Ganja-Baku-Tbilisi
I woke up early again, at 6am. I left after a shower and packing. Before leaving the city I drove to Ganja Heydar Aliyev Park. I took a short walk there (closed amusement park, lake, open theater, a huge alley with the arc of triumph) and then moved on.
On my way I stopped by the road for breakfast, they were just opening slowly at around 9 am. I tried ordering food and got 2 types of cheese and bread with a whole pot of tea, 5 AZM=2.5 €. From there to the next point on my schedule, it was a long drive on a good road with many radars and people/animals crossing.
I drove to a Gobustan. At the entrance to a national park with petroglyphs, security police sold me a tour of mud volcanos. While I waited driver I had tea and some sweets with them. Tried to exchange some Russian words. A 61-year-old driver took me to mud volcanos, first was 30 AZM but later if I wanted to see 2 locations and a big one it was 50 AZM =27 €. Driving there off-road was interesting, on the way back, he took almost the road. At first, you see a big mud volcano and there is a salty lake nearby, at second there are money small ones. A lot of loud Indian tourists were also there.
So I got back and entered finally the national park, 10 AZM=5 €. First, you visit the museum and later you go outdoors and see it in nature. There you can see different carvings in the rock walls, the oldest around 20..000 years.
When I exited the park I was done with things on my list. I had enough time before the flight but I decided to drive to the airport. Good thing, because I needed 1.5 hours to drive 25 km through a traffic jam to the airport. I returned the car on arrival, but nobody asked anything about the scratch, Moved to another terminal. Some time was left before the flight. I ate an Mc chees burger, 4 AZM=2 €. Later I looked for an option to spend the remaining local money and paid 38 AZM=20 € cognac, 15 AZM=8 € souvenirs.
After a few hours of waiting it was time for a flight to Tbilisi, 80 € with Buta Airways. We got served a sandwich and drink on this one-hour flight, enough space for legs. On arrival to Tbilisi, a German couple stopped me, they thought I was German. Later we spent 3 days together. On arrival, I bought a SIM card, 9 GEL=3 € and to the city moved with Bolt, 20 GEL =7 €, and shared this ride with a German couple.
It was time to meet Freaser, host from CS. He was a bit unresponsive, so I was not sure I will have a place in the end. He sent me the address, but on my arrival, he was not there. To enter I needed a code and guessed it somehow. The apartment was unlocked and soon Fraiser was there as well. My gift was Azeri cognac from aiprort. We soon opened it, drank it, and listened to Balkan rock music while speaking Bosniac. I got to bed really late, at 3 am.
