Caspian Crossing

Once only an exotic name in history books and a faraway place on a map, the Caspian Sea met us in its emarald green hues late on Monday as we approached Turkmenbashi on the Turkmen side. Quite unremarkable in terms of size or scenery, it now yields its riches in oil and gas to the countries like Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan connected to it making them (some of its citizens anyway) very rich. Now we were going to cross it hopefully on the same day on a cargo ferry on an undetermined time and for an undetermined duration. So we wait.

Thankfully, we spend the night at the half decent Turkmenbashi Hotel in an airconditioned room albeit with comical 1500 way shower head and gurgling plumbing.
We hear that the ferry will not be leaving tonight because the winds are over 10km/h. when will it be ready t leave? No one knows. so we wait.

The next day, we try to prepare for the crossing by stocking up on water and supplies for the unknown duration. Before we could get into the swing of spending our last remaining Manats at the bustling bazaar, Liana our guide tells us to get to the ferry terminal urgently! We rush to the terminal only to find a burgeoning queue of anxious Azeris waiting at a small window to secure their talon to board the ferry with. We are number 24 and 25 we are told. So we wait.

Our hopes rose and fell in the proceeding 10 hours as we waited at the ferry terminal. A cocky Turkmen official was holding up proceedings saying that the ferry was not licensed to carry passengers, but things were still in the balance, open enough of course for him to receive a payment from the ship's captain. All of a sudden to our jubilation at 10pm we are bundled up and told to get on board.

The captain and some of his henchman are at the gaping mouth of the cargo ferry obviously full of oil blackened train bogies and demand our passports as well as USD$140 each. We reluctantly gave him our passports which he assured us would be returned upon arrival. We were told the price was USD$90 and wouldn't pay more, and he agreed, surprisingly.

Squeezing past the cargo hold of train bogies we made it up steep rusting stairs and were showed to our cabins, if you could call them that. This was no Queen Mary. The mattresses were the oldest most decrepid I'd ever seen, the toilet did not work and more water leaked out of the shower hose rather than the head and the lights did not work until the lady banged it hard. Thankfully though we could open the porthole window to allow some fresh sea breeze before the smells from the adjoining sewer became too apparent as it ran past our malfunctioning toilet.

Grateful to be on board, we refused to pay another $USD2 for clean sheets and lay down to rest very carefully in our silk sheets probably amongst frustrated bed bugs gnawing on their chomps to get to our warm flesh and to be lulled to sleep by the ferry slowly chugging out of port. We were on our way to Baku and only 12 hours later we'd be there! so we thought.

In the middle of the night, we were awakened by huge clanging which made Stephanie wake up with a start and start praying. I was too tired so just lay there listening. The gentle roll of the ship noticeably stopped. We were only half an hour out to sea and we had anchored and not moving an inch so we just lay there trying to sleep in the silence.

Only 9 hours later we felt the ferry moving again and 18 hours after that making it a nice round figure of 27hours we cross the Caspian Sea and arrive at the surprisingly European style city of Baku! As I sit here to reflect on the past 2 days, with my vision still continuing to bob gently up and down, I did actually enjoy the many hours spent breathing in fresh diesel laced air on the top deck where we went to escape the smell of raw seage being demped out of the ship's bilge into the Caspian sea. I must say all romantic appeals of the Caspian evaporated very quickly to be replaced with vows never to swim in the Caspian ever!

Nevertheless, we savoured the once in a lifetime crossing, and it was made even more enjoyable shared with a sturdy 23yr old Norwegian and comical 22yr old French backpacker who shared with us their incredibly vast library of travel experiences and wisdom together with their dwindling supplies of dry biscuits and melon. Still, we talked longingly about luxury cruises we would take in the future and of Club Med and touring Fiji on jetskis :) But this is how we crossed the Caspian.