My Fall Break: A Trans-Caucus Tour

(more photos coming soon)

I've seen a lot of Azerbaijan.  I've done my share of visiting friends around the country, but this has especially been the case with my work as a teacher trainer.  That aspect of my service has taken me to many many parts I might not have visited otherwise.  However, beyond Azerbaijan I haven't done too much.  Sure I traveled back to America in the summer, but I've been there before and wouldn't call it 'traveling' as much as 'returning home'.

This past week though I went up to Tbilisi in Georgia and got to satisfy my wanderlust for international travel.  Me and a couple friends traveled by bus, which has a few difference from traveling by air.  First of all, the bus stopped at the Azerbaijani boarder and all of us had to get out and walk on foot over the actual boarder.  We checked out with the suspicious Azerbaijani boarder guards and were practically waved in by the welcoming Georgian guards.  From there we caught another bus that took us to Tbilisi.

Tbilisi is an enchanting city.  It sits on the Mtkvari river which cuts the valley between two mountains, causing the city to rise in elevation on both sides rapidly.  One meanders the streets on the cobblestone roads, passing wine shop after cafe after restaurant after bakery.  The city planners have found harmony in the integration of the very old and the refreshingly modern.  Silent highways are supported by reinforced old-city aqueducts, a massive fortress looking cathedral looks over an entire section of downtown where the shops and restaurants evoke strolling through the ritzier parts of Vail.  In a place where there is a historically preserved building on every street, whimsical bronze and iron statues are found to be riding bicycles with flowers, peering into a wineshop, or jumping from the roof.  Unlike some cities where I am instantly captivated, with Tbilisi I was slowly cradled into falling in love with it.

Both Jane and Sanyo had already been to Tbilisi and everyone who goes to Tbilisi describe it as a magical land of milk and honey.  Where good whiskey can be purchased in the same place as good coffee; where men and women hold hands and laugh with each other on the street; where people look for waste bins rather than toss it on the ground.  The differences between Tbilisi and Baku were so striking (and preferable) that I was like a slack-jawed child in disbelief pointing to each and every change that had occurred over the 570 kilometers.  One of the most important differences is the cost, Tbilisi is extremely inexpensive and the conversion rate weighs heavily in our favor (the Georgian Lari is worth about .6 USD and .5 AZN).  For a Peace Corps volunteer with a taste for luxury and Western comfort this was a joyful surprise.  Excellent Georgian wine: 12 Lari a bottle, champagne with breakfast: 28 Lari a bottle, multi-course Georgian feasts: 15 Lari a person.  The weekend was spent eating outstanding food and drinking outstanding refreshment.  Its a walking city with easy going traffic and we would roll through the city investigating whatever caught our eye.

But we couldn't stay in Georgia forever (yet) and eventually we all had to go our separate ways to continue with our Peace Corps lives.  Fortunately for me this didn't take me to work.  I spent a night in Ganja working on an exciting project with Kelly, the other current teacher trainer in Azerbaijan (more on this later) and the next day was off to Baku to say goodbye to some great friends who had officially finished their service.  We celebrated in style with lots of dancing and cheersing and splurging on good food but it was bittersweet to see some of my closest friends leave.  With close friends, I'm pretty good with goodbyes, I have no concern that I won't see them again-it just sucks that it won't be in the next month.

Also in Baku some friends and I were lucky enough to be staying in two of the nicest hotels in Baku.  Through a combination of networking and an accumulated free night we stayed one night in the centrally located, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Hali Kai and another night in an executive suite in the Hyatt Regency.  This was luck a bit above anything else we've experienced in Azerbaijan and some volunteers might sneer at it hardly being volunteer lifestyle.  But I'll take a room at the Hyatt over a sneer any day, their robes have anti-sneer shields.