Three Meals on Deck, Two Days on the Caspian, and One Night in Aktau Port Customs Control

                                        

With great good luck and smiles from the god of pretentious hippies, our Baku-Aktau ferry left on the day after we got to Baku, saving the massive hotel bill that could have resulted from a delay (hotel is paid with the kitty, so we try to keep it cheap). Caspian ferries are notorious for leaving when they're full and not before, with almost no notice, and for leaving travellers waiting around for weeks at a time. The Baku-Aktau route is less busy than the one to Turkmenistan, with sailings “a few times a month”. The P&O to Calais this is not.  Fire safety consists of the boat burning as far as I can tell.  (Hi, Dad!)

 

                           

We'd been forewarned to expect ghastly conditions; two years ago the boys slept on deck and the girls in crew rooms, whereupon the crew tried to break in to the girls' rooms in the middle of the night...last year, the cabins were filthy and they were on the ship for 2+ days, with only what food and water they'd brought with them. Another overland group of 16 was reduced to a single cheese triangle by the end of the journey. Tim and Cheryl brought enough to feed us all for 3-4 days just in case.

                               

Rather pleasantly, we found shabby-but-clean cabins with bunk beds, a cafe on board, and even a functioning toilet. Sort of—one loo for all 30 passengers, with no seat and questionable hygiene. There were in fact many other toilets, but the World's Laziest Housekeepers never unlocked them. With a motley crew of Azeri truckdrivers and five other travelers, we spent about 4 hours waiting to board, 20 hours enroute, another 10 sitting on a parked boat off the Kazakh coast (having been barred from the cabins by the World's Worst Housekeepers from midnight), disembarked at 2am, and then spent the next 8 hours being grilled by Customs officials about why we remain childless, whether we are in fact Russian, and if David's beard makes him Muslim. To be fair, that part lasted about 2 hours, the rest was spent sleeping on the floor of the customs building on roll mats, waiting for the truck part of the port to open at 9am. Apparently we were on the Kazakh news—Tim waited another hour on the cameras' arrival. Meanwhilwe Alan play customs official in the deserted port building.

                         

Fellow travelers included some motorcyclists riding across Europe and Asia, a lovely Dutch guy hitchhiking from the Netherlands through 20 capitals to study hospitals, an American who got deported from the boat before we even left Baku, and Taylor. Taylor is Canadian, and has been traveling for the last year or two years or three years, depending on who he was talking to. He tried to negotiate a lower fare because he has ripped trousers, but the Azeris failed him on that point. He spent much of the trip helpfully letting us know that Canadians don't do truck trips (like ours), as they prefer to travel authentically. He spent some time and effort informing us of the merits of vegetarianism, dumpster diving, crap beards, and the negative attributes of alcohol, the art market, and lots of other things. Vastly entertaining. Taylor is on the left below...