05-AUG-A-5
FINAL FULL DAY COOPED UP IN HOTEL ELITE:
FOLLOWED BY THE FAREWELL CLIMAX OF THE
KARAVANSERAI DINNER AND BELLY DANCER IN
August 4, 2005
It
might have been a long dull day---and was—but for the plugged in laptop I kept
working on in the hot and sticky Hotel Elite all day awaiting the one event of
the day at the evening farewell dinner.
But, before that happened, I at least had a chance to complete and proof
the stories of the Azerbaijan half of the two adventure trips of this summer as
I prepare to leave tomorrow morning to
start up the next one. I also typed up
to completion the thoughts I had run over in the anniversary marked by
Then,
we got our Mercedes ride to the
We waited through the Azeri band and the Azeri singer, with Patrick catching a short clip of each on Tape, before the event we were waiting for had arrived. A young girl who looked to be a stocky young 18-year-old wandered in and used the little cave behind us as her dressing room and came out to belly dance her way around the tables, shimmying and shaking for the individual delight of the onlookers. She went from table to table to have a few bills stuffed into the parts of her costume that were not designed to shimmy and shake with the dance action. I shot a few photos on the stills as Patrick got some of the action on video footage. We will exchange his edited tapes and my edited photos and stories to get the right details for a good narrative voice over for the TV tape that we hope emerges form this hunt, even if the kill scene was interdicted despite the wishes of all of us. We will exchange the best parts of the hunt which will describe it for others who might want to try it later as the publicists for this “extreme hunt adventure.”
TRYIJNG TO EXTRACT THE LAST OF THE CASH
POSSIBLE FOR THE HUNT FROM
NON-USER-FRIENDLY
BANKING SYSTEMS IN
Patrick had used the day to raise George—now back in Gaithersburg—on the satellite phone, and had tried to get him to arrange the transfer of some money, since we have spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to get the ATM, or wire transfer or cashing of checks done all without success, since a large amount of cash is the only kind of currency recognized here, and I had given up a lot of that on both entry and then again at tip time on leaving the mountains rather abruptly and prematurely. Then there was the matter of the Hotel Elite and its charges, plus a doubling of these charges since Patrick had floated a large number of accessory charges like his growing bar b ill on the room as well. This means we could pay only one f several due bills—the Hotel and its accessory charges or the “rifle rental” a contentious issue since they are brought here as gifts from Bennelli, and even that would zero me out for the next several weeks in Africa. So, I had given up the last of my US $100 bills to Patrick and all the residual Monat I had changed upon arrival to pay my half of the room rental, the simpler half since I had no restaurant charges, Bar Bills or Mini-Bar raids to caver and that will fall to Patrick who is also going to remain for another full day, departing early morning the day following my departure. I left him with the mobile phone number for Virginal for a satellite call on her birthday, possibly from the Moscow layover that he will have while accompanying the hides and horns, and everything but the rifles which are staying here as gifts, which we somehow are being charged for renting despite being the means for their getting them, as well as having the publicity piece for which they were the star attractions props interdicted.
The Azerbaijani
story is thus completed in the image and text divisions, as an extreme hunt
adventure in the Big Caucasus Mountains followed by a rather protracted
sedentary session in