Not wanting to miss the ferry, we got back at 7.30 to wait it out. As it turned out, we needn’t have bothered. The other teams weren’t all reassembled until 10, and the guards didn’t take our passports til about 12. The customs officer came out with his tape-measure, took down all the vehicle measurements, and then we worked out a price. For the 7 of us the total came to $1590. We gulped and handed it over.
We were waved through the first gate and told to get our stuff together, as we would not have access to the vehicles during the voyage. Cue 4 hours of waiting around in the sun again. Organisation and sticking to timetables are clearly not concepts they have over here. Finally they let us drive the vehicles on board, then made us all queue up (about 30 ralliers by this point) and checked all our passports. The letter of invitation we had been assured would get us into Turkmenistan in lieu of a visa was flatly refused, and the Embassy was closed, meaning 3 teams (us included) had to get their vehicles back off the ferry and reconsider our options. So close yet so far.
The options we were presented with were: get the next ferry to Kazakhstan instead (they say probably tomorrow, but we know how much that’s worth…); go to the Embassy in the morning, when it might be open, get visas, and then wait for the next ferry to Turkmenistan (Thursday or Friday (so probably Saturday or Sunday)). We were all sick of the heat by this point, and getting to Kazakhstan early would let us skip the 50 degree scorch of Turkmenistan, as well as giving us a bit of extra leeway time. We tried to get on the ferry, sure it would be fine as we had heard of people taking it before, but were suddenly told they wouldn’t accept passengers, only drivers. We were tearing our hair out by this point. It is impossible to get a straight answer here, despite the valiant efforts of our helper/translator, who I’ve heard is getting paid by the ferry port for this. I really hope so.
Eventually decided to get the visas in the morning and wait to see a) which ferry goes first, and b) whether the Kazakhstan ferry will let us on. Paid a very worthwhile $200 between us for an air-conditioned apartment with shower and washing machine (which turned out to be non-functioning; surprise, surprise), and sampled some of the local cuisine (very cheap and very tasty). Hopefully we’ll be out of here within a few days…
Good to have the update. I thought the tracker had been strapped to a stray cat roaming the streets of Baku! Glad you’re across the Caspian, hope you can get on now. (27th July)
Still watching you guys, from the comfort of a Prague campsite. Can imagine the heat is grim, keep going chaps, enjoying reading your updates, cheers, Jay (met you bunch of heros in Budapest)