May 20th 2011

May 20^th 2011

Left early morning from Akhaltsikhe direction Azerbaijan. The road was defiantly better than yesterday along a beautiful valley with many old castles and monastery. At noon we finally arrived at the border with Azerbaijan. The entry was smooth but we still had to wait for a few hours. Of course we had to pay some extra dollars for some “ administration” fees. As we get out of customs we are obliged to change some money at the black market. We were surprised to learn that 1 Manat (Local Currency) is equivalent to 1 Euro. On the other hand gas is only 0.50 per liter. From here we start our long journey to Baku but after about 100 Km we were stopped by the Police, claiming we were speeding. As usual in these kind of situations Matteo and myself pretended not to understand the reason he pulled us over. The “debate” lasted for about an hour. He wanted 150 Euros and we were able to get out of the situation without paying anything. We then continued are trip toward Baku but at this point we were late in the day and decided to stay for the night in Agdas. Before getting to to Agdas we had the opportunity to visit the mausoleum of the famous Azrbaijany poet named Nizami drinking a good cay (tea) with the local Police.

Dinner in Agdas was based with a great pita bread stuffed with some sort of vegetables and delicious lamb cutlets. The only problem was that the taxi driver set at our table eating practically all the food. He did not speak a word of English. Needless to say we went to bed right after dinner.