Tuesday, the first day of the week that the Kazakhstan consulate is open, I went to get a visa, but didn't have any more visa pages in my passport. It was my fault and something I told myself to fix weeks ago, but completely forgot about. I also think the passport officers in Prague, Macau and JFK deserve some of the blame for putting a single stamp on entirely blank pages.
I got the pages added and went to the KAZ consulate this morning and within ten minutes had a new visa. An hour later I booked my flight to Aktau (on the east coast of the Caspian, southwest of the Tengiz and Kashagan oil fields) and the flight from Aktau to Almaty. In Aktau, the one thing I want to do is swim in the Caspian before its destroyed by those irresponsible operators, Eni.
Final thoughts on Baku... the city center and Old City are really nice places and very cosmopolitan. The women are beautiful. The suburbs are just like any large city in a developing country, not much to write home about. I could live here, but probably not for more than a couple years. From speaking with younger locals, Ilham Aliyev is not the bad guy, it's the old crusty Soviet henchmen who are advising him. Their feeling is that if Ilham goes down then so does Azerbaijan.
I don't know how much I'll be posting before I get to Almaty and I'm still working on uploading pictures. If you've got questions go ahead and ask them and I'll try to answer.
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2 comments:
Have you met any cool people?
As cool as you?... hundreds!
Among the backpackers I've met in Baku they have tended to be normal or strange. In the hostel at least 3 guys over 60 yrs old came through.
Among Baku locals I met a director at a private equity fund that manages some of the govt's money and had lunch with him.
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