Aboard the Cargo Ship on the Caspian Sea

From July 20, 2014 - updated (6/16/17): It's almost three years since we embarked on the cargo ship in Baku, deep in the night, uncertainty surrounding us, the ship's trajectory pointed northeast across the Caspian Sea. For some reason, this post of photos from life on the ship never published. And as a chronicle of our Silk Road trip, the blog would be incomplete without them.

Our cabin was sweltering when we first arrived, air barely escaping the AC vent. Dad made friends with the ship's engineer who was able to fix it for us.

One of the surprising things was that we never saw any other ships or boats or anything besides the blue Caspian Sea.

The toilet and shower leaked so much water on the floor that it was better not to use.

Lunch and dinner always started with a delicious soup. The captain and crew ate before us. We ate with the other passengers, a mix of Georgians, Azeris, Russians and a Chechen, who ate with his Russian girlfriend after everyone else was done.

The Chechen and I actually ran into each other in the empty cantina and after the mutual shock, we had tea together and shared photos on our phones of family and home.

There was not much to do on the ship and 28 hours felt like forever so we played at least a dozen backgammon games. Dad would not want me to share the results.

A view inside the cantina. You had to be on time for breakfast (7:15 AM), lunch (12:30 PM) and dinner (6:30 PM) or risk getting the scraps. Scorching hot tea was available 24 hours in tall kettles. There was no coffee.

The other passengers, big muscular round guys, spent the day playing chess and drinking tea. At night the vodka came out, and it did get a little loud, but nothing out-of-hand. These guys had to be ready to move and unload at 5 AM. 

Caspian Sea sunset.

Caspian Swim

The Crescent Moon Resort beach in Sixov south of Baku. Beach goers were a mix of Russians and Azeris - sunbathing, playing soccer and volleyball, an aqua park with water slides next to the pier, Eurodisco music blasting through the air (hilarious when one of the dance songs started chanting "I want to F#%*!"), people would get inside those giant balls in the picture below and scramble on the water like a hamster, the sand was course full of tiny shells but not unpleasant to walk on. 

We were the first Americans they'd ever had swim there. The water was clear, warm, with no oil floating in sight - though you could see offshore oil wells on the horizon after swimming far out to the buoy. 

At the raucous beach bar, the bartender in an English national team jersey with Rooney on the back called Dad Al Pacino an me Brad Pitt. A dude with crazy eyes jumped over the bar to hug me around the neck and kept wanting to high five. More and more curious young Azeri men started congregating around us until we ducked into a wooden table shelter to order food. 

We received quite a few suspicious stares. Hussein, our friend and taxi driver, found us. He helped speed up the food (we had a cargo ship to catch) and fended off the unwelcome glares. 

Not quite the midnight swim, but mission accomplished - Caspian Sea!