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Baku to Kungrad: Boats and Trains

Saturday, August 9th, 2014

We left our home in Baku at 11PM and took one last trip through the Old City before biking to the Port. There, we went through a quick customs process and were pointed towards the ship. It was completely dark and there was no obvious place to board with our bikes, but a few men stepped out of the shadows and pointed the way – which involved hopping over a wide gap between the dock and the ship, bikes in hand. We put them on the lower deck where they shared the trip with a bunch of train cars.

Then we climbed the stairs to the upper deck and were shown to our cabin. The ship was built in 2005 and had all the comforts we needed – reports from previous travelers conflicted, with some noting rickety Soviet ships with unspeakable bathroom conditions, and others gushing over private cabins and delicious meals. Our ship was somewhere in between – we shared our 6-bunk cabin with three mostly friendly Azerbaijanis, and three reasonably palatable and priced meals were served every day. For entertainment there was a volleyball net, TV, and ping-pong table.

David went to sleep right away, as it was after midnight by the time we settled in; I spent the night squirming around in the age-old struggle to achieve the optimum balance between mosquito-avoidance (must use sheet!) and overheating (ugh, no covers please!). By the time it got cool enough to sleep, the sun had come up… and we were still in port. In fact, we didn’t leave until about 2PM, 14 hours after boarding. I don’t know why, but this seems to be the norm – there was a lot of moving around of trains during the night and the next morning, and I guess they just can’t predict how long it will take to load the cargo so they just get the people onboard whenever they feel like it.

In any event, we were eventually underway, and we spent the next 24+ hours smoothly and quietly – surprisingly so – motoring northeast, towards Kazakhstan. It was strange being contained on a cargo ship for the better part of two days and nights; at 155m long, it was large enough not to be claustrophobic, yet small enough to feel a bit stir crazy, especially as it was stuffy in the cabin and hot anywhere outside of the sparse shade on deck. We managed to find a shady spot near the bridge (and were invited in to look at the controls and maps), where we caught up on blog posts and data management, and I read a book about Uzbekistan and the Aral Sea (Chasing the Sea by Tom Bissell – highly recommended).

In the early afternoon the second day, land came into sight and we got excited for our fourth country of the trip. However, we soon noticed that we were no longer moving towards the land; we seemed to be parallel to the shore… and then we heard a grinding noise and realized we had dropped the anchor. We were told it would be four to five hours before we could dock. We had read reports of being stalled outside of port for days, so we were OK with a few hours. As it turned out, we sat there for the rest of the afternoon, and then started again in the early evening. Once we had docked, Kazakh customs officers came on board with a drug-sniffing dog, and then we were allowed off the boat – fortunately we didn’t have to wait for the train to get off! After a longer-than-expected customs process in the port (they didn’t seem to be expecting us), we and our bikes were on the road in Aktau!

We had no map, didn’t know the currency, and had only our three words of Russian to rely on. It was lovely. Between the port and town were several kilometers of beach, and families were out enjoying the water at sunset. We couldn’t resist a quick swim in the Caspian – the water was refreshing, if a bit dirty – and then we rode into town. Here things broke down a bit. We had planned to stay at a hotel recommended by a Warmshowers host who had recently moved away from Aktau, but my plan to bike to the city center, find internet, and look up the hotel didn’t work out very well. As far as we could tell, there wasn’t really a city center. There was a ‘promenade’ – a wide avenue with a park in the middle that had a MiG plane and a WWII memorial (common in every Central Asian town of any size, as we’d discover), and a busy street with roundabouts, but no obvious center. When we finally managed to find internet and look up the hotel, it was out of our price range. We settled on the ‘budget’ option in the Lonely Planet. It was definitely affordable, but the lesson may be to splurge from time to time. Nonetheless we survived the night, and we spent the following day in an air-conditioned cafe writing blog posts and planning our route to the Aral Sea.

We had already decided not to try to bike all the way from Aktau to Muynak, the jumping-off point for the Aral Sea. It is nearly 1000 km through desert wasteland, and reports from previous cyclists indicated that certain misery, in the form of extreme heat, strong headwinds, dirt roads, and occasional dust storms, is in store for those who ride it. Plus, our Uzbekistan visa had already started – there was no way we could bike every mile and visit the Aral Sea, not to mention some of the ancient Silk Road cities on the way. So we planned to hitchbike – we had heard that most people driving the route are traveling long distances, so it seemed possible to catch a ride that could take us all or most of the way.

In the evening, we rode back to the beach with a plan to watch the World Cup finals at midnight, then sleep on the beach until prime hitchhiking hours. We found a restaurant and sat down next to a table full of friendly Kazakhs. Before long, we were trading predictions on who would win the Cup and had an invitation to watch with them. We are still struck by the presence of so many outgoing, uncovered women after our time in Turkey. The ringleader of this group was Zuliya, a 25-year-old woman who lives with her boyfriend (!) in Aktau. We went with her to another bar, where we were treated to shashlik (BBQ) and beer while watching the game. She had never been on board with our plan to sleep on the beach, so before the extra time started, she led us to her apartment and her boyfriend went out and got dessert (another novelty – the woman invited us, and the man did the work!). Together we watched the final, crushing overtime. We didn’t get to sleep until 3:00 AM, and then we woke up and left at 7:00.

We were tired, grumpy, and sad over Argentina’s loss, but we hopped on our bikes and rode through nasty air and rush hour traffic towards a point on the road we had heard was good for finding rides. After 25 minutes with no luck (one passenger car stopped, and one truck stopped because he thought we wanted directions but wouldn’t take us), David said, out of the blue, “I wish we were on a train.” I confessed that I also wanted to take the train. Something about the certainty of getting to a destination, and our total unfamiliarity with the culture and languages, made it seem like a better option for the 1000km trip to Kungrad in Uzbekistan, where we were prepared to start biking again.

The train turned out to be a bit of a disaster. First they said we couldn’t bring our bikes on board, then they said we could but it seemed a bit hush-hush and we weren’t sure what was going on. Ultimately, I’m certain we were scammed – we didn’t have an actual seat for the first 12-hour leg from Aktau to Beyneu (I think the people who got us on the train made a deal with the conductor and pocketed our fare, since we ended up without an actual ticket) and kept getting shuffled around. At one point we thought the conductor was going to throw us off after he caught David wandering into other cars with his camera (apparently a no-no). He escorted us into his compartment and sat us down, then made a phone call… We were feeling nervous – were we in trouble? Then he unlocked a cabinet, got out 2 cups, and said the magic word: “Chai?” He was offering us tea and a place to sit! We thought we had our own compartment for the next leg of the trip, which left at 2AM. Imagine our disappointment when we boarded, only to be shown to the same sort of open bench seat we had been on for the previous leg! The whole time David was pouting, saying that he wanted a truck, and while I’m not as evangelical about hitching as he is, I found myself wishing for a truck as well.

Crossing the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was somehow a 4-hour ordeal; around 3AM conductors came through and made us all sit up, so the people in the upper bunks joined us below. Then they walked through every 1/2 hour, just as we dozed off, to look at our passports. Finally border control came aboard and processed our passports and we were out of Kazakhstan. A couple of hours later (I have no idea how this works), we repeated the process to enter Uzbekistan. This time, they questioned us and searched some of David’s luggage and made us fill out customs declarations. Finally they left and we were on our way again. The whole morning was quite slow – we seemed to stop every 20 minutes, and vendors would come on board selling everything from bread to perfume. It was interesting to see how the train-commerce worked, and convenient as I was able to change my money onboard. I also made some friends – two Uzbek ladies on a nearby seat came over to chat – one invited us to stay with us in Khiva – and then everybody else nearby crowded into our compartment. After chugging along for the better part of the day, we finally made it to Kungrad in the afternoon and gleefully rode into the desert.

Posted in Asia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan | No Comments »

Climate Change in Georgia and Azerbaijan

Sunday, July 13th, 2014

Crossing Georgia and Azerbaijan, we conducted fewer interviews and did less research than we did in Turkey. That was partially by design – we wanted to focus on Turkey and Central Asia, and Georgia and Azerbaijan just happened to be between these regions. Nonetheless, we still interviewed experts and lay people, and did some basic online research on the climate issues in the region. Here’s what we found.

Georgia is one of the few countries on our route that does not (yet) have serious water quantity issues. The western part of the country, and especially the mountains, receive significant rainfall and snow. This also meant that the water was clean and good to drink everywhere we traveled – and in the mountains, a fresh spring could be found in almost every village. The eastern part, and especially the southeast (which we didn’t visit) is drier, and might be facing water shortages in the future, according to a professor we talked with in Tbilisi.

Through translators (and Google Translate), we asked a few laypeople if the climate had changed where they live (Are winters warmer or colder than they used to be? Are summers warmer or colder?). One man near the Black Sea said there was no difference in temperature, but that it rained more than it used to (he said it was because of a nearby reservoir that had been built in the 1960s). In the mountains of Svaneti, we interviewed the man who operated our hotel, as well as his wife and mother. All agreed that winters were far milder than they once were, and that there is now less snow. The man, Davit, said that weather was more unpredictable, and that it made it more difficult for farmers. In contrast, his wife and mother said that life was much easier now because the winters were not as hard. Another family in central Georgia agreed that winters are warmer than they used to be, but they didn’t think it had much of an impact on their lives.

In Tbilisi, we spoke with academics at Ilia State University, where we also gave a presentation on our trip, and with the “Young Greens,” a youth political activist group promoting progressive social and environmental policies. We asked both groups what they thought were the most pressing environmental problems in Georgia. The two groups mostly agreed. The biggest problems, they say, are deforestation and waste management. Climate change did not make the list, although a professor at Ilia State said that desertification was becoming a bigger problem in the country’s southeast.

In Azerbaijan’s countryside, we spent even less time talking to people than in Georgia – we biked five days without visiting many towns, and staying with only one family (who we were unable to ask about climate change – or rather, our limited-English translator couldn’t understand what we were asking).

Azerbaijan’s economy is dominated by oil. Entering the country, I wanted to know if oil was good or bad for the nation. I asked this question the last time I crossed an oil-producing country, Venezuela, and I was surprised how un-nuanced the answer was: oil clearly seemed bad for Venezuela’s politics and economy, as counterintuitive as that seemed. (See the Venezuela chapter of The Bicycle Diaries.) Venezuela seemed struck by The Curse of Oil.

Was Azerbaijan struck by the same curse? The answer seemed mixed, and more nuanced. Azerbaijan’s economy has done very well over the past decade; there are countless new buildings in the capital, Baku, and we witnessed little abject poverty, although admittedly we didn’t go to the more remote areas. However, while people we spoke with mentioned poverty as a big problem, and country data indicates that some certainly exists, the same data show that there is less poverty than in Venezuela, which corresponds with our observations. When I asked people in Venezuela if oil was good for the country, most (surprisingly) said no. In Azerbaijan, one person said “it is a blessing” for the nation, and nobody flat out said it was bad, although some mentioned pollution as a problem. It felt, based on our interactions, like the country was doing economically well, and it was due to oil. Politics, though, is a different question.

In Azerbaijan, we were greeted in almost every town, by a picture and statue of the country’s now deceased Communist leader, and then president, Heydar Aliyev. It actually reminded me of Venezuela, where I had seen pictures of Hugo Chavez everywhere. Before Heydar died, he named his son as his successor, and his son is now the president. In theory, there are elections. In practice, the country imprisons journalists, and elections are far from free. One person we talked to told a story about how, when he was in the army, he went to vote and he and his fellow soldiers received ballots that were already filled out. He asked for a blank ballot – which they gave him after carefully recording his name. Freedom House gives the country extremely low ratings on civil and political freedoms. While oil may not be directly at fault, oil money lines the coffers of the government and its officials, making it easier for the government to be less accountable to its people.

The few people we talked to in English suggested that climate change is an issue that is rarely talked about in Azerbaijan. When we asked our host what people in Azerbaijan thought about climate change, he said “’tis not a topic, actually,” although he said it was more of an issue in Turkey (Turkey and Azerbaijan speak almost the same language, Azerbaijanis watch Turkish television, and the two countries are very close diplomatically). Others agreed that it wasn’t an issue that people talked about – and, perhaps as revealing, they didn’t seem to know much about the basics of climate change.

We spoke to two professors in Azerbaijan about climate change and water issues. The main takeaway from these conversations were that the country currently suffers from both too much and too little water, a problem that climate change will exacerbate. The Kura River runs through the country, draining large portions of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. In the winter and spring, flooding is not uncommon, as there are few dams on the river to regulate the flows from snowmelt in the mountains and rain in the lowlands. In the summer, the water dwindles until there is very little flowing through the rivers – we saw this in the nearly dry tributaries as we rode through the Kura Valley in early July. This is a serious problem, as about half of Azerbaijan’s population relies on agriculture, which is dependent on irrigation. Already, the timing of water availability has shifted, with more water in the spring due to earlier snowmelt and rivers drying up earlier in the year. People are noticing the change, he said, but don’t know what is causing it. This change in the hydrograph is projected to continue and worsen with climate change.

One of the most interesting things we learned from these interviews was that an important reservoir – the Sarsang – is in Nagorno-Karabakh, the portion of Azerbaijan currently under Armenian control. We were told that water is being released from the reservoir in the spring, when it is not needed and causes flooding, and then held during the summer, denying people of water needed for irrigation. As a result, Azerbaijan has lost 120,000 hectares of productive land due to a politically caused water shortage.

We also talked a bit about Azerbaijan’s energy supply and use. Ninety percent of the country’s energy comes from fossil fuels (although ironically, long before we saw our first oil well, we saw a few wind turbines and solar farm). As the economy grows, people are using more energy, most of which comes from natural gas. There is a plan to install more alternative, sustainable energy sources, including small hydropower plants on the rivers, but people understandably question why the country should invest in renewables when oil and gas are so cheap.

As with Turkey, we were left with more questions than answers. People in Georgia and Azerbaijan are not very well informed about climate change, which, given its likely impact on agriculture in both countries, seems like a problem. But we also aren’t sure what people should do with this heightened awareness. Georgia’s domestic energy production comes from hydropower, and their population is quite small. Azerbaijan has huge fossil fuel resources, and how can we say “ you shouldn’t develop that?” Perhaps efforts are best put into adaptation, with the hope that some of Azerbaijan’s oil can stay in the ground longer – and fetch a higher price – if the rest of the world agrees to slow down its pace of consumption

Posted in Asia, Azerbaijan, climate, Georgia | No Comments »

Cycling the South Caucasus: Tbilisi to Baku

Sunday, July 13th, 2014

After longer than expected in Tbilisi, enjoying lots of World Cup, fast Internet, and strolling around the old city, we departed on a Monday morning and rode east. The route was less than ideal, due to crazy drivers and terrible air quality (we learned from the Young Greens that there are no regulations on vehicles, and it shows). After about 20km of unpleasant riding, the road split: the main road continued along the foot of the mountains toward the border with Azerbaijan, while the other went over the mountains into Kakheti, a valley known as the center of Georgia’s wine-producing region. We chose the mountains to get away from the cars. It was the first time we didn’t do our research, so we didn’t know quite how much climbing was involved. The only map we had noted a 1900m (~6000ft) mountain on the road – “That can’t be right!” we thought – “The mountain must be to the side and the road must go through a lower pass.” After a couple hours of climbing and an elevation of 1100m, we made a bet. David guessed that the pass would be at 1301m, on the logic that passes are usually 400-700 m below the peak. Feeling obstinate, I guessed 1621. It wasn’t a bet I wanted to win, especially once it started raining. When the road topped out at 1655m, I celebrated my victory by putting on my raingear for the descent… and enjoying the view. Through the light rain and mist we could see rows and rows of peaks below us in the distance, and ahead of us lay a fun, if slick, descent. It took several more hours to reach the town of Telavi, where we planned to buy dinner food and then find a place to camp beyond the city limits. However, by that point we were soaked and tired, and we succumbed to the idea of a guesthouse where, according to the Lonely Planet, the wine “flows freely” at dinner. The rain continued off and on all night and into the next morning, so we took advantage of the wifi (are you seeing a theme here?) to order replacement gear for my mom to ship to us in Dushanbe and wrap up other things we’d somehow failed to do in Tbilisi.

When the rain stopped, we proceeded towards the border, stopping to visit the old city and church/museum at Gremi, and again at a winery where we tasted the best wine of the trip so far. Close to sunset, we started looking for a place to camp. We entered a small village and started asking around, but everybody told us – some with smiles, some looking alarmed by our presence – to go back to the main road. As we started to leave the village, a man who had overheard us asking his neighbor said ‘Dom!’ and motioned for us to come with him. He introduced himself as Omar, and, in broken English, told us we could sleep at his house. Omar told us that he – and the entire village, along with two neighboring villages – was Dagestani. This made sense, given how close to the border we were. Bariyat, our host in Tbilisi, had taught us how to say ‘thank you’ in Dagestani, and Omar was thrilled (or at least entertained) when we thanked him in his language. At his house, we met his mother, his lovely wife Jemila, and his three sons. He had a fourth son, who he told us, later that evening, had died of leukemia at the age of 15. We didn’t know how to express condolences, but we have found that the hand over the heart can mean a number of things, including ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m so sorry.’

Our experience there was such a blend of cultures. Like other Georgians we’d met, Omar brought out some wine and proposed several toasts, but unlike the others, he allowed us to politely decline when we’d had enough. We learned some more words in Dagestani, which he speaks with his mother, and in Russian, which he and his wife speak with their children. We told him we had our own food and tent, but we were served a delicious dinner of homegrown salad, homemade bread and cheese (with the cow watching us from the yard), and fish from a trout farm down the road. His mother didn’t join us until after sunset, as Ramadan had begun and she is an observant Muslim. Omar is a football fan, so we stayed up (too) late to watch Belgium defeat the US, then were given a comfortable bed rather than being allowed to set up our tent. Breakfast was another delicious meal, and as we left Jemila kept giving us food – a block of cheese for the road, tomatoes from the garden, some fresh hazelnuts. We shook hands goodbye, and Jemila pulled me back and gave me a smiling kiss on the cheek. When she smiles, I can see that her teeth – the few that remain – are all gold. I wish we could adequately convey what their hospitality means to us – being too effusive in our thanks could seem offensive, implying that we don’t think they have enough to share, and with 5 cows and a huge garden, I don’t think hosting us was too much of a burden. Inviting us in, though, gave us a glimpse into Georgian – and Dagestani – life that we wouldn’t have otherwise. It made us feel welcome in their country, and the warmth in Jemila’s goodbye made me feel taken care of, watched over by a mother, which is nice when we’re so far from home. I hope our many hosts have enjoyed our company as much as we enjoy theirs – whether it’s because we’re generally likable (I hope), or hosting us makes them feel good about their ability to be generous, or just for the chance to meet people from far away. These are highlights of our trip.

The next day, we made it to the Azerbaijan border. The sign announcing the border says ‘good luck’ on the bottom, and the Georgian border guard told us “you are leaving the last European Christian nation… Good luck” as he stamped us out. Nonetheless, everything went smoothly (the e-visa we had been emailed in Turkey worked just fine) and we were through without a hitch into very rural Azerbaijan. After riding for awhile we managed to change money in Beleken, the first town (even though we didn’t know that was the currency until then), and also checked Internet to figure out our route. We decided to follow the mountains all the way, taking a smaller road to the main highway near Baku. We rode along the Kura valley for the next two days, taking long lunch breaks to avoid the worst of the heat. We crossed many small, depleted streams along the way, and David became obsessed with the topography after realizing that we were biking uphill to each river – up the alluvial fan coming out of the mountains, crossing the very small stream winding its way through all the deposited sediment – then down the other side. We had great campsites – the first night close to one of these streams (fortunately we hopped a retaining wall into a nearby field, as the river shifted course during the night into one of the canals alongside it, and there was a crazy thunderstorm – things were a bit muddy on the way out), and the second night in an open patch among tall enough scrub to conceal us completely from the road. We had enough water, and it was warm enough, to take a water bottle ‘shower’ before bed, which felt great.

On the third day, an SUV pulled over beside us a bit before sunset and the people inside, after asking about our plans and learning that we intended to camp, invited us to their home. It was 20km away, but the lure of a shower, bed, and local company was strong. We barely made it to the turnoff to their town (I hadn’t eaten enough and I crashed in the middle of the final big climb), but when we got there, with the help of some people outside a store, we called them and they came to take us the final 5km, since we didn’t have an exact address. They were a big, friendly family from a larger town near Baku, with aunts and uncles and grandparents all spending Ramadan at their mountain compound. Only one person spoke any English and she disappeared pretty early, so one of the brothers Skyped his girlfriend, who proceeded to translate all night. I recently learned a term that describes perfectly what we experienced in Azerbaijan: guerrilla hospitality. You have no choice. Hosts will hover until you finish in the bathroom in order to find out what you need next; people will practically drag you off the road for chai or to take a picture. It’s well-intentioned but can be a bit intense, especially when you’re tired or simultaneously dodging cars (oh yeah – another fun Azerbaijani trick: swerving towards you as if to hit you, then stopping short. Haha!).

The next day the landscape finally delivered what we’d been promised – hot, dry, desert – and a lot of difficult climbs. We camped that night off the road and up a steep hill, behind debris piles made during the construction of a new road. We left at sunrise and had great riding most of the morning. The new road hadn’t opened yet but was paved, so we had a wide, car-free ‘bike path’ for a lot of the way to Baku. At one point we stopped and had a private dance party in celebration of our friends Josh and Meghana’s wedding, which was happening that day. The last few days we’d experienced our first bit of homesickness – thinking of the wedding we were missing, and seeing friends’ posts about their 4th of July weekends – in the mountains or on a river – made us feel far away and that we’d been gone a long time. However, with the exception of more long, hot climbs and the occasional bout of grumpiness (mostly on my part, I admit), we were still having a good time, and we made it to Baku in the mid-afternoon. Our warmshowers host, Cavid (pronounced Tcha-veet, roughly), met us in the middle of the road a few blocks from his house – we were having trouble finding it (despite great directions we had just failed to read) and called him. The call didn’t go through but it registered on his phone, so he set out to find us. Turns out we are not that hard to find :)

We spent the next 4 nights at Cavid’s very friendly family’s apartment. He’s the only one who spoke English, but his mother smilingly served us as many meals a day as she could, and his brother gave us a ride to the Turkmenistan embassy to see if we could get a visa – we were still entertaining thoughts of going there despite not having received an email with a code that was supposed to come through after submitting an application in Ankara (embassy was closed; glad we got a Kazakhstan visa!). Cavid had just gotten back from his one year of obligatory military service and had a lot of interesting observations about the military and the country to share. We had two meetings with professors who work on water resources, arranged by a friend of a friend, Khumar, who took us out to an incredible lunch at a traditional Azerbaijani restaurant. We also had dinner with a couple who had offered to host us through Couchsurfing – when we told Cavid we had another offer, he convinced us to stay at his house, and we were happy to accept. After speeding through the country, it was great to meet so many people in Baku and to hear their perspectives on life in Azerbaijan. Overall, standards of living seem pretty good (at least in the city – we didn’t go as deep into villages as we had in Georgia, and some people said there was a lot of poverty), but the system is broken – teachers and doctors get tiny salaries, so doctors demand bribes to actually treat you. Government posts are sought after, but a bribe is required to get one, no matter how qualified you are. Oil money is pouring in, and it shows in the (mostly) great roads and brand new shiny buildings, but the education system is terrible. We really enjoyed Baku – it’s a beautiful city, with a lovely and well-preserved old town and crazy new buildings and the world’s 2nd largest flagpole outside the city walls. There is a fondness for lighting things up, and the city’s new Flame Towers are not only shaped like tongues of fire, they are lit up with flame-colored lights – alternating with the waving Azerbaijani flag – at night.

On our second day in Baku, we had gone to the port, following the detailed directions left on blog postings by helpful fellow travelers. The elusive ‘kassa’ or ticket window was closed, but some friendly men invited us into their heavily air-conditioned office and explained in their best Turk/Azeri/Ruski that there are boats to Aktau nearly every day, including 2 that night, and that we just need to come back the day we want to leave, preferably between 9 and 10, or 4 and 5, when the kassa is most likely to be open. This was great news, as reports of ships from Baku range from ‘nearly every day in the summer’ to ‘you could wait up to 2 weeks.’ On Thursday at 4:00 we returned to the port, hoping for a Friday boat. The kassa was closed (the ticket lady was eating; or sleeping? We’re not sure, but she wasn’t there), but we were told there was a boat the next day at 10AM and that we should come back in 2 hours to buy tickets. We returned at 6 (conveniently, there is a nice park for napping as well as an expensive cafe with wifi just beyond the wall behind the port), and the door to the kassa was open but she was still not there. “15 minutes!” said the men in the office. Back to the park, then the port again. The ticket lady is there! Forms were filled out, money exchanged, and then the instructions: come to the port at midnight to go through customs and board the ship. It leaves at… 1AM? 4? We couldn’t tell. We felt a bit frantic, as we thought we had one more night to accomplish our remaining errands (cut most of my hair off to better cope with the heat and quick, cold showers, and shave David’s beard that is getting long enough to prompt people to point and joke ‘Musulman!’; buy food and water for the trip; get US dollars to change in Uzbekistan, as ATMs give a terrible rate; take a tour of the city with Cavid’s brother and see oil-damaged areas near town; buy postcards…) Oh well! We asked about a later boat and the answer was ‘yok!’ meaning that there aren’t any that they know of. So we scrambled off to take care of the essentials (we are still quite hairy), pack up, have one last meal with Cavid and his family, and hug them all goodbye with profuse thanks in all the languages we might possibly have in common. We set off into the night, biking through the Old City to the port – stay tuned for our next post on crossing the Caspian!