Arriving in Azerbaijan

We arrived in Baku late on the 3rd of October. As always the visa queue was very long with only one person issuing visas, at least we were near the front !!

Luckily our 14 bags arrived safely, the excess baggage charge was £1,200. The person at the check in desk asked if we wanted to pay by cash or credit card !!

Off to the Hyatt that was to be our home for a couple of weeks .. However we soon discovered from the 1st of October (which is officially winter) the air conditioning is switched off. It was 27 deg for the first few days after we arrived and even now 17th October it is averaging 22 deg. We decided that we would move into our apartment as soon as possible.

This is the view from our bedroom window ... the statue is of Nariman Narimanov who is a famous doctor.


So far things have gone well, everyone is very friendly & helpful. Food shopping is quite an experience, some of the labels are in Russian and some Azeri .. so you are never quite sure what you are buying. We are trying to stick to the local Azeri shops, we went to one of the expat shops today and a small bottle of Helmans mayonnaise was 5 AZN (£3.80) compared to a local brand 1.7 AZN. We also saw a packet of flour for 7 AZN !!!

Tried our first borsch this week, courtsey of Jamilya our maid. It was very good but we didn't realise that there was meat in borsch ...