We are in Azerbaijan! We left Tbilisi at 7am - what a difference to ride the empty streets compared to the traffic from the day before. We made it to the border after an hour ... the crossing was simple on the Georgian side and a bit more complicated on the Azeri side but pretty straight forward.
The people of Azerbaijan are amazingly friendly. They enjoy meeting and helping new people, especially travelers ... and because we were traveling on a massive motorcycle on our way to Vladivostok ... we were like rock stars! From the help we received from the guards at the border, to the three different policemen that stopped us along the way (one because he just wanted to meet us), to the people we met at all the places we stopped for lunch or for a break, to the people in the cars on the highway that would honk at us to say hello, to the children on the side of the road waving and smiling ... a fun time.
We are definitely getting deeper into Asia. Nobody speaks English so we had to resort to communicating in Russian, sign language, and pen and pencil. At the end, always a nice handshake with a big smile. Good training for down the road.
The length of Azerbaijan is a big and desolate plain running from Georgia at an altitude of 500m to Baku on the Caspian Sea. 8 hours in a straight line! Temperatures went from 65 to 92 but went down to 75 right at the coast. Also, it looks like 80% of the cars in the country are Russian Lada's ... and, more policemen, police cars, radars, and cameras that we have ever seen ... all to relentlessly enforce speeding ... all the way to Baku. This is not Georgia.
Baku is an amazing city - a bit of Dubai (nice, modern, amazing buildings), a bit of Morocco, Bedouin, Arab, with an ancient history ... the Old City is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was at the epicenter of the Silk Road dating back to the 6th century.
Tomorrow, we hope to find the cargo ferry that will take us to Turkmenistan.
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