Caucus Meeting

I felt like I was in the Hotel California. I'd checked out, but I could never leave.

The city of Baku, in Azerbaijan, that is.

After a couple of hours of cycling I was still within the heavily built up area.

It didn't help that I'd taken a wrong turn, and headed in completely the wrong direction for awhile, and then faced a logistical mission to get back to the right path due to highways and one-way roads. My mapping apps suck sometimes.

Packing Bewdy, outside my pretty dingy guesthouse

View from the top of my first (but definitely not last) hill for the day

The Grand Hayat. No relationship whatsoever to the Hyatt Regency. Cheeky.

I stopped at a bakery. The young guy insisted on speaking English, even though he couldn't speak English. His mates were watching. He translated "I don't eat meat" in his own mind into "the foreigner dude wants a lot of meat." This pancakey thingy, a meyat, was full of lamb mince. It was actually delicious, sorry baby sheep.

Endless burbs

Sometimes my route took me right into those random suburbs. There's obviously money in Baku.

Hungry horse on the side of the road in a completely urbanised area. Unexpected.

Rundown apartments right on the outer edge of the city.

These signs reminded me of Shamani all day.

Finally, a taste of village life again. Azerbaijani style.

The barren countryside, completely denuded of trees, and even crops of any kind.

And then a very strange thing happened. And not strange in the neutral sense. Not nice strange, but fuck right off strange.

As I was riding along on a pretty deserted stretch of road there was a guy ahead, standing alone, he was maybe about 30 years old. He waved at me to stop - which is not unusual, normally when people do that here they'd then say hello, and then give me fruit or a drink or something or other.

When I stopped, the guy starting jabbering off in Russian, and, after a short while, I said to him (in Russian) that I don't speak Russian. He kept talking, then grabbed my handlebars with one hand, and kept talking.

Eventually I said to him again, sorry but I'm gonna head off, but he wouldn't let go of my handlebars. And then, when I put my hand on his and motioned for him to remove it, he suddenly grabbed my balls, as my hand was preoccupied, and couldn't react in time.

Cheeky bastard.

I instinctively grabbed his hand and threw it away, told him to fuck off, and just took off.

It wasn't the most pleasant experience, and flew in the face of thousands and thousands of the usual very pleasant ones I've already had on my travels.

I'd got the vibe that the dude was a bit troubled, as I'd wondered what the hell he was doing way out there in the middle of nowhere, with no vehicle or anything.

But the feeling wasn't strong enough to prevent me stopping.

So after all that unpleasantness I rode off feeling a little rattled, in all the wrong places.

There was a petrol station marked on my map a short distance ahead, but it'd closed down, and I was without petrol, so that meant no cooking tonight. Unfortunately.

I took a gamble with this bread. There was smoked fish inside. It was actually delicious. Sorry dead fish.

I pitched my tent in the wasteland, in a spot which was close, but not visible, from the main road. There weren't many options for campsites.

I slept for eleven hours. I was trashed.

The next morning I passed through the town of Qobustan (the first of two towns by this name), got some fuel, and climbed a lot of bloody hills.

As the day progressed the countryside slowly became more interesting.

Late lunch stop

Vegetarian borsch (cabbage soup), bread, and salad. Yum.

Later I passed through the other Qobustan. Şəhəri means city.

Sad violent death. One of many dead dogs I was forced to see in the next few days. RIPD.

Downtown, riding through

I have no idea what this place is

Mama with two youngies

Not the sort of thing you expect out here in the sticks.

Don't feed the bears cigarettes.

What!?! There's bears out here?!!? Eeeek!

Switchbacks galore

You can go to Tekle and visit the tualet and have a little tickle while you're at it.

This billboard really jumped out at me

I decided to stay in Shamakhi for the night, as I needed a wifi connection to contact some friends, and because I've been feeling a little poorly lately - sore throat, runny nose, not much energy.

This is hands down the dirtiest guest house mirror I've ever seen. It was quite impressive, given that the cleaning lady had me wait for the room for half and hour while she cleaned it (the room that is, not the mirror, obviously). After I took this pic I cleaned the mirror myself, it took me about 4.5 seconds.

Now that's clean. There's more Ladas in Central Asia than you can poke a Russian bear with.

This region is very earthquake prone, as evidenced by these wall cracks. There's been some big and nasty ones over the centuries around here, and pretty much every single building in this town was destroyed at some time or other.

The Juma Mosque, a very important (and reconstructed) building, which is stunningly beautiful.

Gardens with ancient shrines at the back

This woman was mopping continuously in the busiest spot of the supermarket. What a tripper.

What I just bought for snacking. Clockwise (around the bread, from left) - sweet Turkish delight-ish thingy, sweet biscuits, sweet yoghurt, sweet apples, salty chips, sweet jam, fatty cheese, tinned fish (I'm desperate for protein, sorry other dead fish), and, shock horror, regular cucumbers.

Ya get what ya can, and I can't cook in my guest house.

It was quite a beautiful day as I rolled out of Shamakhi the next morning, still not feeling that great physically.

They must have really big 3D printers around here. This region, in a Muslim country, was the last place I expected to find wineries. Azerbaijan is around 95% Muslim, and the rest of the people are mainly Christian, especially Russian Orthodox and Georgian Orthodox.

But actually, if the dress code here is any indication, it's a very moderate brand of Islam here. You don't see any women with veils, pretty much. But, on the other hand, there's loads and loads of idle men hanging out on the streets, and you see way fewer women.

This winery was quite beautiful.

Loads of real grapes up the hill

As I rode on and climbed I began to see views of the Greater Caucasian mountains in the distance

Suddenly the good road turned to very bad road, and it happened to do so on a very steep descent. That makes for tough riding. Wiithin no time, I got a flatty, as my tube was so patched, and all the rocks and bumps caused one of them to start to leak.

But I'm not complaining, it's my first flat tyre since way back near Issy-kul, months ago in Kyrgyzstan. I've been so lucky.

That back tyre is totally flat.

Local honey

Dried fruit flatties

Local honeys, kompots and other preserved things.

I skipped on the camel meat qutab (at the back). Qutab is basically a stuffed pancake, with all sorts of stuffing possibilities.

Pine-flavoured lemonade. It was delicious. I stopped at a random tiny shop to get it. The young guy insisted I not pay for it. So sweet! Azerbaijani hospitality has been amazing, surprise surprise.

The road was really bad for much of the day. As a result it was super slow going, and there were lots of climbs and descents to add to the mix.

And then sometimes the road got good. But only for awhile.

The leaves are fall-ing

Even though I hadn't ridden a huge amount during the day, I decided to stay in the town of Ismayilli, because the roads were so bad, it was getting late, and my body was still not doing so well. The town is actually quite cute and leafy, once you get away from the main drags.

Another Dick-tator

This is Heydər Əliyev, an ex President of Azerbaijan, whose statues, pictures and name appear all over the country. Before independence he was high up in the Soviet Communist Party, and ruled Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union's man, right up until 1982. He then became President of the newly independent Azerbaijan from 1993 until his death in 2003.

After Azerbaijan became independent in 1992, their first elected president was ousted in a military coup, and Aliyev was installed in his place. The Soviet Union and their cronies weren't gonna have any of this democracy rubbish.

The coup and Aliyev's takeover might've had something to do with the fact that he knew all of the Russian leadership, was once high up in the KGB, and was close mates with ex-Soviet leaders Brezhnev and Andropov (who was known as the 'Butcher of Budapest' for his suppression of the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets in the fifties).

Soon after being installed President, Aliyev organised national elections in Azerbaijan, which he won, with, wait for it, 99% of the vote. What a popular guy! The election couldn't have been rigged, could it? Nah, surely not.

After he died in 2003 his son, Ilham Aliyev, took over as President, after what is widely regarded as another fraudulent election. The Aliyev family have made a fortune through their ownership and connections to huge companies in the country, who obtain lucrative government contracts all over the place yada yada, you know the story. Same bullshit, different country.

In 2012 Ilham Aliyev won the Gold Logie as the most corrupt "Person of the Year," awarded by an international anti-corruption and anti-organised crime body. In a massive money laundering and bribery scheme which was later exposed, he paid off high profile European and US politicians to deflect criticism of his widespread crackdown on human rights in Azerbaijan, and to promote a positive image of his regime in the Western world. And it wasn't just small bribes either.

The scheme worked, until it didn't. It involved the transfer of a huge USD 2.9bn of taxpayer's and corporate crony money, through a whole spider's web of offshore companies, to many politicians in Europe and the US. But despite the scheme being exposed by a whole body of Western journalists, and expulsion and penalties for some Western politicians, there were no consequences for Aliyev in Azerbaijan whatsoever.

Of course not.

He's still President, and everyone who votes at all always votes for him. He must be such a great guy.

He's also very trigger happy, sending in his troops into the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region on a number of occasions over the past few years. The last time, in 2023, resulted in the mass displacement of 100,000 Armenians.

So yeah, another Central Asian country, another brutal dictatorship.

So boring.

This memorial is for the Azeri people who died at the hands of Armenian forces, when they entered the town of Khojaly, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in 1992. Over 600 people were massacred.

Another day, another genocide.

Humans can be so fucked up sometimes.

Old (and new) city walls in Ismayilli.

The view down the road from my hotel.

Pumpkin soup, and a pancake filled with local greens, sort of like a qutab. Both delicious!

Amazing that I still have an appetite, with all that brutality and corruption around me.

More Bad Roads, More Beautiful Country

I left my hotel in the morning with a full belly, but still feeling not-so-great. This throat thing and runny nose has zapped my energy, amd it's been hanging around for a few days now.

Rolling through the leafy part of town

Old city walls

See the bit of snow on the peaks?

A red fox. A dead red fox. RIPDRF.

Looking right, from the bridge

Looking left

The road was crap again for a large chunk of the day

Soviet sculptors never seemed to learn how to make happy smiley faces, they always look gruff, pained or depressed.

I rode through some beautiful forest today. I know there were critters in there, I could hear them. But I didn't see any. And luckily no bears attacked me.

The forests around here are populated by deer, gazelles, wild boars, bears, wolves, foxes, and rabbits. And loads of birds, some quite large.

This drink actually tastes like the smell of the local pine forest.

Autumunous colour changing

I'm assuming this poor guy died in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, between September 27th and November 10th, 2020. Poor kid.

It was dark in the forest. And cool. Summer's definitely gone now.

If only we could uninvent things.

Bad ads are definitely a global phenomenon

I didn't ride a huge distance again today, with the bad roads and my slight weariness.

I decided to stay in Qabala, pronounced the same way as the Jewish Kabbalah. (But don't mention that to anyone around here). The Jewish Kabbalah refers to some of the teachings of the more mystical aspects of Judaism. This town, on the other hand, has nothing to do with that. It's a seriously old place, one of the oldest cities in the country, dating back to many centuries BC.

After successive raids and takeovers by Greeks, Romans, Mongols, and pretty much everyone else in the neighbourhood, this town has a litany of ruins and remnants from all of those eras.

It's also situated right in the foothills of the beautiful Caucasian mountains, with peaks as high as 4000m nearby.

After Tajikistan, 4000m of elevation almost feels like a mole hill. Funny that. It's not though, it's bitterly cold up there, even now. There's skiing up here in winter.

I wish I'd got my hair cut here. I probably would've come out with the best mullet, or maybe some stunning glam rock coiffure.

Everyone has high walls around here. I wonder if the raised piping is due the regularity of earthquakes around here, and the subsequent repairability of infrastructure.

The quaint town, from my hotel room

Strolling at dusk

This is where I am in Azerbaijan right now, circled in red. Baku is way over to the right, on the bird's head. The blue circles have been my route so far. The yellow ones are my planned route to the Georgian border.

Shiny Lada line

Home sweet home

This is qutab, the stuffed pancakes you can get on the street. I love them. They're normally stuffed with leeks and fennel, but actually locals use whatever greens are in season at the time, or other things. I ordered these two, the guy who made them for me insisted that I don't pay for them. Unbelievable!

So many times already I've had food and drinks given to me in this country.

People are amazing, don't you forget it.

The Long (Good) Road To Şəki

Yeah it was a long road today, about 90 clicks I guess, with a sizeable chunk of climbing thrown in there. The road was really good though, an unexpected treat. I felt a little dodgy in the body, that little lurgy's been hangin around for nearly a week, but I've decided to take a rest day tomorrow, to just chill out, and see if I can entice it to leave due to boredom.

So here I am in this cute little café, at 7pm, a place in which only women seem to hang out. Maybe the floral designs and kitschiness discourage the local men, who wouldn't be seen dead in such an un-macho place. As for me, I was never the macho type. It wasn't my rugged good looks and Arnie body that snared my lovers. Thank Buddha I have other assets.

And the great Azeri and Turkish music in here is a real treat.

Beautiful mosque as I left Qabala this morning.

Rug cleaning business. They must do a roaring trade in carpet-loving countries like this.

For most of the morning the road descended back down to the relatively flat valley, with views of the mountains in the distance.

I bumped into two lovely local cyclists, Ahmed and Mohammed. They were the sweetest guys, just on a little local ride.

Beautiful rock and brickwork, quite a feature of the walls in this area.

Some parts of the road were quite stunning today. Long stretches with pretty much no traffic, and grand old trees lining the road.

More unburied pipes

Lots of oak trees today.

Baby watermelon.

No it's not, it's a baby acorn that's lost its beanie.

Long row of roadside stalls, almost all closed.

But not this one. I really didn't need bread, but I bought one because this woman looked so sweet and they obviously need cash. Plus I wanted to take their pic.

These bloody turkeys were right on the road

Makeshift animal pens. The villages are actually quite poor around here, compared to the larger towns.

I'm back in dog country, but I've only been seriously chased by a couple so far. They seem to lose interest after I use my friendly un-macho voice on them. Actually most of the dogs appear to be more scared of me than I am of them.

But I've heard that Georgia and Turkey and the Balkan states are pretty notorious for nasty dogs. Something to look forward to.

Another memorial to a victim of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts. He looks so young.

The Tragedy Of Nagorno-Karabakh

This ethnic and territorial conflict has led to wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, as well as in seven surrounding districts, inhabited mainly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The region was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, and is situated completely within the current borders of the country, in the central west.

To confuse matters, the Republic of Artsakh was declared by Nagorno-Karabakh locals as an independent country way back in the 1990s, and it had its own defense army. In the early 1990s the Armenian and Artsakh armies defeated Azerbaijan forces, and took full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, and expelled Azerbaijanis from many surrounding areas. What followed was two decades of relative peace and stability.

In late 2020 Azerbaijani forces seized all of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, and about a third of the region itself. But then in a major military offensive in 2023 the Azerbaijani army took full control of the rest of the region, and almost all ethnic Armenians fled. Artsakh was officially dissolved by the Azerbaijani authorities on 1 January, 2024.

Just as an aside, so many of these regional conflicts were predicated by Russian colonialism, which led to the drawing of borders in areas where no logical borders should exist, due to the ethnic makeup of the populations. This historical legacy has led to long term ethnic issues and territorial conflicts in many Central Asian countries.

Back on the road to Şəki, otherwise known as Sheki, the afternoon provided me with a long long climb, to add to my charmed and happy life.

Imagine being from a town whose name sounds like the noise chickens make.

These rivers must be pretty epic during flooding

My late lunch stop, at about 3pm. An abandoned restaurant.

Finally at the outskirts of Sheki. Little did I know, but there was another long and arduous ride for an hour or so up a long hill, to get to the city centre.

Hedgehog patty. RIPHP.

I found a great hostel-type place, run by a couple of neat short-haired older men with thin moustaches. They were so sweet. I got a cheap room, and had already decided to stay for a couple of nights.

An older man called me over to his dingy little eating place later on, and cooked me some eggs. He insisted I add an unusual purple spice, sumak, which actually tastes like very flavoursome cherries, with some sort of pepper. Delicious actually.

The drink he called dohar, which is some type of yoghurt drink with mint. It's pretty tasty. But I wish he hadn't shown me the massive jar he poured it from, it looked like it hadn't been washed since the Middle Ages.

Heading up the street in Sheki, looking for something to do.

Ahhhh, yeah, drinking a coffee is something to do. Something bloody nice to do. And it comes with a table to write to you guys about my sometimes extremely random, but always interesting, long journey.

Life is so full of simple pleasures, I'm just bursting with them sometimes.

I really don't understand how my life can be so full, and yet I remain so twiggish.

Sheki-ing All Over

So I'm gonna check out this place tomorrow, this out-of-the-way random town. And then I'll keep heading northwest.

The route I chose to ride from Baku to here is not the main capital-to-capital drag to Tbilisi in Georgia, which is my next big destination. It's the back route.

Well, it's the top route actually, skirting the Caucasian foothills.

In only a few days, insha'Allah, I'll cross the Georgian border, and make my way to Sighnaghi, a small town in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti.

But I've gotta do a big climb to get up there.

It all seems to be happening so quickly. I feel like I only just got to Azerbaijan, and here I am talking about leaving it.

Aaahhhhh, such a big world.

So many countries.

So little time❤️

http://buymeacoffee.com/krolesh9