Well, I now have the Uzbekistan visa safely secured in my passport, so all is good on that front. I can now enter safely into one of the 10 most difficult countries to enter, at least according to The Culture Trip, Business Insider and Garfor's Globe, all travel sites that review this sort of thing. Again, the visa was not that difficult to obtain, but many travel bloggers do state that many visas are more easily obtained at an embassy near their border. Good for me, and a plan of attack I will employ to get a Pakistani visa. A crazy thing happened at the Uzbekistan Embassy. While I was waiting for my passport, another person walked in to get a visa. He ended up being an Afghani, and he worked on the same base at the same time as I did while in Afghanistan. Talk about a small world.
With regards to crossing the Caspian Sea lake. I have contacted a cargo company who will take both myself and the motorcycle to Kazakhstan. There are no making reservations on the ship and space is allotted by availability. The standard protocol is to call them each morning and ask if there is a ship going today and is there any space available. At this point I am 0 for 4 in attempts to get on this boat. The problem has been the weather, the wind has been blowing steady around 25mph (40kph) with winds gusting over 45mph (73kph), and ships do not sail the Caspian during these conditions. Fortunately, the booking agent at the shipping company has taken mercy on me, he understands that my Azerbaijan visa will not last forever and told me that he would hold a spot for me on the next ship that sails. I am hoping that his offer comes to fruition.
Visas are one of the major determiners of paths to take when circumnavigating the world. It is not as easy as carefully selecting the path and then getting a 30-day visa and then leaving on day 30. Allot more planning and forethought have to go into the process. For instance, if this ship is unable to take me out of the country by day 27, I will have to back track to Georgia, the only country where I have remaining visa eligibility, and wait out the time requirement to get another Azerbaijan visa or figure out a new route. The upcoming China crossing is a much more difficult affair. I will need to bounce between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, playing the visa game until I can figure out a route and get the proper visas and permissions to get to India via the China/Pakistan, Afghanistan/Pakistan, or China/Nepal route. What makes this all the more difficult is that world politics change tensions between countries that affect the planning, and being a US citizen, I come from a country that causes allot of tension. China, Russia, their loyal satellites, and the countries that our Government argues with affect visa eligibility, duration, processing and timing. In short, this part of the world is insanely complicated to travel through.
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| Mall and Entertainment Complex (Under Construction) |
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| Funicular - Links my Airbnb to the Waterfront Entertainment Area |
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| The beginning of an amusement area near the mall |
****
Total Distance Traveled by Motorcycle: 24,124 mi (38,794 km)
Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan
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