05-AUG-A-2
FIRST FULL DAY IN TOURING
AFTER RE-GROUPING FOLLOWING HUNT
Aug. 1, 2005
I awaken alone in my twin room at the Hotel Elite, with my alleged roommate, Patrick, missing in action. For a fellow who allegedly has no money, no credit card nor any means of getting any, like traveler’s checks, he has been living rather high, running up big bar bills and sending out for things as well as “dining” exclusively—despite my repeated warnings, out of the Mini-Bar, which he will snap open even while I tell him I am not covering his incidental charges, pop a bottle, take a swig and abandon it. It is the irresponsibility of any kid—and in this instance, I am sure, the one to whom all those bills will find their way is me, and I have already spent all the cash and checks I had brought for the entire trip to include the next several weeks in Africa. I have added NO extras to my room rate charge, and he is living off the “credit” extended to him by using my name as the “deep pockets” client who will cover all his accessory expenses, so he had dumped his whole pack of hunting clothes out to be sent out for laundry, while I had simply washed mine out in the shower and dried them next to the window since our A/C does not work in the room.
When the
crew comes to pick me up at noon, I tell them I do not know where Patrick is,
but the desk clerk woman, shakes her head and says he is sleeping in Room 127
with someone else he found last night in a discothèque. So, I am brought off to the AYF office in
I had now
given them ALL the traveler’s checks and cashier’s checks I had carried for the
whole month of being gone, and they are still asking for more, naming people
who have not been involved in helping the hunt, and especially those who
shortened it or ruined the filming of the day of the successful Tur kill. They have asked that I accompany them to go
to banks, or other offices to see if more money can be extracted, or if
perhaps, I could leave behind my digital camera or computer—no, thank you. This is not my last stop on this trip, nor
this planet, and this is not my favorite charity. When I was in the office, Yullat, the
president and owner was very expansive and generous with me, promising me to
accompany him to exclusive areas in
The name of the
Restaurant was Canaq Qala where we would have the slow leisurely lunch while
Emil nervously answered the cell phone when called frequently. This is the name of the large Turkish fort
west of
We went through the usual luncheon menu which I now recognize in both sequence and component parts, whether it be a trail lunch on the mountain top, the hillside table of the Gechresh outside Quba on return, or the special courtyard luncheons here in Baku—the flat bread and cheese, watercress and anisette with other veggies such as tomatoes and cucumbers, then a later kebab of mutton or a ground up mutton which is wrapped in a thin flat bread. It is accompanied by several fluids, a banana beer, a “Budweiser” beer brewed in Turkey, an assortment of fruit drinks such as pomegranate, grape or pineapple, and then the final Chai (tea) course served in a special “hourglass” small glass handle-less cup which is typical of the Baku region. This glass is called the “Amador” glass which is said to serve the tea to advantage as it holds the heat and shows the clarity and color. Alongside the chai is a small dish of cherries which is essentially the “sugar and lemon” tasted with a small spoon as a sweetener after drinking the tea itself. Patrick did not get that message, so he stirred this jam like cherry jelly into the tea which opacified it and caused comments all around.
AFTER 6:30 PM WITH A STOP IN THE
WITHIN THE CITY WALLS, ADJACENT TO THE
“MAIDEN’S TOWER”
As redundant as their reminders that I had to do something to add further tips in cash to the myriad of employees they would be distributing the moneys we would so generously leave behind, I got a bit redundant myself in the reminders that we had several days dedicated to tourism of the capital and its environs, since our ten day hunt in the mountains seemed to have become truncated, and was aborted after four days in order that we might get done to Baku and see certain sights. OK, where are those sights to be seen? After yet another reminder, we drove around the city, as they stopped several times to “wait here just two minutes.” What the wait was for was for them to check at various banks for how long it would take for the certified cashier’s check I had given them in addition to all my traveler’s checks to be turned into cash. “Can you write another…..?”
We then
drove through the walled city gates into a paving stone covered courtyard into
the
Below at
the level of the wall around the city and the main Caspian
As we
strolled further along the old shops now festooned with brass pots and the ubiquitous
high pressure carpet salesmen I am so familiar with from Kashmir to the Middle
East to
I stood in
front of the elegant doors of the Meridian Hotel Baku, and took a photo of
older men playing checkers or chess with a younger woman sitting on the stoop
nearby. When I turned to the Hotel,
there was a familiar couple coming out the door---Philippe and Frederica whom
we had last seen in the Tur hunting camp.
Philippe had invited me to come wild boar hunting in
I am “cooped up” in a charitably “second rate” Hotel without a functioning A/C, shower door or flushable toilet, and it looks like I have already blown the single tourist feature of our week long Baku Tour. So, I will turn to the laptop to use this time to complete the Azerbaijan story of my stay, and hope to get a chance soon to email out at least one or two chapters of the story, and follow up on it with the postcards I had been industriously writing at each mandatory stop and “wait two minutes” (meaning twenty)—but I fear that the mailing out of my postcards is like a lot of other unfulfilled promises, and if I want it done, I will have to try to retrieve where they have been scattered, at the Hotel Elite desk, at the AYF office, in George’s Dopp Kit, and go to the Central Post Office to be sure they are affixed with Azeri postages stamps and sent out directly myself. That way I can assure you of at least one exotic Azeri souvenir—a colorful bit of a new “Commonwealth of Independent States” formerly off-limits Soviet vassal, now in the throes of over-learning capitalism, starting with all the worst parts!