24th-25th November 2010
Baku was a big sprawling mass and we were dropped off at the top of it, 8km away from the centre, we got a bus the rest of the way in. Once there we negotiated the metro system, having our backpacks checked by the police with varying degrees of friendliness, to the Iranian Embassy to pick up our approved visas. The embassy shut for the week we stopped in a Turkish café for a good old döner çorekda (döner kebab in a roll) and a much needed cup of tea and then set off to find the Tourist Information Centre, staffed by dressed up, made-up annoying girls who couldn't even point us in the right direction to the cheapest hotel (Djalma found the way there in the map). Leaving the Info tarts behind we walked along the seafront enjoying the petrol infused salty breeze off the Caspian Sea.
The people at the cheapest hotel in town, The Caspian Hotel, were friendly and we even got a double room instead of a bunk bed, desperately in need of a shower we set off to buy more shampoo and some moisturiser (a girls best friend). A nice little mission over a good part of town later we were back and I was washing away hair grease accumulated since Telavi and a foul mood, feeling more like a human and less like a skank we sat and talked to a London girl whose name I didn't catch and Djalma can't recall. She was really talkative and very friendly, aside from that it was just plain nice to speak to someone not far from home. We opened up our bottle of wine from the Kindzamauruli Winery in Kvareli and had a teacup each before Djalma and I headed out for dinner, oh yes another döner, with two ex-pats who popped in to check out the hotel. They pointed us in the right direction for a good kebab and after a brief tour around parts of the old town we said goodbye and headed off to find a café with wifi and cheap tea. Not having much joy, for some reason all the wifi systems had been turned off and the internet café's wouldn't let us connect our laptop, we went back to the hotel and talked to the Londoner about travelling/photography/Georgia until it was midnight and more than past our bedtimes.
With the Iranian Embassy opening again on Monday we decided to head out of town and go North to Quba, a two hour coach ride through some more brown, flat, electricity pylon infested fields to the little town famous for carpets and apple orchards apparently.
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