Saturday 21 July 2012

from Lagodekhi to Sheki

18.07
crossing the border to Azerbaidschan. till border: 3843 at all.
total day :47 km, 3h 15. avs 14,3, total 3883, hot, camping at a gazstation.
people are much more friendly and openhearted than in Georgia. 80 % of the cardrivers uses their horn in a friendly way and people on the street were waving. AZseems to be
much richer than Georgia. well, AZ was under Russion occupation as well, but it had no war in the last 20 years. the first smaller cities we passed, have many new houses and official buildings.

19.07.
we got up at 6:30. thunder was approaching.with high speed we packed our stuff. flashes and thunder came very fast. fortunetly we were able to carry our stuff under the roof of the gazstation. we had a piece of bread and then we started our trip. heavy rain. suddenly we had to stop because a bridge was under construction. for cars a detour through a river. not possible for us!
we took the bridge... crazy because there were many gaps to cross...
we were very wet. in a small village
we stopped for tea and changing the clothes. just sitting and updating for 2,5h in the cafe. in the evening we stopped at a cafe in Dars. it was still 25 km to Shaki. we asked the owner for a hotel but nothing was very close. we asked for the possibility to camp close to the cafe and he offered us his backyard with lawn. he also offered us a delicious dinner. his son Ilkin joined us ; he speaks English so we had a great end of an exhausting day.
91 km, with 20km gravelled road, 5h 41, avs 16, total 3974.

20.07.
now in Sheki. 27 km , 10 km uphill, 2 h 18,avs 11,6 and now 4001 km !!!
we looked for a hotel but the first one was full. Ilkin drove me to another one while Astrid was waiting at our bikes. I booked a room for two nights. when we arrived at the hotel Sheki Saray suddenly a man in a
business suit talked to me that we know each other. I did not check it first but he informed me that we had contact via couchsurfing and he is the hotelmanager, his name is Elshan Mammadli and he is very friendly. how crazy! two days ago he sent me a sms with more details but I did not receive it. again a very small world. In the evening we met Martin from a German Company. he is assembling textile machines all over the world and stays for four weeks in Sheki. He told us so many stories from his work, highly interesting and great to meet him !

21.07.
long breakfast with Martin and making backups of our pictures and updating facebook. dinner with Ilkin.

22.07. we wanted to visit the Karavansaray but it was closed due to a filmteam. then we visited the Khans Palace which was very beautiful. in then afternoon we will leave Sheki.

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