town. Like Iran!
In contrast to the three Caucasus countries just visited, the Iranian city is crowded with shops, neon lights, people, cars and motorcycles, hundreds of them! I feel great with so many bikes everywhere, and all welcome. Seeing all the signs in Farsi (the Iranian language, older than Arabic) I tell the guy to see if you know where to change money, and the guy who brings me to an exchange office, then tell him to see if you know a cyber-café, and the guy who takes me too, but then asks me for a small tip. I gave him about $ 2 which was well earned.
in Iran's currency is the Iranian Rial, but many prices are Tuman (materials divided by ten), as it is much more convenient than running around all day with thousands and millions of riyals. Of course, this is a mess because every price you get does not know if one way or another, and if things are very cheap, or are actually run in price. And the first thing to note is that changing currency gave me two huge wads of banknotes that were physically impossible to hide in the waist of my English. That awful lot of tickets! In some cities there is a Bank Melli (National Bank) that offers the service of exchange, but only in a branch of Bank Melli (which are usually a number) in the other cities to look for an independent office.
had managed to get from home to Iran in particular road, wore a splendid sun, had millions of rials in the pocket, had the tank full and the bike a whole vast country to be discovered before me, I remember that at that time I was really ecstatic ...
At the first crossroads I could see that the main problem in Iran would be correctly decode the signs written in Islamic character. In all honesty there say that there are many bilingual signs, and between that and the GPS was still running, the task becomes much easier. Nevertheless, by Murphy's Law always happen in situations more quickly in most need an address or more lost you are, then you are a Christian poster or chance, and ask a native is nothing short of an adventure and in itself ...
embassy in Madrid I had spoken highly of most tourist area that runs north of the Caspian Sea, or whether they preferred to address over there instead of taking the highway that have led me to Tehran directly. I went through Rasht still making me into the country.
The Northern climate is clearly wet, and Rud Sar reaching caught me a little rain. The cities found on the coast had nothing to tourism as we imagine the concept, or boardwalks, no hotels, no restaurants, at least nothing I could read (it used a different word for that hotel and over is written in farsi ...).
When it was evening, at the height of Ramsar I managed to find a very luxurious hotel (Caspian Hotel) and indoor parking where I thought I was going to crack the portfolio. I asked for 400,000 rials (Grieves just read it), but it was an apartment-suite with three beds, two sofas, TV, kitchen, several tables ... lujazo genuine to me that was two days sleeping, one on a filthy mattress and another on the hard floor of the store. Negotiated and leave to 300,000 rials that change come to be 21 tankers, expensive for Iran but acceptable (within the limits of permissible budget for the trip), and more acceptable even when it started to rain early in the morning with enthusiasm, and was still quite well into the morning. I get to catch at the store and I have a bad sleep and to remove the rain!
I took so much space and means to a wash. The bike fell asleep in the car.
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