Will joined us on the first day which was great, and it was through fantastic scenery. We were at the thickly wooded foothills of the Caucasus mountains, which are very cool compared to the plains. It was a good cycling day, and I was very pleased to make it past the 2000km mark on my odometer! We camped that night in the woods, we ate quite late though as Humphrey's stove had mysteriously fallen apart in his bag and is a struggle to put back together. A good meal of noodles, sausage and tuna; protein and carbs, yummy!!
We were up early the next morning and soon after Humphrey and I said good bye to the mountains as we turned inland to the plains again on advice from people who said there is almost no road on the supposed 'main' road into Baku. The morning was maybe my favourite few hours of cycling. I felt strong and the sun wasn't bothering me and before we got into the falt desert we were treated to a set of beautiful rolling hills covered in water buffalo. Then we saw a huge flock of white herons just before the desert really started. I felt like I was flying and I loved cycling then. Even after a long stop to repair Humph's tyre again I still felt good and on the flat road on our first desert stretch I felt like someone was pushing me I was going so fast. Someone stopped to give me an ice cold bottle of water, and all the beeps on the horn from passing lorries added to the buoyant feeling. Then the dreaded wind picked up and I slowed down. Coupled with Humphrey's decision to do 135km today and then 150km tomorrow to get to Baku, the afternoon took a turn for the worse as there was still 30km to go. The rest of the day was a fight against the wind and counting down the kilometres until I could stop. A brief respite was when someone stepped in front of me and handed me a huge slice of watermelon!
As there was nothing but desert we asked at a petrol station if we could sleep at the back of the building. The young chap showed us to a pagoda by a pond, and we slept under that with out a tent that night. We had watermelon for supper and a few stale cakes, but spotted a watersnake carrying away a writhing fish for his supper and then saw a turtle basking!
We woke early and started packing up, and the chap from the petrol station came over. He demanded us to pay 15 Manat for the pleasure of sleeping rough in the pagoda, he blocked our way out of the pagoda. We went through the motions of not understanding and then when that became too painful we laughed at his request and kept saying no, whilst trying to push past him. To our relief a van came in wanting fuel and we pedalled off with the sound of distant shouts of 'police' from the boy...
The morning was OK, the wind was up but not too bad and we plodded on, although psychologically the thought of 150km stretching ahead didn't help the motivation. We had a long stop at a petrol station whilst Humphrey fixed another puncture, and then we saw the Caspian Sea where we turned towards Baku. This is where we felt the full force of the wind...at first I was going at 11-13kph, but soon after I was down to 6-7 as the wind battered me. It was so powerful, and every lorry that went past created a vacuum which sucked me forward and then the wind almost pushed me off the road, I felt like I had no control over my bike. It was the only time I thought that it was to dangerous to cycle, but we pushed on. After 20km of this I was nearing the end of my patience with the damned wind and was willing to shelter anywhere until the morning. The dust was almost unbearable and every lorry that would pass us threw a whole load of grit in our faces. I saw ahead that Humphrey had stopped to talk to someone in a car and when I approached I was so relieved to hear that the man had offered for us to come and stay at his house!! We had only done 104km of the 150 but I was not complaining. We had just 4km to go until the turning for his house. When I turned off and with the wind behind us, I was going at 15kph without pedalling!
I am always so amazed at people's kindness. He took us in, we spoke no common language, and he let us shower in his home, he fed us and let us stay the night. The shower was much needed, I was covered in dust it had ingrained itself into my eyebrows and hair. Once we were clean we realxed and they brought cay and food for us. In the evening his wife and two young daughters cam home and we chatted into the evening. It is quite a feat to talk about politics, religion and other worldly topics when we share no common language, but we managed it that evening. I shared a room with all of his daughters that night and it felt like a sleep over. The youngest was laughing at my transformation to wearing glasses, and with her sister they were giggling until late when their mother told them to go to sleep!
In the morning we were shown round their garden, which is full of all kinds of fruit; quince, plums, apricots, figs, apples, damson, grapes. We were given a huge breakfast of fried eggs dripping in oil fresh from their chickens and home made jam and bread. We hit the road and thankfully the wind was not quite as strong and we made our way into Baku and to our hostel. We met Will who had been watching Wimbledon and also bumped into Elmar, a Dutchy we had met in Tblisi. A good cycling gang for supper. Baku is a bottle neck for cyclist all waiting for visas and the ferry across to Kazakhstan. So we were to meet quite a few while we were here.
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