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

BAKU’S “OLD CITY”

 

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 Virginia’s birthday centered on a quote from that celebration five years ago in the old Derwood:  I hope, with your help, to become more beautiful on the inside!” VGC, 8/5/’05

 

            Then, we got our Mercedes ride to the Old City for the awaited farewell dinner at yet another of Yullat’s AYF Company’s holdings—the famous Karavanserai Restaurant.  It is located in the UNESCO declared World Heritage Site of the Old Walled City, and dates from the thirteenth century.  We had a brief tour of the building and its underground components, including special rooms for private parties and a few of the Ottoman Empire relics down there. They had done well with the Roman Arch and on at least one of the openings into the catacomb-like chambers below there was a Simpson Dorr—a lunette on a central spike swivel – a unique, balanced and secure way of building a door into the carved-in masonry rooms.  I did a short series of TV interviews in the tour of the structures of the Karavanserai and its history.  We then went to a special corner table and had the usual Azeri dinner, with the veggies, followed by a pate’ stuffed chicken and the special Beluga caviar.  The Kebabs of sturgeon, mutton and other meats (with the notable exception of course, being no pork) and were wined with various drinks as well as vodka shots to celebrate a successful hunt and a long slow withdrawal process form the mountains in otherwise sleepy time in Baku.

 

            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 BAKU

 

 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 Baku where it could be assembled in the re-grouping and transmission.   I have gone from climbing up, skiing down and falling off the Big Caucasus Mountains in four rigorous days interspersed with mountain horseback riding, to sitting on a hot cot in a non A/C coastal Caspian Hotel for another four days—but that has allowed me to revert to nearly normal appearance with the eschars healed up, the sunburned ears having peeled off and much of the fracture hematoma having resorbed from my orbital raccoon eyes.  Now that the TV cameras are no longer running for frequent taped interviews, I may look nearly normal.  Enjoy the Hunt Story from a Caucasian on the loose in Azerbaijan!