I'm not yet sure how do describe my first 4 hours in Baku. Or, why the hell I even came here in the first place.
Long before we even landed, it was clear that Azeri's are new to 20th century travel. Following a stern lecture from the flight crew after someone was caught smoking in the lavatory, another man invited himself to a German-style beatdown for refusing to buckle his seatbelt prior to landing.
Once on the ground, negotiating your way through the Russian Cluster-Fu*k that is Immigration becomes your first local adventure. Budget close to an hour. Bring a couple of passport photos, 100 U.S. dollars, cleaned and ironed, and a whopper of a story as to why on God's climate changing earth you would ever want to visit Azerbaijan. My angle? I was looking for love.
Turns out, this is Muslim country. And they weren't buying it, thus dashing any hopes I had for a Day of Birth celebration at the local Titty Bar.
I was recommended to stay at the Park Inn. A new hotel with a familiar name. Located on the Caspian sea, just a 15 minute walk to Icherishekher, it seems an ideal place to call Home Base. In our book, any hotel where you wake up in the same bed is one worth the Manat. And after a pot of tea with my one familiar life-line, she was off to home and I was off to bed.
More about her and the anal-puckering trek through the Caucasus Mountains later.
Long before we even landed, it was clear that Azeri's are new to 20th century travel. Following a stern lecture from the flight crew after someone was caught smoking in the lavatory, another man invited himself to a German-style beatdown for refusing to buckle his seatbelt prior to landing.
Once on the ground, negotiating your way through the Russian Cluster-Fu*k that is Immigration becomes your first local adventure. Budget close to an hour. Bring a couple of passport photos, 100 U.S. dollars, cleaned and ironed, and a whopper of a story as to why on God's climate changing earth you would ever want to visit Azerbaijan. My angle? I was looking for love.
Turns out, this is Muslim country. And they weren't buying it, thus dashing any hopes I had for a Day of Birth celebration at the local Titty Bar.
I was recommended to stay at the Park Inn. A new hotel with a familiar name. Located on the Caspian sea, just a 15 minute walk to Icherishekher, it seems an ideal place to call Home Base. In our book, any hotel where you wake up in the same bed is one worth the Manat. And after a pot of tea with my one familiar life-line, she was off to home and I was off to bed.
More about her and the anal-puckering trek through the Caucasus Mountains later.
