Azerbaijan? In that? Really?

How much do you know about Azerbaijan? How about Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, Monte Negro, Macedonia or Greece?
What do you imagine driving there would be like?
My friend and I decided to find out. Some 10,000 kilometers, there and back. In a 13 year old renault clio. Crazy? No argument from me! 🙂
We were looking for an adventure and we got more than we expected!
At one point we found ourselves in a van full of people we don’t know, whose language we don’t speak, with no idea where we are or where we’re going. And getting in that van was our best option. But they turned out to be great! (that’s the part titled “the incredible part”, in case you’re not interested in the rest of the story)

Introduction

The car that we used on this trip was a 2002 Renault Clio, 1.5 dCi (yes, that is me doing that in the video and that is the exact car that we used). Since I bought it, some 8 months before the trip, the most I did without a major break down was 3,000 km. It was a 10,000+ km trip.

Preparations

We kept research and preparations at a minimum. We found out which documents we needed, which parts of which country were off limits and did a quick google search of must see places.
We only needed visas for Azerbaijan and Turkey. The turkish visa was very easy to obtain, you just go online, fill out a form, pay a fee and get a PDF by email shortly after you submit the request. We had to jump through some hoops to get the azeri one though. We had to get an invitation letter and submit a route of our journey for approval. We actually had to resubmit that because the original route passed through Nagorno-Karabakh, a region which is the center of a long standing dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan (it is possible to enter the region but if you do so you will not be granted access to the rest of Azerbaijan). The whole route thing was quite pointless, though, since we were going to make our actual route up as we went along. Plans hinder inspiration and freedom.
So, armed with just the crucial information and a keen spirit we were on our way, looking forward to experiencing something new.

It started off slow

The first couple of days didn’t hold much excitement. We were still close to home and things were familiar. In fact, we didn’t even leave Croatia on the first day.
We spent the night at my dad’s ex girlfriend’s where we picked up a new “passenger” – Gargamel.
Day two was Serbia. Again, not much was new. I had been to Serbia twice before. I have never had an unpleasant experience there even though war raged between our countries in the 90’s.
In east Serbia, near Pirot, we got pulled over by the police for improper overtaking. After scaring us with talk of a fine, they let us off with a warning. Good guy cops. 🙂
Next we reached Bulgaria. Still familiar but the scent of adventure was getting thicker. We no longer spoke the language but english got us by. We found a hostel and met a couple of interesting people. One of them assumed my friend and I were a couple and we never corrected him, we found it quite amusing. In fact, we kept letting people assume so for the rest of the trip which turned out to be quite useful, as you’ll see later.

The first time I visited Bulgaria I took the highway straight across the country (which I very rarely do because I find highways incredibly boring) so this time felt as if I was there for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised by the scenery which had a lot more to offer than the one by the highway. I was unpleasantly surprised by the state of the road. It was one of the worst stretches of road I’ve ever seen. And that says a lot because I’ve seen all kinds of roads all over the world! Unfortunately, I was too focused on trying not to knock parts off of my car to stop and take pictures when it got really bad. Here’s a picture of it while it was still quite good.

If I call that good you can imagine what the bad part was like. Annoying, but we didn’t let that get our spirits down. Besides, we were ready for this when we decided not to take main roads but explore the less used ones. In a way, it added to the sense of adventure.
We were getting close to Turkey and we were getting excited. I had been to Istanbul once before but that was only for half a day, between flights, so I didn’t get a chance to explore much. On top of the time restriction, that day was some sort of holiday, even the bazaar was closed, so I didn’t get to feel the “Istanbul vibe”.

Turkey

Crossing the border went smoothly. Well, for us it did. For the poor truck drivers going into Bulgaria, not so much. Miles and miles and miles of trucks waiting in line. Meanwhile, we were on our way. We still didn’t want to take the highway, we opted for local roads instead. But local roads here were not what we were used to. With two lanes in each direction and a barrier in the middle, they looked much more like what we knew as highways. So, at this pace, we were going to get to Istanbul tonight.

Soon after the border we got our first taste of Turkey, in Edirne.

Though we were technically still in Europe, this was not the Europe we knew. Buildings were different, people were different, we were far from home. And it was beautiful. Now our trip had really started, things were new and exciting!
We moved on.
Istanbul. By car. Whenever I heard anybody talk about Istanbul, one of the first things they would all say was that the traffic was insane. And now I was driving there. Not only that, I had been driving all day and was getting quite tired. So, I was a little anxious. Until I got there. Once I did, I didn’t merely adopt their way of driving, I found myself in it! It made sense, that was how I would drive all the time if I hadn’t been “tamed” by my society. Less obeying rules, more common sense and it works! Mind you, at that point I thought their way of driving was extreme. I had not been to Azerbaijan yet. We’ll get to that. Up to that point that was the wildest traffic I had ever experienced and I loved it! Now it was time to find a hotel. The sat nav kept failing and we couldn’t get decent WiFi signal anywhere. We tried to follow the sat nav and ended up in some weird places. The very center of Istanbul, the old city. A maze of very narrow, extremely steep streets, people walking, yelling, cars coming out of nowhere and us in the middle of all that commotion, very much lost. At one point we ended up driving on a square. Yeah, I know. I would have thought that couldn’t happen by accident too. But, apparently it can. 🙂 At another point we reached spikes in the road (the kind that let you go one way but not the other) and, since it was dark, I couldn’t see for sure whether they were there to keep me from going forward or going back once I crossed them. I was too tired to get out of the car and check. In fact, I was too tired to even care. They kinda looked like they were safe to cross so we did. We were fine, but there was no going back now. More streets barely wide enough to pass through. Finally, we managed to find a hotel. It wasn’t cheap but we didn’t care, we were done driving for the day.
The next day we bought a Turkish sim card so we would have internet when we needed it.
Now, you don’t need me to tell you that Istanbul is a beautiful city. So I won’t. You all know the sites and I won’t talk about those.

I will mention this guy, though, since I consider him to be a site and you probably won’t find him in any guide. He has a small stove in the back of his busted up car and he sells tea. And I think he’s great! “What, no job for me? F**k you, I’ll invent a job for me!”. Gotta admire the spirit!

When you go to Istanbul, and I do encourage you to do so, be prepared for a few things. People will constantly offer you stuff, every step you make. It’s best to ignore them. If you stop to talk to them but choose not to buy whatever it is they’re selling, they will likely change their tone from sweet to furious and curse you out in their language. I don’t think they mean anything by it, though, that’s just something they do so don’t take it to heart. If you do want to buy something, remember the prices are negotiable. Be careful when sitting down to eat or drink something. Even if you check the prices in advance the final price is still going to be more than what you expected. Because there’s a tax. Or service costs money. Or you unknowingly agreed to purchase an invisible monkey (don’t take everything I say literally, please!). Whatever, you owe them more than you expected. They know you’re not going to ruin your vacation by getting into a dispute over a few euro. I don’t know what kind of mechanisms they have in place to deal with the few people that would but finding out didn’t really seem worth it, so meh. Still, all those little negative things pale in comparison to all the nice stuff, so don’t even give them a second thought.

Next stop – Pamukkale. If it had not been one of the must see things our elementary search came up with, we would have missed it. It really doesn’t look like much from far away, just a white spot on a mountain.

But it’s quite something once you get there.

We got up early to go up to the pools so there were hardly any people there and we had the whole thing to ourselves! We soon found out that the guards have whistles and are not afraid to use them! So we came down from the slope. I had seen photos of the pools before but what I didn’t know before getting there is that there’s more to the place than just the pools, there’s a whole ancient city beyond them spreading over a large area. Also, some great places to be a lizard. 🙂

Antalya. Cute. Not much happened there. We did see the worlds most conspicuos traffic light.

Oh, and a break fast room.

Some more beautiful scenery and then a whole bunch of nothing. Flat as long as the eye can see. And straight road. Textbook monotony.

But, that too ended and we reached Cappadocia.

Breathtaking! It’s hard to believe it’s even real, it looks like something straight out of a fairy tale.

When it came time to look for a hotel we decided to get one with a cave room. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds it is – a room carved in stone.

You know, it’s one of those things. It’s unique and you have to try it. And it was one of the most comfortable rooms ever (no noise, no unwanted light)!

Another thing you have to do when you’re there is take a hot air balloon ride. It’s expensive as hell but it’s memorable as hell too so…

Another great thing are the underground cities. Well, I say cities, we only went to one. A guide offered us his services at the entrance but we declined. It turned out the thing was way bigger than we expected and there are a lot of things a guide can tell you about it. But we lingered close to a couple that got a guide so we got the stories for free. 🙂 It’s really quite impressive, you should google it. In fact, you should google a lot of what I mention.

It was a lot to take in. We were very satisfied with our trip so far. But there was a log way yet to go. And we decided to make it a few hundred kilometers longer. Well, when I say “we decided” I mean I insisted and she let me have my way.

What was so important that I just had to go out of my way to see? Well, there’s a city named Batman and I wanted a picture there. That’s it. Well worth the extra miles in my book. 🙂

Tourism is not a thing this far east. Don’t take this to mean they don’t treat tourists well. On the contrary, they were all extremely nice. For example, in one hotel, the guy realized he couldn’t explain that we can have breakfast with words, so he walked us over to the restaurant. And we were some 15 minutes late for breakfast too so they brought food back just for us. They didn’t have to, they genuinely cared about us not being hungry! We were amazed by how friendly everybody in the country was, where ever we went. So, when I say tourism in not a thing, what I mean is that the area isn’t tourism oriented. There are no tourist attractions, only industrial cities.

But te scenery is amazing. It’s like you’re driving between different planets!

It kept changing all the time and never seized to amaze! The roads were getting worse, though, and they were beginning to take their toll on the car, but we were still ok. We reached Agri. Remember how we got in the habit of letting people believe we were a couple? Well, we got to the hotel and the guy at reception went out his way to bypass the language barrier in order to find out whether we were married. Sure. We later found out that the reason he asked was he wouldn’t have given us a double room had we said we weren’t! Kinda reminds me of how americans ask people whether they’re terrorists at the border. He didn’t ask for any proof. I guess the point of asking is that now it’s on us and we’re the ones going to hell, not him.

The incredible part

We were at the far east of the country and started making our way north, to Georgia. Once again, when given a choice, we took the scenic route. Literally the road less traveled. 🙂 Into the mountains. No asphalt. No traffic. No cell phone coverage. Not a trace of civilization in site. It was amazing!

But then we reached a tricky part. It looked bad but at that point we had been driving for hours so I could either go for it or spending the rest of the day going back to where we started from that morning.

Now, I *am* a very good driver. Once, in Mongolia, I saved the day by getting the van out of mud when the guide had given up hope ( there’s a great story behind that but that was a whole different trip and I’ll tell you all about that when I tell that story). But all the tricks and techniques weren’t enough here. The mud was too soft and we were stranded.

So here we are, in the middle of nowhere. We haven’t seen or heard another car since we started this morning. In the midst of some desperate attempts to dig the car out using empty cans (it sounds even more retarded than it actually was) a van aproaches. A guy and a bunch of women get out. Hamalihamalihamali. -english? Hamalihamali. Oh… A lot of hand waving, pushing the car, pulling the car, more futile attempts at communication. Traktor? (croatian and, apparently, Turkish for tractor) Aaa, traktor! Hamalihamali, wave wave, we’re in the van with them and they’re taking us somewhere. Everybody is talking all the time, god only knows what they’re saying. At one point the guy mentions hashish. In the back, the women are dressing my friend in a skirt (she was wearing shorts). The guy offers me a cigarette. Suddenly, the van stops. The guy gets out, I follow. He lifts the hood, apparently there’s some kind of problem. He is still talking and I still have no idea what he’s saying. After a while we get back in the van and it starts again so we continue. He’s showing off his dvd player, turning the volume way up. Everybody seems to be in a great mood so I’m beginning to relax. I’m still a long way from calm though, I just don’t have “so, this is how I die” echoing in my head all the time. He motions me to extend my arm. I do, he takes my pinky with his pinky and now we’re doing a weird dance! It’s so bizarre it hardly even feels real any more! The van is filled with laughter and I find myself joining in. After a while we reach a big tent used for housing workers, there’s heavy machinery outside. The guy gets out and talks to one of the workers. Hamalihamali turisti (tourists) hamali traktor. They wave us out of the van so we get out. The van people are leaving. We’re saying goodbye, I offer the guy some money, he refuses, I give him 50 monopoly money anyway (when referring to various local currencies as monopoly money I’m going for playful, not disrespectful, I hope I’m not coming across as a jerk). He’s happy, kissing me. They leave and a worker takes us to a hose to get washed up and then into the tent. So, now we’re in this tent and restlessness is creeping over me again, I feel very vulnerable, I imagine she feels even worse.

The worker makes us coffee, offers us food, clothes, cigarettes. It starts to rain so other workers begin to gather, play cards, have fun. After a while we get calmer, reckoning that if something bad was going to happen it would have happened by now and that the rifle hanging on the wall was for chasing away bears, not robbing tourists. The tractor comes, we’re heading towards the car. The man offers us cigarettes, takes some candy bars out of a compartment and gives them to us. We hook up the chain and clio is out in a moment. We say goodbye, give the man 100 money, he also kisses me.

That was intense! It takes a lot out of you. You put a lot of effort into trying to interpret the message they’re trying to convey based on their motions and expressions alone because none of the words they’re saying mean anything to you and it drains a lot of energy. Thoughts of Turkish troops impaling people on stakes in the middle ages weasel their way into your mind so you have to engage you rational side to chase them away. You’re at the mercy of strangers and that’s stressful. Naturally, once we were on the move again we felt incredibly relieved. Little did we know the day was far from over.

Some kilometers later, in the next mountain, clio breaks down. So, I’m messing around under the hood, pretending I’m a mechanic, tinkering with stuff, but nothing happens. Some people stop, they tinker along side me, nobody has any idea what they’re doing. One of them get’s the idea we should try to push start it. They didn’t tell me about it, though. Well, not in words I understood, anyway. So they just started pushing the car, they turned it around and one guy got in to start the car. So now I’m standing in the middle of the road with some guy driving away in my car with my friend, phone and documents. He gave up a couple of hundred meters down the road and I caught up with them. The guy knows 5 words of English. Those and a lot of waving and onomatopoeia  – he’s Murat kamijondzij (truck driver), he lives in the village down the road, behind the mosque, his dad is home and we are to go there and he’ll meet us there after he comes back from the city, he has stuff to do there. Either that or he’s trying to sell us a nuclear war head, we can’t really tell for sure. But we push the car down the road and now we’re rolling downhill towards his place while he goes the other way.

The village is five houses and a mosque, no store, no bar, no asphalt, nothing. We get to the village, reach a saddle and we can’t go on.

We came to a halt at an entrance to a yard. A woman comes out, hamalihamali, she helps us push the car to the other side of the road where it’s in nobody’s way. Murat kamijondzij? She takes us across a meadow into a yard and walks away. There are some girls, women and kids there. Murat kamijondzij? They’re waving us into the house, bringing out food and tea. We’re trying to communicate the whole time, not speaking a word of Turkish and them not speaking a word of English. But we’re not letting that stop us, we’re talking. The old man’s phone rings, we assume it’s Murat letting him know who we are and why we’re there. A crew gathers, we’re going to go push the car into the yard. For the rest of the day the old man keeps asking us questions, we answer, nobody knows what the other is saying. I think he asked me to sell clio to him at one point but then again, maybe not… :shrug: But we keep trying. And we drink tons of tea out of those adorable little glasses. As soon as you’re nearly finished, a girl pops up, takes your glass, spills what little is left in it and pours a fresh one. Then we go out for a while, sit, drink tea and smoke. I rarely smoke but if this was not the right time to do it, I don’t know what would be. When it got dark we went inside to watch football. I have no interest in the game, I can barely keep my eyes open, but at least while the game is on I don’t have to communicate. Not that I don’t want to, it’s just that it’s pointless, we’re not getting anything across and all we’re doing is wasting a lot of energy. A cute little girl takes our picture so we take one with her. Around 10pm Murat returns, we barbecue. In the middle of the living room, on the carpets! A bunch of chicken, peppers, tomatoes. Very tasty! There’s talk about the old man not having had a girlfriend since his wife left him and went to Istanbul. We sincerely hope he’s not trying to buy my friend. After food, we make arrangements for them to tow clio to a mechanic (for 300 money) in the morning and we go to bed. Again, maybe we’re going on an opium run in the morning, not to a mechanic.

But in the morning clio starts and we can be on our way. We say our goodbyes, thank them. They won’t hear of taking any money. We get to the main road and clio dies again. My superhuman mechanics skills narrow the problem down to the fuel pump. Murat’s friend comes along with his truck. Hamalihamali wave wave, they’ll take us to the nearest civilization for 100 money (not the bigger city we talked about with Murat the night before). So they’re towing us.

To a workshop which… I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. Let’s just say it does not fill you with confidence. I take the mechanic to the back seat, lift it up and point at the fuel pump.

He takes it off, takes it apart, shows me a bunch of filth. Compressor, 5 minutes, the car is up and running again. While that is going on, we’re drinking tea by a stove. How much? 30 money. The guy who towed us pays the bill, the mechanic takes the 30, looks at it and gives 10 back. But we’re not done. They close the windows, bring out the miniwash, brushes, soap and the car soon looks better than new. No charge for the wash. Greetings, thanks. Now we get some food. They take us to a local diner and get us some kind of broth, nothing like anything we’re used to but very tasty. We go to the ATM. 150 for the tow, repairs and the food. He takes the 150, looks at it and hands 10 back. Must be a local custom. They warn us not to go over the mountain and, if we are stopped by police, not to leave the car no matter what. Maybe. I don’t know. That or robbers will kill us in the mountain. Greetings, thanks. We turn the sat nav off and go by road signs avoiding gravel roads at all costs. Because maybe robbers. Relief upon crossing the border, hot shower and 14 hours in bed.

We wanted adventure and we sure did get it! The experience was incredible! And the people were amazing! Everybody did their best to help us, got us out of trouble, fed and housed us (without accepting any money in return) and made sure we were fed and had everything we needed before we went on. Would you or anybody you know do as much for a complete stranger? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Georgia

A man brutally nailed to a cross welcomed us to the country. There was an aura of Russia in the air. It’s probably the cars more than anything else, a bunch of Ladas and GAZ (you’ll have a chance to read more about those when I cover our trip across Russia, St. Petersburg to Vladivostok).

The weather was bad but we didn’t mind.

The roads were pretty bad and that was beginning to be a problem because the car had taken a lot of abuse lately and it was becoming uncomfortable and borderline dangerous to drive.

A lot of roads were concrete instead of asphalt. 

When we reached Tbilisi we tried to find a shop where we could replace our suspension but it turned out to be more difficult than we expected. In fact, it seemed there was no way to get it done without waiting for a couple of days so we moved on. Tbilisi seemed interesting, we’d be back to check it out. But now we were going east. To Lagodekhi. We came in the evening and found a place to stay. They spoke english which was a pleasant change, we were thrilled to be able to communicate to people again! The border was close and we were there next morning.

Azerbaijan. Just about as exotic as it gets.

They separated us at the border, only the driver goes with the car and everybody else crosses the border on foot. So I got to the customs officer and he told me I need to pay a deposit to enter the country with my car. Around three hundred dollars. He sad not to  worry, I’d get it all back when I leave. He asked about the age of the car, looked at the documents. Then he said it would be closer to four. Thousand. Wait, what? You said 300! No, I said 3000 but it will be closer to 4. He had said hundred but that didn’t matter now. The car was worth $2000, I wasn’t paying a $4000 deposit for it! They were kind enough to get my friend back since she had already crossed the border on foot and we went back to the guest house. We told the owner what had happened. He said we could leave clio there and he’d take us back to the border in his car, we can take a taxi to the first town and take the bus to Baku from there. And that’s what we did. He wouldn’t take money for driving us.
As a result of all this shenanigans she managed to enter Azerbaijan twice on a single entry visa. Life achievement unlocked! 🙂

Azerbaijan

So we’re in Azerbaijan! Sweet! 🙂 We took a taxi to Belokan. An old Lada. My choice. Walked right pass a Mercedes to get to it too!

So we get to the bus station. Again, no English so we have to be creative. After this trip we can no longer lose at a game of charades! 🙂 They have a great way of letting you know the price of something – they take out actual money and show it to you. We just got into the country so we needed the latest brand of monopoly money. We went to find an ATM and found one soon. But there were, and I’m not exaggerating, at least 20 people crowded around it. But that seemed to be the only ATM in town so I went to stand in line. When the people saw me holding a card they made way for me and let me through to the machine. To this day I don’t know what that was about. Why were they standing there? So I got to the machine and got some money. I decided to take just enough for the bus because this whole situation was very fishy and I was afraid to get more. I could imagine myself stepping out of that line with just my left sock, everything else stripped away by skillful pickpockets. Once again, I was being too paranoid and the people there had no malicious intentions whatsoever. So we got on the bus. The in-drive entertainment was an azeri tv show, probably quite funny to someone who understood it. By the time we got to Baku it was late and quite cold and windy. And we were tired. We wandered around for a bit getting more annoyed by the cold every minute. Finally, we found a hotel. It was named “komfort inn” and had four stars so we were afraid to even ask about the price.

But we were so worn out we did anyway. It turned out to be not so bad. The four stars were unmerited, though. Not that it mattered. But when we wanted a towel we had to call the front desk, try to explain what we needed, hang up, go online and google how you say towel in Russian, call back and repeat the magic word.

We walked to the center and found a car rental. I was hoping I could rent a Volga or something similar but they didn’t have anything like that so I had to settle for a Nissan. They wanted a 300 money deposit. I said I had 50 and they said ok. So we went to get the car. On the outside it looked decent enough. I sniggered at the crochet seat covers, I had never seen that before.

I got in and the inside looked quite good. Until I looked down to find that the gear lever was missing and in it’s place was the dreaded little knob you can only push between P, D, N and R. Damn. But ok, I’ll make do. Now, remember how I talked about Istanbul traffic being hectic? It’s a picnic compared to Baku! Lines dividing lanes are a suggestion at best, by no means a rule (that is, where there are lines, a lot of the time there aren’t any at all). Turn signals are merely a decoration. If there’s enough room for you to fit your car between two other you are expected to do so thus creating a lane. Roundabouts are insane, there’s no priority, everybody drives at the same time! People will push you out of your lane. They will cut in front of you. But, there’s an up side: you can do the same, nobody minds! If you have some skill you can have a lot of fun!

As for the city itself, it’s a strange combination of luxury and poverty. On one hand, you have the flaming tower, a bunch of other modern buildings, lights everywhere, curbs made of granite instead of concrete.

On the other hand, you have ruins and unpaved roads, just a few kilometers from the center. You have big highways with high, richly lit, luxurious walls around them and you have slums just behind those walls. You have luxury cars in the city and busted old ladas everywhere else.

Our quick search of must see sites in Azerbaijan came up with Gobustan. It’s some 50 km south of Baku but we had a car so that was not a problem.

We were not disappointed! However, even though we had a great time there, I can’t tell you much about the place, it’s just beautiful nature all around you. I found an inspiring little fig tree, it would not take no for an answer.

 On our way back we parked by the beach and had lunch in the car. Soon a police car came. Their interest in us seemed more personal than professional, they were fascinated to hear where we were from. We chatted a little and they went away. But they came back after a while, this time with an even more personal interest – they asked her for her number! No, they didn’t arrest us when she wouldn’t give it to them. 🙂

We stayed at the same hotel all 3 nights we were there. We looked for another one for a bit but since this one had free parking and great breakfast, we just stuck with it. Speaking of hotels, we visited the Hyat hotel in the flaming towers, they let us go up to the viewpoint, chatted with us, gave us pointers about the city and generally treated us as if we were one of the “royalty” that could afford to stay at a place like this, although we so aparently were not.

We returned the car and were set to go back to Georgia. We found out when our bus was leaving but we couldn’t find out where it left from. The bus station is huge. There was nobody to ask, no information office or anything of the sort. We were on the far end of the station looking at buses when a man asked us where we were going. No english. He then walked us all the way to our terminal which was quite a walk. Asked for nothing in return. The bus left 25 minutes late, the same as when we were coming. Also, both buses had broken windshields.

Georgia again

One long bus drive and a short Lada drive later we were back in Georgia. The taxi drivers are quite aggressive in their approach, a bunch of them literally surround you as soon as you get off the bus and start pulling you. Not in a malicious way, though, once I warned one of them not to touch me he apologized and they all backed up a little. They’re just really eager to get the fare. We took another taxi to the guest house. The driver got lost, stopped to ask for directions and then his car wouldn’t start so we waited for his colleague. We got to the guesthouse and ordered dinner. They grow their own food and make their own vine so it was quite a treat. We met a nice couple there and drank and talked the evening away. Next morning we rented a couple of horses and a guide to go see the national park. Time well spent! The route was quite demanding which to me translates to quite fun. You get a bit of a rush when the horse goes down several meters of almost vertical slope. At the end of the day the guide asked us to join him and his friends for a beer. I’m not sure whether it’s something they usually do or the fact that we tipped him had something to do with it. We accepted and he soon came back with enough beer to get 10 people drunk, and some food. We’re used to beer having 5-6% alcohol. Their beer had 12! And I must say it was good. When I asked whether they had rakija in Georgia at first they didn’t know what I meant but they soon figured it out and brought a small bottle of chacha, their version of rakija. For those of you who don’t know what either of those are, think vodka and you’re close. I’m confident you could run your car on the stuff they had in that bottle! But, being from the Balkans, we put our brave faces on and drank it without flinching. Screaming on the inside, of course.

Tbilisi is adorable!

But the first thing we had to do was get new shock absorbers. Tbilisi was her last stop because she’s an adult and had to get back to work. I decided I’d stay as long as it took to get the car fixed. Well, it was hardly a decision, it’s not like I had much choice. I wouldn’t have made it to a next big city. So we went to the part of town that could have what we need (we found out about it from the couple in Lagodekhi). We pulled up in front of a little shop and I got out to ask about getting the parts. The guy I asked didn’t speak english so he waved over another guy. I explained what I needed and he told me to follow him. To one shop, then another and another and another… after a lot of shops we got back to the car, he got in with us and took us to a shop across town. Nobody had parts for a clio, not even the Renault store. Finally we went looking for used parts. We managed to find a couple of shock absorbers and now we needed a mechanic to install them. Our “guide” was still with us and took us to a shop. Once he made sure we were set and the repairs would get done he said he was sorry he didn’t have time to stick around any longer. He shook my hand and started turning away, I had to hold on to his hand to stop him so I could give him some money. He had spent hours with us without even thinking about asking for anything in return! I began to feel like there was something wrong with me and the way I perceive the world. My brain is trained to look for ulterior motives and suspect foul play and here all these wonderful people were, doing nice things for strangers just for the sake of being nice. I felt bad because I had a hard time accepting the notion that people were genuinely nice and kept looking for the catch. But there didn’t seem to be one. Just people helping people regardless of nationality or creed. It’s quite an exceptional thing to experience!

Once the car was fixed we found a hostel, got settled and went into the city. The night view of the city from the cable car and the fortress was beautiful. It was beautiful the next day too.

We regressed into childhood when we took the funicular up to the amusement park. Back in the city, the level of attention they put into providing you with a perfect hookah experience was amazing.

They had a bar named KGB and their slogan was “still watching you”. Cute 🙂

There was a safe place to go out.

I know this is just a movie poster, but to me it was a sight.

All good things come to an end and it was time for me to take her to the airport. The sat nav took us to the airport and she left. I had to get back to the hostel. The catch was that the sat nav was on her phone, mine didn’t have the right map so I had to guess my way back. I did it surprisingly smoothly. Next morning I was on my way. The lady who ran the hostel was nowhere to be found so I left the money and key on her desk and left. I hope it was still there when she came in. I chose a different route from the one we used when coming. Through Batumi. I was not prepared for what I saw, I expected… well, less. Go google Batumi, you’ll be surprised too!

And there’s a not-in-the-guidebook story too. When you go to the gas station they put a wooden wedge under your wheel and you drive up on it so that you can fit more fuel in your tank!

They do this here because the border is very near and fuel prices are around half of what they are in Turkey so you want to buy as much as you can.

The border was a bit of a drag. They let me through one point and made me go back once I got to the next one. But it wasn’t all that bad. And nobody noticed the gun on my passenger seat. Not a real gun, of course, I collect lighters (I have hundreds of them, there are some really cool ones) and this one was a Walther ppk replica.

It’s looks enough like the real thing to merit a closer look but nobody was interested.

Turkey, Greece, Macedonia

I was now driving along the black sea enjoying the view. Once the darkness thickened the experience became surreal. Empty road, fifth gear, 2000rpm, a lightning storm over the open sea, lights of a city glimmering in the distance and Enigma, the car dense with sound.
I was getting tired and started looking for a place to stay. After quite a while I found a place by the road, behind a gas station. I wasn’t ready for that either. The place was beautiful, it had fancy bungalows with fireplaces and cute paths with wooden bridges, very fairy tale like. I loved the restaurant too, instead of cutting down a tree they built the restaurant around the tree and encased it in glass.

On the road again. I stopped to get my wheels balanced and got tea while I waited. I stopped to get my fuel filter changed and got coffee. If I ever have a business of my own I’m adopting their policy and giving out free tea/coffee as well, it’s a really nice gesture. There was a bit of a fuss with the filter, it included a lot of pointing and people leading me to stores. Turns out there are two types of fuel filters for a 1.5 dCi, one with a hole for fitting a sensor and one without it. I needed the one without the hole and nobody had that one. Finally, they took me to a workshop where they used duct tape to fit the hole model to my car. Didn’t work, fuel was leaking. But I appreciate the effort! Once they saw that wouldn’t work they went looking again and found the part I needed.
I went through Ankara to Istanbul. This time the traffic that seemed so aggressive last time I was here seemed quite tame. I didn’t want to go back the same way we came so I decided to go through Greece.

At the border they made me take my car to get x-rayed! I don’t know what they were looking for but apparently it wasn’t guns since my Walther was sitting comfortably on the passenger seat while they did the scan. Maybe they don’t even have an x-ray, maybe they just do all that for show. 🙂

Waking up in Greece felt good, I could imagine guitars playing and gods pouring vine from the clouds.
There’s a town named Drama.

A couple of hitchhikers joined me. Polish girls but they spoke English well so that was fun.
They have a strange toll system, booths appear several times along the same road and you pay at each of them, there are not entry and exit booths, no tickets.
I didn’t make any big stops in Macedonia.

Kosovo

I had never been to Kosovo before. I reached the border and they sent me to buy car insurance. Never mind the fact my car is insured, I had to buy their insurance as well. The customs officer asked me where I was going and where I was coming from. The answer surprised him to say the least! Azerbaijan? In a renault clio? Wow! (he made that head motion that means “you’re f**g crazy!”) But why Azerbaijan? I shrugged and smiled. What, you wanted to go somewhere nobody goes? I said yeah and he said way to go. While I was getting the insurance sorted the police officer was flipping through my passport and when I came back he said I had been to many countries and asked when I was going to get married. They were very friendly so my first impression of the country was a good one. My second impression was even better. They had a mountain so high that spring couldn’t reach the top even though it was almost May! Needles to say the view from the saddle was amazing! They had a road sign I still don’t really know how to interpret, it has a picture of a tank on it. And another which I don’t even know what the picture was!

I had to go see Prizren because it’s mentioned in a song and then Pristina because it’s the capital. Fun fact, they have a street named Bill Clinton Boulevard in Priština.

There’s also a statue of the man.
I got there and asked about a room in Croatian. Kosovo was part of Serbia until 2008 so I assumed they would speak Serbian (which is almost identical to Croatian). But they asked me to speak English. I was confused. The hotel was very expensive so I moved on and the same thing happened again in the next one. So, it was not a weird coincidence, they either didn’t know or didn’t want to speak Serbian. The guy at the third place spoke it. I didn’t ask about others not speaking it. The question of not knowing vs. not wanting to speak was answered the next morning when I picked up a hitchhiker who was very keen on communicating even though he only spoke Albanian.

There’s a town named Ćuška (slap) in the west of the country.
A very long ascend takes you to the border with Monte Negro.

Monte Negro

Where are you going? -Home. Why do that? Didn’t see that coming from a cop at a border crossing. 🙂 He made my day!
I picked up another hitchhiker and we sat down to have lunch together. It turned out he had been in the war. The war with Croatia. So, from my point of view, he was on the wrong side. It was interesting to hear him speak. He told me a story about how he once bought a Croatian boy from Serbian troops for a box of booze so he could let him go. In case you’re confused, Monte Negro had not yet separated from Serbia at the time of the war. He said he feared noone because his path was clean and his conscience was clear. Still, he said going to war was the worst mistake of his life but he had had no choice. Going to war was mandatory and he would have been court-martialed had he refused to go. He said something that really stuck with me: “Where ever you cast any good, good surfaces”. Though the notion might be naive, it’s wonderful!
Podgorica was under siege, transformers had taken over!

After some time in Podgorica, I headed towards Sarajevo.
I know I say it a lot, but the scenery was amazing! But the fact I say that a lot doesn’t make it any less true.

Soon after I left Podgorica, I was pulled over by the police. They claimed I was going 72 km/h. But not there, they didn’t have a radar there. The radar was a few km back and his colleague notified him of my transgression. Now, the reason I knew that couldn’t be true was that I had not dropped under 90 km/h since I left Podgorica! But I couldn’t really use that as my defense, could I? So I kept my mouth shut and after a while he changed his mind and let me go without a fine.

Back

I reached Sarajevo that night. Home away from home. I lived there while I was doing a semester abroad. Some fun stories there too, for some other time.
I spent the night, had coffee with a dear friend in the morning and got back on the road. I was home that night.