We’ve been massively slacking on the Blog front – this is due to a combination of a lack of Internet Cafes, and the fact that we’ve never been more on the run. In fact it’s been pretty much non stop. Here’s a brief run-down of some of the more memorable moments from Kosovo to the Caspian Sea…
We rocked up to Pristina complete wrecks after a massive night drive and were met by Scottish efore promptly passing out on the floor of his and Gerard’s rather nice flat. Couldn’t have needed it more at that point. We then spent the next 36 hours hanging out with Scottish, Hacker, Gerard, Standy and the rest of the Chad’s gang who were all doing placements of one sort or another at the UN. We ate well, drank well and enjoyed ourselves. Pristina really is a great place and it was brilliant to see Scottish and spend some time doing the usual inane things such as walloping footballs at each other in the park. Just like old times but in a slightly surreal setting!
After having such a great time we decided to punish ourselves with another lengthy night drive. Highlights included explaining ourselves after turning up at the wrong border (Serbia, no less) at 2am due to some suspect navigation, and the various service stations and dodgy toilets of Macedonia and Bulgaria. After all this we then took on the unforgiving rush hour of Istanbul, with the mission of finding the Dedeman hotel. No mean feat when we didn’t even have the address of the place to start with and our map simply showed Istanbul as a blob!
Waltzing into the 5 star Dedeman hotel in our grubby shorts and flip-flops was akin to meeting the Queen with chocolate on your face. Thankfully, the doorman knew we were coming and took time out from welcoming wedding guests to chauffer Dougie to the secure parking lot. Now to explain, Advait’s future Mother in Law kindly hooked us up with a fantastic sponsor for our trip. In return for placing Dedeman logos on the ambulance, they offered us several free nights at their posh hotels across Turkey, with meals thrown in. Jackpot! And so started 4 days of lounging by the pool, tennis in the sun, power showers, massive buffet breakfasts, and real beds. There was a little bit of drivng involved too mind, but the perks really took the edge off the Turkish heat for us as we passed other rally teams camping on gas station forecourts by the side of the road.
In the midst of this Turkish luxury, we spent a day (yes, a whole day) exploring the sights of the Cappadocia region. Without getting too scientific, Cappadocia has some rather large volcanic human termite mounds, which hopefully some photos will explain more thoroughly than this description! We were also witness to a bizarre Turkish ceremony that appeared to have been devised by someone under the influence of opium. We’re not sure if it was to do with coming of age or some poor young man in a crown was ready to be sacrificed, but it involved a lot of tuneless chanting, endless spinning, and a clown.
Next came Georgia and Azerbaijan, of which Georgia is memorable for being the first place in which we turned up at a restaurant and being completely clueless as to what we ordered. This resulted in what appeared to be 25 colostemy bags, but were actually meat filled dough packages followed by kebabs that could rival Jayne’s place. In reality, it was all really good, and a definite reminder that you should try everything once. The rest of Georgia probably warranted more than the short time we spent there, even the parts near South Ossetia, but we had a ferry crossing in our sights and were hell bent on getting there. The border crossing from Georgia to Azerbaijan was something else. We arrived there around 2am to be greeted by a pile of stinking sticky mud, diesel fumes, complete darkness, a couple of portacabins and complete confusion. One of the border guards asked if we’d ever been to Azerbaijan before, and on replying no, commented “well, you won’t like it”. He wasn’t wrong. The roads were the worst so far – Dougie got a good coating of mud.
We eventually found the right ferry port in Baku for our Caspian crossing and were met by 20 rally teams, some of whom had been camping in the port holding bay for 4 days. After our 36 hour drive we were delighted to find that there would be a ferry departing that afternoon. In reality, although it was great that there was a ferry leaving, we shouldn’t really have been looking forward to it quite so much…
Will post some photos when we get a chance, and for those of you following the map, sorry it's missing the comments - don't know why it's just showing the titles right now. Each mobile network we use seems to introduce it's own problems... However, it does have the pins in the right place - we're in Almaty, having had a rather large night out for Matty's birthday, and are about to head North to the Russian border where apparently all sorts of Border fun awaits. Game on.
Dave
