We left Baku heading west for the first time, into the heart of Azerbaijan and the heart of the desert. It was what you’d expect, flat, hot and dry! We bumped into Ana, Mathias and Felix on the way out of town who have ridden KTM 640 Adventure bikes from Switzerland to Mongolia and back. Someone is always doing something cooler ?. The main highway through Azerbaijan felt like the median line of the country, it was almost impossible to cross from one side to the other and it split many towns in two. It was quite strange! It was also lined with more speed cameras than you could shake a stick at; we were told we’d find out at the border if we had any speeding fines, eeeek!
We landed in Ganja, yes Ganja hehehe. If you don’t know what Ganja is, Google “ganja slang”. The road to Ganja was hot, hallucinatingly hot. At one point we passed a Lada loaded with watermelons. Then another with geese. We took a photo to prove we’re not making it up. By this stage of the day we were feeling pretty relaxed and certainly had the munchies, although any paranoia hadn’t settled in. We had kebabs to ward off the hunger and wandered through a town that was surprisingly hard to find a beer, and impossible to find any replacement electrolyte powder.
Day 27: goodbye Azerbaijan (fortunately no speeding fines), hello Armenia! To enter Armenia we first had to pass through Georgia, as Azerbaijan and Armenia don’t like each other much. The border crossing was disorganised and chaotic, a bit like the country itself. Armenia officially has the worst toilet paper in the world. More like crepe paper it’s also about as wide too. Unnerving…
On the way to Stepanavan, Armenia, our unintentional destination for the night we passed an abandoned USSR industrial site. Then we noticed smoke coming from behind a cross high on the mountain – presumably the plant is still in use. Yikes.
Armenia has stunningly beautiful scenery and riding roads for the most part though, so this made us happy ?. In Stepanavan we found a weirdly out of place restaurant, it was pretty good and nicely done up, but we wondered how it stays afloat in such a sleepy little town.
Day 28 lead us over a disused mountain pass with stunning views and a quite stunning piece of road, although I’m sure it’ll never find itself in any top roads list. Then it was back down to the plateau and heading for Turkey.
It was a day for totally random experiences! We passed through Georgia for the third time as Armenia and Turkey also don’t like each other much (so, four border crossings in two days!). First though while still in Armenia we stopped at a quarry for a TRONO break. George the owner welcomed us in for tea and biscuits which was super nice 🙂
The border crossings were uneventful. We did an off-road shortcut along rutted stony tracks in Georgia passing through villages without names with people gawping at us in sheer disbelief.
Turkey started out super friendly with the customs official wanting a selfie! In Ardahan we parked outside a wedding dress shop to exchange money then find kebabs for dinner. We soon had two Kurdish teens, Selcan and Ezgi, helping us. Their grandmother (who runs the store) brought out tea. Many selfies were had. Then they invited us upstairs to dance, very cute. As we got ready to leave their grandmother gave us each a cologne. Classic!
We hung out for so long our plans for camping went out the window, so we found a hotel in Ardahan where a Zimbabwean by the name of Bruce runs the hamam. He was super interested in what we were up to and he revealed his plans to buy a bike and do something similar. We checked the hamam out after a well-earned beer and maybe a small dram of whisky. What a day!!
You’re looking fitter Amand. Mary and I are enjoying your trip.
Very entertaining, Thanks for sharing! Keep the shiny side up and the rubber down!