Surprisingly, I sleep well until morning when a blast of Azeri music gets life moving again. I look out the porthole around 9 am and realize we're not moving. It seems we're in line to dock, a wait that takes a good 5 hours. It's hot but frequent showers and complete non-movement makes the world tolerable. Finally, Ramiz pops his head through the porthole to announce we're going in and I must be on deck.
We dock, but it's another 90-minute wait in the sun. When we're finally allowed to disembark, it's necessary to stoop and inch through the rusted rail cars to get off.
My guide for the week (one cannot get a tourist visa for Turkmenistan unless escorted) is Tonia, a very pretty, smart Russian woman with a good sense of humor. She hurries me through immigration, a bizaare, no-order-to-the-madness process of forms that are impossible to read. With her help, I am the first one through.
First stop is to change money. Bank rate is about 5000 manat to the dollar; black market is 23,000. The black market is in the open and acceptable with the authorities. People even run banks out of a window of their homes. $20 brings me a pack of money two-inches thick. Tonia asks if I'd like to try some caviar. We go to the market. A woman unwraps a large piece of paper on a table to reveal a massive clomp of a black, oily mass about the size of a volleyball. "Try a taste." This is like drugs. You get hooked. Caspian primo, only $300 a kilo.
Enjoying a good sweat, while the ship sits.
Do the railcars get off first, or the passengers?
These fish were just carted in.
Along the shore of the Caspian.
Do the railcars get off first, or the passengers?
These fish were just carted in.
Along the shore of the Caspian.
1 comment:
Caspian caviar? I'm thinking holiday presents...nummy. How did you find Tonia? Did you know you would need a guide ahead of time?
tu querida amiga
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