notes from azerbaijan and georgia...
very brief; more maps photos movies info after i get back to fairbanks... sometime...
above --- the fortress in gori, georgia looking north past the sheep to the caucasus.
Friday, December 31
got in at 4 AM. had my passport scrutinized by all 5 officials. i was last to leave.
paid way too much for a taxi to the posh flat where i'm staying. i've got it good while
i'm in the capital. slept a few hours, then went out to absorb the city. crashed long
and hard after the new year's celebration. insert video of santa dancing with donald duck.
Saturday, January 1
more walking around the city. didn't get to the museums yet. bought some language books,
including a russian edition of The Little Prince in french and a spanish/russian
phrasebook. was wandering around the party district, thinking about turning in early, looking
for a cheap non-expat cafe. went into a kebab shop, understood nothing on the menu, but there
were two funny foreigners at one of the 3 tables: a guy from ankara and a guy from bishkek.
the turkish guy spoke some english, so i sat with them. ended up spending the next 8 hours
with him and his azeri wife. we went to a small place with live azeri music and drank vodka
till the wee hours of the morning. insert multiple music/bellydancing vids here.
Sunday, January 2
slept kinda late. eventually got up. nothing open on sunday. no plans. so i decided to
wander toward an expat event i'd read about. ended up participating in a "hash" running event
with a group of mostly foreigners. pretty weird. apparently a popular expat thing, i guess.
a group running through the streets and parks following chalked arrows and searching for the
pre-arranged path. i didn't film any of that... but i may be in town for another one in two
weeks. then i just wandered around. went into a tiny chess room down on the bulvar with lots
of old guys playing chess, backgammon, and dominoes. went to a place for dinner and was barely
able to order anything. my attempts to get something without meat resulted in what i think was
liver and potatoes.
Monday, January 3
went to almost every computer store in the downtown baku area (and there are a lot)
before finally finding possibly the only one that has access to mac stuff.
it took so long that i wasn't able to get any visa stuff done.
i did get a quick look at the nizami literature museum, but the english guide was sick,
so i got the russian one.
Tuesday, January 4
spent hours in queues at embassies and got nothing. will go to georgia without visas.
went to the state art museum. can't remember any of the art.
went to some nice cafes. drank a lot of xirdalan. then got lost in baku and stumbled
around from midnight to 3 a.m.
Wednesday, January 5
walked west to the chaotic bus departure areas and got in a marshrutka bound for qabala.
local police there stopped me on both sides of town to laugh at me and check my passport.
walked north to stay at a lodge place toward laza.
Thursday, January 6
the place is great. not overly pretty deer hides on the walls.
not particularly heated in the guest rooms.
i woke up underneath a huge pile of covers to see fast falling wet snow.
so i hiked up to the deserted summer-only trading village of durja.
nobody had been there for awhile. it was nice. i got cold and wet.
decided to stay another night there.
Friday, January 7
colder today, but clear skies with views to the high Caucasus.
slowly made my way back through qabala and over to shakhi.
staying tonight in an old caravan rest stop... the tourist fave here...
Saturday, January 8
got up early. wood heat long gone. went to the amazing palace in shaki.
interesting guided tour in memorized english...
"this picture shows a lion with the head of a man and a dragon for a tail
and he has wings with a woman on them and he is standing on a fish..."
then the rather obvious explanation.
i took a fun, hot, crowded schoolbus to zaqatala and ended up staying the night.
Sunday, January 9
got up and headed for the border. one bus to balakan and another to the border
where i found out that you can't get there from here.
not without a georgian visa, anyway.
contrary to the mistake-laden lonely planet.
so, a couple buses back and then a long ride to  (ganja city).
Monday, January 10
got up, looked around ganja, then two minibuses to the other georgia
land border. at this one, a 30-day georgia tourist visa is just $10 away.
a funny expensive taxi ride and i was in tbilisi.
for sensitive readers, do not insert the night's summary here...
Tuesday, January 11
everything in kartuli
wandering lost around georgia's capital.
most signs in kartuli. some in russian cyrillic. a few in english.
since i need another visa to go back to azerbaijan, i went looking
for the azeri embassy. it has moved, so the lonely planet is off by about
six big city blocks... six blocks big...
so i didn't find it. and was angry. and crying.
i shifted from the dirty bus hotel to nasi's homestay, and it is sweet.
funny old lady who's been hosting travellers in her home for awhile.
instantly, an israeli guy there got my embassy info straight,
and we made fun of the lonely planet some more.
Wednesday, January 12
found the embassy. got the visa.
while the paperwork was being processed, i wandered the length of the city.
planned to see several museums, but only made it to one: the money museum.
samples of most of the world's currency, though currencies shift...
even the azerbaijan 1000-manat is out-of-date, which is cool, because you
can see the image that people still use to refer to the bill, even though
it's not on the new version.
Thursday, January 13
went to the tbilisi train station to try to get to gori and to check the
nighttrain schedule. failed to do both. so i caught a marshrutka out to gori,
birthplace of stalin. checked out the stalin stuff (museum, statues, shrines)
as well as the really cool old fortress which rises from the middle of town.
returned to tbilisi in hopes of catching the overnight train to baku, but it
had already gone. so i was grumpy for awhile, but then resigned myself to taxis
and buses. a cool taxi driver drove me to the border, and from there i jumped a
gypsy bus... 10 hours to baku.
Friday, January 14
started the day sleepy with all my stuff in downtown baku.
slowly wandered through town. stopped for a couple hours at an internet cafe.
another hour at a cafe for lunch. eventually made it to my pal's pad.
saw him for the first time when he got back from work. nice azeri dinner
and then we went down to the funky club by his hotel. DJ VIPER from RUSSIA!!!
Saturday, January 15
a day trip down to gobustan. some famous petroglyphs and mud volcanoes.
insert video of rock jumping and mud diving.
except for the mud volcanoes, the whole landscape was a lot like the southwest
united states... just like the area around los alamos... juniper trees, even.
in the evening, a birthday party for an expat.
Sunday, January 16
day trip to lahic, up north, via a snowy mountain road.
a big destination for those tourists that come to azerbaijan, but not very busy
in the winter. the big excitement was all the boys flying down the narrow
icy road through town. it's a long drive, so we got back late.
Monday, January 17
a lazy day wandering around baku. finally mailed something.
interestingly, the stamps i bought for postcards feature an ancient building in
the town of shusha, which is in the nagorno-karabakh region. this region of
azerbaijan was militarily invaded and occupied by armenia in the final days of
the soviet union. azeris were killed or forced to flee from the region. although
a cease-fire has been in effect since 1994, the dispute is not resolved, and azeri-
armenian relations are hostile. displaced refugees are a huge problem in the country.
in the midst of this crisis, soviet troops arrived and massacred unarmed azeri civilians
in Baku on january 20, 1990. this date is observed every year at the martyr's wall in baku,
remembering the victims of the massacre and the war with armenia.
in the evening, matt and seva and i ate at a georgian restaurant, then drove out to the
Yanar Dag burning hillside cafe. natural gas seeps up through the ground and burns
on a small hill. tourists sit beside the burning hill and drink tea. drunk azeri men swear
and make fun of them and mock the french and their frog legs.
Tuesday, January 18
i am most often mistaken for a holy man, or a guerrilla from dagestan.
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