“Mud, mud, glorious mud” (unknown)

After being kindly excused from breakfast duty by my cookgroup (the amazing Cook Group 2) on account of my birthday the night before, we headed off to the Azerbaijan border and made it through all formalities within 2 ½ hours or so. Not too bad! After clearing the border we had a quick lunch, and then continued on until we found a lovely bush camp on the banks of a river. The river provided a much needed opportunity to wash my hair and to cool off, as the temperature has started to climb. Leaving the riverside bushcamp early on the morning of Lesley’s birthday, we visited the town of Sheki where we went into the amazing Khan’s Summer Palace and a caravanseri, an old silk road hotel which now operates as a hotel and restaurant.

Khan's summer palace:

Lunch at the Karvan Saray:

From Sheki we headed to the mountain village of Lahic. Pete had warned us that the road up to Lahic made the road to Mestia look like a doddle, and he was not wrong. But we survived and camped at a picnic ground close to the village. Nightfall saw us play the first of a new breed of game – “volley-frisbee” – essentially volleyball played with a Frisbee, and in our case, a Frisbee that has red and blue lights on it, hence allowing us to play at night (although head torches are still required when it goes out of bounds!). A Kinder Egg challenge was held to celebrate Lesley’s birthday which Jo unfortunately lost, so she had to eat a piece of cake without using her hands (although there was some controversy when it turned out that her pieces didn’t fit, and I am not sure the judge was entirely honest!)

Road to Lahic:

From Lahic we continued to head towards Baku. We were surrounded by lushly forested mountains for most of the day, but we came over a hill and suddenly found ourselves in a bleak, parched landscape of hills and valleys. It was with a huge amount of excitement that Pete found a bush camp for us amongst mud volcanoes – liquid mud that bubbles up when gas reaches the surface. It was an amazing spot, and an amazing landscape, and provided many excellent aerobie opportunities. Mud volcanoes:

From the bush camp we pushed on into Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and a city built on oil money. Rising out of a desert-like landscape as we drove in, the city lies right on the banks of the Caspian Sea. It just seems to drip in money. Every second car is a brand new SUV, all the boutiques and shops are here from Karen Millen and Apple to Accessorise. In amongst all the money, there are still many old beaten up Russian cars and run down houses on the outskirts (complete with working oil wells next to them), and it certainly appears that the expats have a larger than proportionate amount of the wealth! Baku means the windy city, and it is apparently windy here 270 days per year – made a journey up to the top of the Maiden’s Tower an exciting experience! It is a nice city with a lot of very old history (including a mosque dating from the 11th century, which the Russian navy shot at one stage), very expensive, and feels out of place given what we have driven through to get here.

Elaine & myself on the Maiden Tower:

One of the many SUVs, and a mosque tower:

From Baku we are heading to Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea on a “ferry” – it might be a while til we have access to the internet again, but I am sure there will be many exciting stories from that journey, and from the complete randomness that we are expecting to see in Turkmenistan.