Crossing the Caspian Sea

Warning: This blog entry is going to be a bit more negative than most, primarily because the last few days have epitomized the negatives of international travel.

This is a first to for me, I have officially been deported from a country.  Not merely kicked out, or kindly asked to leave, but full on deported and I have the paperwork to prove it.  Apparently, an Azeri 30-day visa is initially only good for 10-days and must be extended by going to an immigration office and checking in.  I was not aware of this, overstayed the 10 days and was about to be fined a healthy sum of money for this oversight when I casually asked the question, “How much to just deport me?”  The response, “deportation ….well that’s free.”  My response, “Draw up the paperwork," apparently it is time to knock something else off the old bucket list...deportation. Six hours later, I was out of the country for good, and when I say “for good,” that means I am allowed back in one-year.   

Well I made it across the Caspian Sea on a what was billed as a cargo ship but was little more than a prison barge.  But more on that later.  The ship was quite large.  The cargo deck was expansive enough to carry dozens of trucks, railway cars, palatalized goods, and of course my dear Greta.  As far as passengers go, there were two travelers, myself and a guy from Switzerland named Stephan, and about 20 truck drivers and container minders (no idea there was such a job).  I have been on multiple ferries and ships throughout the Greek Isles and Turkey.  Those ships have bars, restaurants, convenience stores and pursers.  This ship had none of that.  The food was horrid, the truck drivers got into a fight (Turkey vs Russia) and my mattress looks like the last traveler was not only incontinent but rejoiced in it.  Needless to say, I took all the bedding they gave us, used it as a barrier between the mattress and I, and slept in my sleeping bag.  Stephan I pretty much concluded that this type of travel was not for the faint of heart.

The crossing itself was supposed to take 18-22 hours but took about 52.  We had to dock just off the coast of Baku until the wind died down.  Yup the wind needed to drop from about 15kts to about 10kts. The swells on Caspian Sea appeared to be more than 30cm on rare occasion. Never heard of a sea fearing vessel being crippled by mildly windy conditions, but it was and there we sat. Stephan I were talking to the passengers that unloaded while we loaded, and apparently they were stuck off-shore for 5 days…with that horrible food.  I can not stress this point too many times, the food just sucked.  

We did eventually arrive in Kazakhstan and the customs procedures to get Greta into the country were painfully long and drawn out.  What at most borders takes less than 5 minutes, took over three hours. It entailed allot of running of documents to various departments, just to get there and wait for 20 minutes while they chatted, played games on their phones or watched soccer on the internet, sometimes all of these activities at once.  My original plan was to enter into Uzbekistan, and then go back into Kazakhstan and stay a bit in Almaty and ride the canyons north of the City.  That plan has changed, I have no desire to cross another Kazakh border as long as I live (note: I am just annoyed with them at the moment, I will probably will cross into Kazakhstan again when the time comes).  

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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, Kazakhstan