Monthly Archives: October 2018
which way to the Coke Museum?
I drank a little more of the V, and then I packed my stuff and left the hotel to walk the rest of the way towards the border with Georgia. The streets in Balakan seemed a tiny bit more flashy than the others before it: The late President’s words were carved in stone on a […]
bowl, bottle, bonhomie
I woke up with something like a faint notion of optimism within me. Sure, the border was still about 50k away, but it felt possible to reach it before midnight the next day. That was when my visa was going to run out. Zaqatala turned out to be a bit bigger than I had expected: […]
the absence of light
I woke up in a hotel that was small and dirty. There was a slightly stupid-looking cat greeting me outside of my door: Everyone else seemed to be still asleep, so I just left the key in the door and stepped out on the streets of Qakh: I needed some tea, though. So I went […]
a breaking voice
I only had four days to get to the border, or else my visa for Azerbaijan would run out. So I said goodbye to the old town and the caravanserai and the mushroom, and I stepped out of the gates and started walking again: It was at least 110km to the border, and some of […]
Thanks, Mr. Shroom!
When I woke up I felt frustrated for several reasons. The newspaper had sent me a reply with the words “it’s very nice, but…”, and the part that came after that meant that I would have to basically rewrite the thing. I would have to cover a lot of distance (about 110km) within just four […]
to mock a hummingbird
Having turned in the article, I went and took a cab to a little village a bit further north in the mountains. The village was called Kish, and there was a tiny little old church in it: I remember telling you about the old Albanians of the Caucasus a few days earlier. Well, this church […]
ye olde Caravanserai
There were expensive hotels, and there were cheap ones. After a bit of searching I had found an affordable room in an historical building, the old Caravanserai of Sheki: The rooms were a bit run down, but they were spacious, and when it turned out that the shower in my room didn’t work, I got […]
full of piti
I woke up to the most gentle of morning lights: Fazil was busy doing his accounting: And two gentlemen were busy playing backgammon: Want some piti? Fazil asked me, and he showed me the food he was preparing: Piti is a dish of mutton and vegetables slow-cooked in a little crock. Of course I wanted […]
take my picture!
I woke up in a small room with another piece of classic hotel art on the wall: Someone gave me hot water for my tea, then I left. I was going to reach the historical town of Sheki today, finally. I had been looking forward to it for quite some time. But first there was […]