Ferry

 There is much to talk about today. We departed from the hotel and immediately got stuck in Baku morning rush hour traffic. The obvious and quicker route was rejected by the lead car as being too, well, obvious. After several u-turns, thrice traversed roundabouts, multiple lane changes we discovered we had travelled 500 feet from our hotel after 29 minutes of driving. We split up; not because of disgruntlement nor a lack of team spirit but you can’t run a convoy of four vintage cars through a city in rush hour. 

We arrived at the port to be told “no ferries for two days”. We enquired further. “Niet” or its equivalent was the firm response. Chris, the hustler moved seamlessly into hustle mode. “Are you sure? We are guests of the assistant to the president”. A photo of his Instagram was produced showing us, yesterday, lined up with him outside the museum. Things started to happen. A place for four cars miraculously appeared on the ferry which is due to leave this afternoon at 4pm. Result. 

And so began another round of ridiculousness. Ticket office, bank for payment of ticket in $ (no change given), registration office, customs office for payment of car parking fee before ferry(!), customs control, passport control, immigration control, infringement office for payment of fines, passport control, customs inspection. You might think this was simply a process to be followed but let me tell you it required Times Crossword champion problem solving to work out where to go in this vast port area (where we are the only cars). There is no order, no lanes directing traffic, just guesswork. One office is behind the other our way over there, not there, here, no the other way… It resulted in us driving into the wrong ferry (twice), being collected by a very agitated port authority official in his little white car and delivered to the customs inspector (last stop). He was a man out of Central Casting for a repressed, angry man, whose wife probably doesn’t love him, and he was affronted that we had not given him the courtesy of subjecting ourselves to his ministrations before attempting to get onto the ferry. He set about redressing his perceived slight. First Chris. We jokily bantered with him as Mr Angry pointed at things to open. “Well done, Chris, for taking one for the team”. Little did we know. He was simply moving up a gear or two. Next he eyed me with malevolence. Pointing, strutting, opening, jabbing, pulling. Oh my! He found his way to the pill boxes. Not what Dad’s Army occupied during the war, but the boxes in which Nellie and I carry our prescription drugs (there are many and you can imagine that for a 100 day trip the quantity is vast). “Hallucinagenics?” He asked in surprisingly good English. “No no just your normal run of pills for the aged” I replied. He Googled everyone of them. He was enjoying himself, I was not. 

At last we were released from his clutches, and I post this as we wait. More later.