Baku, Azerbaijan

We made it to Baku. Which for those Geographically challenged among you is the capital of Azerbaijan (approximately. 1.6 million), and a port city on the Caspian sea. We have come overland from Georgia, which we entered from Turkey, a little over a week and a half a go.
Before we even got out of Turkey the rains came. As we were waiting in line to get out of Turkey it started, and didn't let off until we were a good 200km into Azerbaijan.
Getting out of Turkey turned out to be more difficult than getting in. The customs papers caused a stir. As soon as they tried entering our data in their computers the system crashed. So they tried it on all the different computers they had, still the same result. For some reason their program didn't like our data! In the end they just did it by hand, and we were finally out. Then, the fun started.
First, they weren't quite sure what to do with us at the passport control as he had to make sure that we didn't need a visa, luckily, his data and our matched. So then he stamped it and let us go. Takes only 1 line to write, but 45 minutes to live through! In the meanwhile, a lot of irate, Geogians are trying to get their papers in the window, and pushing, poor Cecilia aside. Finally the guy inside, yells at them to stop it. Oh, and I forgot to mention there was only one guy working.
Well, that taken care of then the customs stuff. The guy asked a couple of cursory questions before filling out a piece of paper per bike and putting a stamp on it. Then it was off to another counter, where again, 1 guy was filling out papers. Cecilia (always send a small, poor, little blond, to do this stuff; read on) goes and stands there, just waiting. People are standing 3 deep and 8 wide at this counter, with one hapless official working. To make it more interesting it took him around 8-10 minutes per vehicle!

Anyway after standing there around 45 minutes, finally, the people behind were starting to reach the counter, and those already there, made sure that they did not push past Cecilia. It almost got into a pushing contest. The guys at the counter then, started to fight to see who could help Cecilia fill out the documentation! One person standing in line spoke some German, so it worked out pretty good. She got the paperwork filled out, got to the counter, and when everything was ready, she came and got me to sign my name. As I walked in everyone parted to let me through to the counter, where I duly signed my name to three documents!
Patients, persistence, and more patience, and a short blond girl, all help.
After this we were in Georgia.

Georgia, turns out to be very "rustic", or more properly, rural. As soon as we got into the country, we passed a small village, with cows lying in the middle of the road. The traffic roaring by as if running a slalom race. It was really fascinating to watch, which car would hit which cow. Luckily, everyone survived, that day at least in Georgia. (Forgot to mention the unlucky cow, in a tunnel just before the border in Turkey. She was hit straight on by a bus!).

There were no towns, only small villages all over Georgia, with decaying building everywhere. It was as if you had taken a time machine and gone back maybe 80 years or so. People selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road, life unfolding in the middle of the street. The interest that the bikes created was amazing. I though that we were slowly immune to this! Everyone, from little children to the men standing around would beckon to us to stop, or yell and wave. We waved back and rolled on. It isn't a lot of fun to stop while it is pouring down, not to mention riding in a strange country, dodging, potholes, and live animals, and the occasional native.

We rode along a river valley from an hour or so before deciding to find a camping spot for the night, and sure enough one came up. Next to the river was a sawmill and a small house, and further on a nice flat area where the river made a curve. I checked it out, and as soon as I stopped, people came out of the sawmill to have a look. As I was 500 meters a way they send two kids out to check on me. I rode back to where the men where standing and made it clear what I wanted, they gestured that I could stay at the house, which I politely declined. They then made it clear that it was no problem camping in the spot I gestured to. So that is exactly what we did. As we were setting up, the whole posse showed up and stood watching us. Cecilia trying to communicate while I set the tent up. It was a lot of fun.

After getting the tent up we all sat down and tried to communicate. Which, surprisingly enough went very well. Everyone had a great time. We were then left alone for a while to enjoy the wonderful panorama of the river and valley in the distance as it slowly getting dark. It had stopped raining and was only drizzling slightly so it was bearable to be outside.

After 30 minutes the whole posse shows up again, this time bearing food and drink.
Home made wine, accompanied by potato wedges, some green "stuff" (ajapsandali), and some soup (khashi, garlic and tripe soup). I declined the wine, but heartedly ate the potatoes and the green stuff. In short other the matron showed up. It turns out that the gentlemen were all her sons, and the kids her grandsons. They were in charge of the sawmill, which is a family business, apparently, as they all worked there.

While the two gentlemen drank the wine we got our Russian dictionary and our Georgia book out and had grand time trying to explain who we were, and what we were doing.

They were very curios and asked a lot of questions, about us, about where we lived, work, travel etc. Really, really, nice, and they drank the whole 2 liter bottle of wine! Teaching us a few words of Georgian along the way. Gaumarjos! (Cheers).

Eventually as it got dark, everyone left, but only after we promised to come for tea in the morning. Which we did, and met the rest of the crew working in the sawmill.
We then continued on, over a pass at around 2000 meters. Everywhere we traveled, the same response from people, yelling, waving and running out into the street. The towns were all very dreary, although the country side is beautiful. Forest, hills, valleys, mountains. No large cities or industry. The roads, are horrible, and barely passable.
Perfect terrain for our GS, although to be hones, we could do with half the weight. Of course, as bad as the roads were, the other drivers, were still passing us right and left, sometimes two abreast, with on coming traffic. But, for old Africa hands like us this is tame (see our entry on Egypt, Morocco, et al at www.fernweh.ch). Now, if that wasn't enough, the rains, set in, in earnest. So now, we have a whole cornucopia of hazards to avoid. Potholes, as in POTHOLES, road waves, rocks, gravel, mud, missing asphalt, cows, dogs, sheep, a river running down the middle of the road. Ah, what fun. But the country is beautiful.

Our next stop was at a tourist attraction at Vardiza, a cave city situated above a river. It was deserted as we got there, other than a car load of aid workers. You know you are off the beaten path when the only other tourist you see are foreign aid workers! It was raining so we set up camp next to the entrance and made dinner rather than climb up to the caves. It had been a long day. The following day we decided to skip the caves, as they wanted to charge us double the posted price, and we declined. So off it was towards Tbilisi. The road went along some beautiful tea growing region, and there were castles and abandoned fortresses everywhere you looked. If I had to pick a nick name for Georgia, it would be "Land of Castles". We did manage to stop and photograph one or two. Did I mention it was raining?

In broad strokes, we rode along the Acharistskali river valley over the pass. Then over to Akhalkalaki and eventually back along the Mtkvari River valley to Mtskheta where we spent another soaking night high in the hills above the river. But not before having to fix a flat tire. After a short rest stop as we pulled away Cecilia's back tire was flat. So we stopped and started getting it off. Of course a couple of gentlemen nearby came over to have a look. Two cars passing also stopped and in the end I had an audience of 8 people watching me change the tire. When they got tired of watching they also lent a hand. The tire had a hole in the carcass and this had punctured the tube, so I decided to mount the new tire we had been carrying around since we left Switzerland. This is a knobby tire which we had planned to use in Africa, but had yet to see action. I had hoped to use the tires we had until Mongolia, as the knobbies don't last all that long. I am hoping for around 7000km. We shall see. One problem while mounting the tire, was that it wouldn't seat properly. We deflated it twice, used soap and water, all to no avail. So, I left it that way, hoping that when it was on the bike and rolling it would seat properly. This is something I had done on a number of times, and had to date always worked with the rear tire, and only once did it not work, but with a front tire. We then continued, lots of green, forests, and fields, and water everywhere to our chosen camping spot.

The following day we continued (in the rain) towards Sighnaghi, which has a great wall fortification and sits up on the hill with a great view of the plains beyond. We had a quick look, a couple of pictures, a round of the town, and then back down to a nice little spot by the river where we camped for the night, still in the rain of course.

By the following day we had had enough of the rain, we had now been soaking wet for the past 4 days, more or less, and it was time to move on. So we headed for the border at Lagodekhi. Which we barely managed due to all the flooding. The road when through kilometers of flooded villages. For long stretches the road was also underwater, sometimes almost half a meter deep. In a couple of places, another centimeter, and we would have to turn around. Cecilia's bike did flood once but made it to the other side, where after checking everything and getting the water out of the air box we continued. In all it was almost 3km of flooded roads that we had managed to pass, with much care, and quite a bit of traffic, creating large waves, which made it even more challenging.

At the border, we got into a protracted discussion with the customs guy. Apparently, all the help Cecilia hat gotten coming in didn't help, the exit point had been wrongly entered in the form. We were in the "wrong" place. Actually, we were in the right place, but the form was wrong. No dice, not even crocodile tears helped! It was pouring down rain, and the guy, even though he professed to wanting to help us, just kept saying that there was nothing he could do. We discussed it for a while longer, until finally admitting defeat and heading out in the rain again. Since we didn't want to go back the same way as we were afraid that we might end up getting stuck somewhere, so we headed north to Kvareli. This decision, at least in the beginning didn't look like a good idea. A few kilometers down the road, we had to go through a town that was completely under water. A river was running through the street, and there wasn't any other way around. A bridge was 3/4 destroyed, but we squeezed through, and luckily it only lasted until we were out of town, where the road turned into the hills. So we breathed a sigh of relief and continued. The ride was great as it wound along the right side of a wide valley, which we then crossed to get to the correct side where we then headed south and the "red bridge" border, which was the one noted on our customs documents.

Nearing Tbilisi I had a flat tire, luckily I ended up stopping just in front of a tire repair place! I got everything off and the guy there fixed all the tubes that I needed fixing (in total, three). The reason for the flat was the same as Cecilia's two days previously, the carcass had a hole in it. I showed it to the guy at the shop, and he cut me a piece of fire hose to use as a patch between the hole and the tube. So I re-mounted the tire and the fixed tube, and we took off again. Four hours later, while going through some small town, I heard a loud bang, and suddenly the bikes back end started dancing around, and I was lucky to keep the bike upright. Sure, enough the tube had blown, and I had another flat tire! So we set to work getting this fixed. Of course everyone within sight was there almost by the time I got the bike stopped.

Everyone was very helpful, and in the end, I ended up almost just directing while they did all the work, and got all dirty in the process. We got the tire on, a new tube and everything mounted, cheered on by everyone who couldn't reach in and give a helping hand. Getting the tire on the bike, gave everyone who had not helped a chance, so they literally lifted the bike so that I could get the tire back on. We also had the same problem with this tire, as I had had with Cecilia's. It wouldn't seat properly, so we just mounted it and continued.

We couldn't find a decent camping, and ended up just driving around, we even toyed with the idea of heading into Tbilisi, but ended up turning around, as we couldn't get motivated enough to look for a hotel, in the dark, in a strange city! As we were debating the best of the bad spots we had noticed a police car stopped, and we both went oooh, no, now what? But the policeman, was just curious, and even spoke some German, so after we explained what we were doing, he suggested going a couple of kilometers up the road where there was a "Turkish camping", whatever that is. Well, that, turned out to be a TIR parking, a place where truckers parked for the night, and it had toilets, a small cafe and lots of watch dogs. We explained to the guy there what we wanted and he said no problem, and showed us a spot at the back of the compound. It turned out to be pretty noisy, but passable, with the plus that we were able to cook in the shower building which no-one used. We were dead, it had been a really long day, with lots of emotional ups and downs. Cecilia nevertheless cooked a wonderful dinner and after a nice warm tea we were almost cheerful as we went to bed.

In the morning, we got up and had a nice breakfast in the shower building and got ready to leave. The camping turned out to be free, as they didn't want any money. Fine with us, and he cheerfully told us to come back on our way home! So we waved goodbye and headed for Azerbaijan. Which we then reached in short order. Red Bridge, was pretty quiet. We drove up, showed our papers, and the other than a momentary scare, due to the date on the Azerbaijani visa, which the Georgian, official assumed to be the validity date, when in actuality it was the date that the visa was issued. As soon as this was cleared up we could leave. Great, only took around 15 minutes.

Now for Azerbaijan. At the control point, we stopped behind the cars and waited. Waited some more. They were letting in a car every 10 minutes or so! Of course, someone in a turbo Mercedes would just drive by and cut in, shutting off traffic until they let him in. As we were sitting there watching the show, a money changer came by and we changed our remaining Georgian Lari to the Azerbaijani Manat, for our 23 lari we got 50,000 manat! He also said to just drive to the front of the gate, and started directing traffic around us so that we could get out and move to the gate. He then proceeded to talk to the military guards at the gate, and presently one came over and asked for our passports. With these in had, he took off and presently came back and and waved us inside.

Great, we were now at customs, and as usual this is where the problems always start. Maybe we should be doing this with a bicycle? To make a long story short, ok, shorter. It took 2.5 hours in total to get out of Georgia and into Azerbaijan. The majority of time, 2 hours was spent at customs in Azerbaijan. Cecilia was shuffled back and forth, and there was a lot of problems with the language. In the end the result was we got into the country with our 15 day visa, no problem. The motorcycles, were only awarded a 3 day transit visa. So the end result is that we have to be out on the 8th of July! The problem is that as a tourist, with your own transportation, customs requires a deposit of 10,000$ per bike, and unfortunately after counting our loose change we just couldn't come up with it. Well, actually it is even more complicated. You can only leave the deposit if you come back out the same way, otherwise you probably won't be allowed to leave, and loose your deposit? As we weren't coming back this way, this was out for us, and we would not have left such a deposit anyway! Leaving the only alternative, a transit visa for three days.

So now we were in Azerbaijan! This makes the 14th country so far this trip. First thing we noticed, it is relative prosperous, and there is much more "color" than in Georgia. This is something, which we later realized is due to the fact that in Georgia, there was nearly no advertisement. As soon as you hit Azerbaijan, there are billboards and signs for all the usual stuff. This had been missing in Georgia, so you only saw the drab buildings, which Azerbaijan also has, but they at least have some "promotional" color! Additionaly the roads are much better, and there is a lot of building and construction going on. So next to the economic basket case which is Georgia, Azerbaijan stands out as a progressive and prosperous country. The people are incredible, again. I am starting to run our of adjectives to describe all the interest and friendliness that all the people show us as we travel around. The Azerbaijanis nearly run us over to talk to us at traffic lights or on the road. Very dangerous, but incredible curious and friendly.

The road towards Baku, goes straight through the center of the country, which is totally flat, flanked by mountain ranges right and left. This is the bread basket of the country, pretty boring, but at least we were making headway. Only when we go into towns, or away from the main roads, are you reminded of the roads in Georgia. If anything in places it is worse here, as they are re-routing some of the main roads while working on them, and you are forced to go through some very adventurous ground. (Have I mentioned lately, that it was still raining!). After a few hours in Azerbaijan, we finally hit some dry weather. The rain stopped, and we could see clear weather in the distance. Great, finally.

We rode as far as we could, and shortly before it got dark, we got lucky and found a hotel. Lucky, while we were actually on the wrong road. This one also heads to Baku, but is slower than the main road, and has less traffic, so why there was a hotel here was not quite clear. Nevertheless, there was one, and I negociated a price of 20manat (new manat = 100,000 old manat). And we moved into a nice large room in an old barrack building, which had been converted to a hotel. Perfectly passable. We spread all our stuff around to try and dry some of it, making a huge mess in the process.

The following day we headed to Baku, now only a 150km away. Baku, turned out to be a busy metropolis, with all the usual amenities, and noise, traffic and confusion. We are starting to be really adverse to going into cities. Something which we always have dreaded. We rode around, trying to make sense of the maps which we had, the most detailed being the city map in the Lonely Planet, Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan. A book, you should avoid like the plague. We have been and continue to be big fans of the series, but this one is horrible. The data is worse than useless and just plain badly written and researched.

As we were trying to find a hotel, a cab driver stopped and asked us if he could help. We explained, and in short order he offered to show us to the hotel, which he then did, for no remuneration. Great. The hotel didn't turn out to be what we had wanted to we headed to another one but, the gesture was wonderful. In the end we settled for a relative expensive but well located hotel near the port, which had great parking for the bikes. This is something which I probably have mentioned before, but I am going to do it again. Whenever we stay in a hotel, I am very, very reluctant to stay anywhere, where the bikes have to be parked on the street. Only on a couple of occasions have I done this, and I try to avoid it. This means that the hotels which we stay in have to accommodate this, and those that can are usually a bit dearer than your run of the mill flop house. Which, would suit us fine, but not my bikes.

So that brings us to the end of this opus. We are going to try and get on the ferry tomorrow morning. Today we checked out the ferry port, so we know now where it is, no thanks to the LP which has it wrong. We weren't able to get tickets in advance as there was no-one at the ticket counter there. The information was that they would be back in an hour, and we didn't feel like waiting. So we will head out early in the morning and hope for the best.

As a last word, we certainly would like to come back to Georgia, and spend much, much more time there exploring the country and its people. The same for Azerbaijan, but only when they change their convoluted customs regulations. I can easily imagine spending a month or two just crusing around the country. Oh, well, next time.

Turkmenistan awaits.

Trabzon, Turkey

Well, this blog entry sees us in Trabzon, Turkey. In a day or so we should be going across the border into Georgia.
Here we are also doing a major update to our web pages (finally), so make sure you check out www.fernweh.ch
The update covers our time in North Africa, and includes everything we have done up to Turkey, so we hope you enjoy it.

Now to this blog:
After a little over two weeks, we managed to get all our visas (with the exception of Kazahkstan, which we will get in Tashkehnt). I spent an extra couple of days polishing up the last few pages to our web site and we took of.

Not only did we manage to take care of the Visas, but somewhere in there we did a lot of work on the bikes. Including, inserting a heli-coil one week, taking it out and modifying it the following week. Replacing the front brake lever piston, and the left front fork seal on Cecilias bike. What it all meant is that we could take off with the bikes in pretty good condition.
Of course we also had plenty of time to catch up on a lot of movies which we had missed. So relaxed and rested we were looking forward to what the road had to offer.

Early Monday morning we headed to the Black Sea coast (why is it called the Black Sea?). The first night we made it to a town called Amasra, which turned out to be a very nice, relaxing, laid back resort town. For us it was just amazing how green everything was. One hour out of Ankara, and we hit the hills, with forests as far as the eye could see. It was so green we were almost blinded. The contrast is just incredible, to what we had been experiencing for the past 6 months or so.

After spending a night in Amasra, we headed to Sinop, where we found a little camping spot just outside of town. Sinop also turns out to be resort town, with plenty of beaches. It sits on a peninsula, so it has beaches on both sides, pretty cool.

After Sinop, we continued onwards, unfortunately it stopped being so nice. Up to Sinop, the road had been very small, and went up and down mountains, as it hugged the coastline as much as possible. There were few towns and everything was pretty rural. After Sinop, it changed the coastline wasn't as nice anymore, and the towns, larger and "grittier". It probably didn't help that there is a lot of construction going on, on the road along the coast. Lots of heavy traffic, dust, gravel, and more dust. We looked like two fugitives from Mad Max, when we arrived at Besikduzu near Trabzon. You could hardly tell my jacket was red! We were too tired to really bother and took the first hotel we found. A couple of kebabs and bed.

Before getting there though, we did take a break at Jasons Cape, having a quick look at Jason's Church. That is, as in Jason and the Argonauts. Across the road is a quaint little cafe, where we had a couple of cokes right on the beach, with the church in the background. As the weather was pretty overcast, it was pretty cool, when a ray of the sun would hit the church giving it a very heavenly aura. Not really tourist place, even if there is a desolated campground next to the church.

The next day it rained in the morning, but since we had decided to only go to Trabzon in order to take care of some last minute details before leaving Turkey, sure enough a couple of hours later it stopped, and we took off.

Trabzon, turns out to be a very busy, hecktic, port city, with lots of one-way street, and like a number of other Turkish towns, built on hills and valleys. We nevertheless managed to find a decent hotel with suitable parking for our motorcycles, and settled it. We proceeded to take care of a few things, and then spent some time catching up on the e-mails, and updating our web pages. Check them out at www.fernweh.ch and that is it for now. Next time you will hear from us should be Georgia.
Cheers

Ankara, Turkey

Well, a couple of weeks have already rolled by, and this update finds us in Ankara, busy trying to get all the paperwork necessary to head East.

To catch up. After leaving Damascus we headed to Krac Du Chevalier a little north west of Damascus. This is one of the best preserved castles in the region. It is on top of a mountain (ok, hill for us Swiss), and is visible for miles around. The whole area where it stands is hill after hill, and there is no straight way to get to this place. It always seemed that there was another hill to go around or over on the way there. The roads all very small and pretty dangerous, but we made it ok. The ride was a lot of fun, plenty of curves (obviously) and not too much traffic. Around every corner another beautiful panorama of small towns clustered on the sides of hills, with orchards and small farms taking the rest of the space.
At the Krac Du Chevalier we saw our Swiss friends Manuela and Francesco again, we parked next to their van and saw them waving at us from the top of the castle. We set up camp and went to have a look ourselves. It was definitely the most interesting castle I can recall having seen. You were allowed to walk everywhere, and there was a lot to see. Plenty of hidden nooks and crannies. We first walked around the outer walls, checked out the Turkish baths (bring a flashlight, as there are no lights). One passage goes down three stories or so and just dead ends into a closed tunnel. Later we speculated that maybe the dungeons where down here. Afterwards we entered the inner fortifications and walked along the inside wall, checking out the storage area with their oil storage jars still visible in the floor. Finally after two hours or peering around corners and shining our flashlights into every dark niche we could find we went to the top ramparts and enjoyed the view from the towers. Spectacular, towards the north east you could see the Mediterranean. Below, you could see far into the plains and you had a good view all around. No wonder this castle has never been conquered, by force at least. The outer walls had been breached, but the inner castle held, until the attacker used guile to overcome the defenders. He faked a message from their compatriots on the coast to surrender, and were given safe passage to the coast!

Back at the campground, Francesco and Manuela had gone shopping and bought some meat for grilling. So that is exactly what we did. After we had finished the manager came over and he and Francesco fired up a water pipe by our campfire. An excellent finish to the day.
The following morning we headed towards Hama, where there are Roman era water wheels, which are supposed to be very interesting.
As soon as we came down from the mountain, the heat hit us. Our computers both showed 49C (in the shade!), for you on the wrong side of the pond this translates to 120F! I cannot recall ever being anywhere where it was this hot. It was actually, cooler with my visor down on my helmet, rather than letting the outside air in! By the time we hit Hama we were all really tired, and looking for any shade we could find. We though that it was hot in Aswan or Libya where we previously had 43C-44C, and yes there is a difference in the extra few degrees. Anyway, we decided that we would find a cheap hotel and get out of our traveling clothes and cool off before doing any sightseeing. Luckily there were three hotels (all listed in our guidebooks, as reasonable) nearby, so I went and checked two of them out. The hotel Riad won the contest by being the friendliest (talk to Abdullah), not to mention giving us the best rate. We parked the bikes in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the hotel, unpacked everything, and spent the next few hours re-hydrating and relaxing in the hotel. It is really amazing, the moment you got out of the sun into the hotel the temperature dropped what seemed like 20C (actually only 10). Manuela actually caught a cold!

Later in the early evening, sufıcıently recovered, we headed the couple of hundred meters to the park where the water wheel(s) where. The park was pretty packed, no real surprise with this heat. It was shady and there was plenty of water all around so it was very cool. The wheel(s) themselves were really fascinating. It is large around 20 meters or so, and is very noisy. It moves water from the river to an aqueduct which supplied water to the town, and it is still operational! Another one across the way wasn't turning, but the one was enough. There are apparently quite a large number of these things here. We watched it go around and around for a while, and interestingly enough, it sometime almost stopped before getting going again. I guess the water flow varied. We found it so interesting that we decided to go and see a couple of others nearby, so we walked 2km along the river to another area where there were a couple of these things still running. These were only decorative and were hidden behind a row of riverside restaurants. We went in and had a quick look, without buying anything (the waiter hovering nearby). Here there is one large one like the one in the central park, but additionally there are two smaller ones next to it. All together they made quite a racket, and an impression. The pieces of the aqueduct can still be seen, and when you consider they have been around nearly 2000 years it is pretty impressive. What interested us the most is the fact that they made of wood, and they can be modified to carry more or less water by adding additional "scoops". Francesco and I speculated that, the central log on which the wheels turn, doesn't wear down because it is constantly wet. Maybe, maybe not.
We spent the following day just lounging about the hotel and doing the odd errand or two, before heading off to the north and the Sal-adin castle, while Francesco and Manuela waited for a phone call and an appointment to see someone in Allepo. So we said our goodbyes and agreed that we would probably see each other again in Ankara. We headed towards Latakia and got to the castle fairly early, had lunch and decided to continue to the border. We didn't bother seeing the castle from the inside. We did however have a good look from across the way where there is a great vantage point. The castle is pretty much gone, and only the grounds are clearly visible, parts of some buildings stand but not very much. The most impressive thing was the needle where two lanes have been carved into the mountain leaving the wall of the castle separate from the other side. (pictures will be posted soon..).

From here we headed to the border, and spend a while looking for a cheap hotel or camping. The tourist season hadn't really started so most of the places where closed, and those that were open wanted too much money. So we decided to go into Turkey. This was an un-usual decision for us since we usually like to go across borders early in the morning and not late in the afternoon (it was 17:00 already). The border post on both sides was virtually deserted, and all the paperwork was handled quickly and very easily, both getting out and in. Before we knew it we were in Turkey! We decided to head to the only campground we were aware of in Adana, which was another 280km away! The ride turned out to be excruciatingly long. First we were delayed by road building projects, apparently they are building a new "super-highway" towards the border. After that we had a flat just before sundown. I quickly got this fixed, but as soon as we got started again, and headed up over the mountains towards the coast the wind hit us really hard. The next 2 hours or so, we were constantly battling a very strong and gusting wind as we made our way over the mountains in the twighlight of early evening. As we looked out over the plains we caught sight of fires burning everywhere as they were burning the fields after having harvested. In the dark it looked like something out of Dantes Inferno. Very impressive. Luckily we didn't have to drive through any of the smoke.
The area near the coast is very industrialized and had lots of heavy traffic, so we headed for the Toll road. This at least gave us a nice clear road and a lot less traffic. In Adana, we spent an hour looking for the camping. No-one we asked had heard of one, and we just couldn't find it, so around midnight we gave up and headed for a cheap hotel. We pretty much took the first one we found (ok, second one, the first wanted 60USD, the second, 40TKY around 32USD), and went straight to bed. The bikes, were parked on the sidewalk in front of the hotel watched over by the staff. In the morning, everything was still there, and we got going pretty early. I got a pretty good surprise as I paid. Apparently the room went for 25TKY not the 40TKY the other person had wanted the night before. This is the first time that they have charged me less than agreed upon. The room wasn't worth more anyway!
We headed out of town in the direction of Ankara. On the way we were stopped by the police, for no apparent reason. They (3 of them) talked excitedly among themselves, before coming over and posing for a picture in front of our bikes, after which they let us go. Pretty funny actually. My bike was giving me problems, leaking oil all over the bottom part of my left leg. So we decided to go to Aksaray where there was a very nice camping and it wasn't too far away. There I let the bike cool off before trying to tighten the engine stud which has been loose since Morocco. Unfortunately afterwards, I started the engine and oil was still dripping out. We then decided to stay an extra day and I would try and fix the thing permanently by inserting the heli-coil which we had gotten from home back in Egypt. As it was late, we decided to do the work in the morning and enjoy the rest of the day relaxing in this very nice camping, which happened to be totally deserted. It even had a kitchen area with gas stoves for cooking, what luxury.

The next morning, I took the cylinder apart and quickly determined that the problem was the gasket. The cylinder gasket had blown and was the cause of the oil leak, the engine stud was still loose, so I decided to try and remove it, to see if I could do the heli-coil here. Once I got it out, I found that part of the threads were stripped, so I decided to skip the heli-coil and just clean up the threads, as I figured I would need a new stud before doing a heli-coil. I put the whole thing together and the oil leak problem was gone, the valve issue resulting from the loose stud would have to be solved in Ankara. The next day we made it to Ankara without any further problems. Ankara is a large city, build partly on and between hills. We spent a fustrating couple of hours looking for accommodations. First, the camping which we knew about was no longer open. An alternative wasn't very appealing as it had no showers and didn't look very secure. So we headed back into town to find a tourist office, which turned out to be more difficult than predicted, in the end we tried a couple of hotels and settled for the most reasonable one, with a good spot for parking the bikes.
The following day (Friday) we started the visa quest, as we wanted to get something started before the weekend. First up was the Azerbaijan consulate. Here we found out that we needed a "recommendation" from our embassy and we had to pay 40USD per person at a local bank. So off we went. In order to speed it up we decided to take taxis this first day as we didn't really want to waste the time looking for everything ourselves. This really turned out to be a good (if expensive) idea. In the end we managed everything fairly quickly, unfortunately the embassies close at 12:00 so we would have to return on Monday to submit our paperwork. We rewarded ourselves with a movie and some fast food, and bought some detailed maps, so that we could find our own way around town. On Saturday we decided to go by the embassy on the off chance that they might be open, unfortunately they weren't. It wasn't a total loss as we spent the next couple of hours riding around getting to know the area and finding other embassies which we would need.
The rest of the weekend, was spent relaxing and watching some more movies, as well as preparing for the coming week, by doing some last minute research. Early on Monday we submitted our paperwork and were told to return to pick up our passports (with visa) on Wednesday. A complete report of the visa quest will be posted on our "main" pages soon. The rest of the week was spent pretty much between embassies, internet, movie theaters, shops and hotel (updating the www.fernweh.ch pages).
More coming soon...