Another humid night and then we headed to Baku. Immediately you can see the wealth here and the dominance of the oil in the region. People had nodding donkeys in their gardens and looking out to sea the horizon is covered in rigs. We checked into a very nice hotel ($140 prpn) as we have to have a local sponsor in order to get the visa so as part of the deal they choose the hotel. In the afternoon we spent the afternoon trying to find the shops so I can buy some more flipflops, T shirts etc. Everything is very expensive though and in Debenhams they stick the local price at at least twice the British. Some thermal/pilates legging later and a lot of money spent, I've still no flip flops!
Its a bit of a waiting game for the ferry as there is no set sailing time and we are waiting for a diesel carrying cargo ship sailing to Turkmenbashi. We were told to be back at the hotel for a 11pm sailing. When we returned Pete told us that the ferry was actually petrol cargo to Kazhakstan. No good for us so we needed to find somewhere to stay. There is an oil and gas conference going on in the city at the moment to there are few hotel rooms around. In the end we got 23 of us in 5 rooms spread over 2 hotels. Some were lucky to get a bed with the chance of a decent night's sleep and others were on the floor 6 to a room. All in all, Pete and the hotel did their best and everyone was pretty pleased not to be out on the streets!
So that's the update. It's now 1.30pm on Wednesday and a ferry got in this morning. Hopefully we will be on it this evening as everyone has few dollars left and is getting a bit fed up. We shall see!
Update: 2pm and we are hopefully on the ferry tomorrow morning. No hotels are free so we are camping in the "courtyard" of the hotel. Should be interesting!
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