Its not your usual sign which precedes a country but just before the Georgian/Azerbaijan border at Balakan it’s there. The question is how serious were they being? We had heard many stories of corrupt officials & police scamming several hundred dollars out of other rallier’s so we were aware we needed to be careful. Or was it all tongue in cheek? We were about to find out.

We crossed into the Georgian side & handed over all our documents so we could officially leave Georgia. As before, the Georgian officials were a happy bunch.  Very quickly we were stamped out of their country & were in no mans land. We headed forwards to the barrier into Azerbaijan & a military guard indicated me out of the car to go through a different enterance on foot whilst John carried on with Minty.  

We both thought it was just to go through the barrier. Nope, I was to carry on walking down a path separated by a 5 metre fence from John & the car towards passport control.  This ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem except I had both our passports  & the  car documents from the Georgian crossing. John had our visa’s in the car. I shouted across to John that I had the docs but was signalled on by another guard.  I was now wondering how this going to play out. John had no paperwork for the car or a passport. I didn’t have a visa as they are not added to your passport. 

I waited in a queue at the passport control building. It was soon my turn. The border officer could not speak any English but gradually understood what I was saying. After listening to him make several of what sounded like grumpy phone calls I was told to walk through the barrier & wait against a wall. I did what I was told & waited. I moved one step forward for a moment & was immediately told to step back. It reminded me of junior school when you had misbehaved & the teachers told you to stand against a wall at the back of the classroom. The only difference was that I could understand my teachers. 

Eventually a military guard came to collect me.

Whilst I was having communication problems, so was John.  The border officials weren’t impressed. This was a good start to what we knew was going to be a tricky border crossing. 

I was soon reunited with John. Minty was across a long car pit & John was emptying the car so the guards could inspect the contents of the car.  Soon the guards were satisfied we weren’t carrying anything that wasn’t allowed & told to go to a window to hand over our passports & have our photo’s taken.  The official decided to take his time going through our documents. By the time he got to mine, John had been stopped before the next window by another official trying to tell us we needed to leave a $3000 deposit for something they called an ‘environment fee’. Apparently you can get the deposit back at the point of exit. Hmmm, in a country known for its corrupt officials & police we just didn’t know if this was one of their scams. We just said the embassy never mentioned anything. We were then told the car needed to be in the Port of Baku within 72 hours.

Because Minty is 11 years old & classified as a group 4 car in Azerbaijan, the authorities charge youto take the car through the country.  Our eVisa was valid for 21 days but Minty was only allowed to be on the Azerbaijan roads for 72 hours & must be at the Port of Baku before this time.

We also had to buy road tax & 3rd Party insurance. These were expected & cost us USD$15 for the insurance & 12 AZ Manat. We also had to pay an additional USD$5 which we think went to the guard as we still can’t work out what it was for. 

After about an hour and a half, our visas were stamped & we had all the necessary paperwork we were told we could be on our way. After spending another 20 mins or so chatting to the guards about where we were going & the random visas in our passports & John’s tattoo we were wished safe travels. 

Next challenge, avoid being pulled over by the police.