Bilderverkauf aller 50 km / Pictures on Sale every 50 km

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

In Cold Coffin on Caspian Sea, "Hartmuts Park"

4th-7th of November:

We went around 11 am to the port as the guy told us the day before. And we were lucky this day in the evening the ferry will start. He filled out all documents and then the stamp marathon of three hours was starting. First as usual some stamp from the Customs. But where is the custom, there are a lot of buildings with a custom sign. If you ask then they point in some direction. In this way you have to ask several times again. The papers from the ferry company were filled out wrong. They put my name name as owner of the car, although I told him it is registered on Kotomi. I have to go back and get the corrected documents. 10 sheet of paper get now a stamp at the custom. I asked them for the port police which is the next point on my stamp route. Well I get an direction but this time I need some time to find the building since there are no signs at the buildings. The police is training outside in the cold and the boss from whom I get the stamp is playing a computer game. He looks very serious on me and ask what is my purpose and seems not convinced that I am a tourist. Anyway, I get my stamps and he can play again. Next stamp is from the head of the port in some building there! Hmmm !?!?1? I visit a cafeteria and everybody is laughing when I am asking if the boss is somewhere here in this building. I get a new direction, again nothing written and everything closed, in another building they send me back. Finally, I find an older guy who invites me for a tea and then he tries to call the boss. I stay there some while tell our story and get some more warm tea, which is very nice since outside it is really cold and windy. Yesssssss I got my last stamp. Now I want to bring the car into the harbour but they do not let me in. They do not care that the ferry office guy said we should bring it in. After trying it two times our car is inside the port area. We still have to wait until 9 in the evening. 9 pm the ferry arrives. Waiting again until 12 pm to bring the car on the ferry, wait until 3 in the morning and the ferry starts.

On the ferry you find no warm place, the blankets are dirty and even you paid more you come in a 4 person cabin. Of course they offer you another one if you pay additionally. Anyway the ferry feels like a cold coffin from inside on the Caspian Sea. Almost one day we need to go to Baku and the sea is not so calm. Early in the morning we arrive in Baku but the ship stops and waits until 7 to go into the port.

Customs as usual. But port officer that is new. A surprise they want that we pay for the length of our car. 40 USD per meter. Well I was wondering why the car in Aktau just cost 20 EUR. This was just the fee for the paperwork in Aktau. In Aktau I asked them if there are any other costs but they said no. Another 50 USD we have to pay for insurance and street usage. Another 10 USD bribe, because they say it is not allowed to have a car with the steering on the right in Azerbaijan for more than 3 days. I am telling them we have a lot to repair at the car and that it is impossible to leave Azerbaijan in 3 days, With 10 USD and a lot of crying (:)we get the car custom paper which is valid for 1 month (:). With all this we got some help from Aleksei with whom we had a nice time on the ship. He is coming originally from Kazakhstan but now he is living in Germany. We have to go to the custom boss, he looks strange on us, as if we are criminals. Anyway it seems he do not want us to pay anything, but the other Kazakh guy has to pay something for whatever.

Just if somebody else want to do this trip: the ticket price for one person is around 80 to 100 USD. Ask for the cheapest since although you pay more they put you first in an dirty cabin. For some 10 to 20 USD more you get a better one.

In Baku we meet Hartmut the father of Stephan. I do not know if I wrote about him but we met Stephan in Irkutsk. Hartmut made the invitation for the Azerbaijan visa for us. (Unfortunately we did not know that there is an Azerbaijani consulate in Aktau. There you get visa same day without invitation!). Together with us he drives to the Toyota service to find some new shock absorbers. It seems impossible since it is a Japanese version of the Landcruiser and not a European version. Anyway the second Toyota service can help us, but one spring is broken (This was the strange sound I heard in Aktau (:(( ). I can not get this spring it in Baku; same problem Japanese version. They weld it with no guarantee; of course. In Germany nobody would weld a spring. I just hope it will hold until Germany, although I am sure it will not. At the service the people make tea and bring a cake for us. They even wash the car. Toyota hospitality!

We do not want to stay in Baku. it is just an expensive city. Except the old town which looks perfectly renovated there is nothing. Just 100 km in the South there is the Shirvan Milli Park (national Park) in which Hartmut was director. We can stay there in a weekend house. This is quite nice since it is rainy and cold outside.

The next day Hartmut comes and makes an excursion with us. It is really fascinating with how much energy he tries to change something. His explanations make the flat steppe to a really interesting place for us. We see Gazelles and several birds who's names I forgot. We get a lot of background information related to Azerbaijan's "Family Republic", nature and people.

(N 39.75193°, E 49.14892 °)

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