Wednesday July 16, 2014, 66 miles (106 km) – Total so far: 3,859 miles (6,210 km)
Wednesday July 16, 2014 66 miles Finally after three sick days we were back on the road. Our previous three day trip over the mountains drinking fountain water turned out bad as we both got sick. Every time we came up to a public fountain we gulped the water without filtering. The locals are obviously immune to this river water where the cows are plentiful and the outhouses dump. We do have a SteriPen but didn’t use it because we were so hot and thirsty. Live and learn. We spent three nights in a nice hotel recuperating with lots of rest, bottled water, and eating ramen noodle soup.
We got a good start and remained strong until after lunch when we both got sick again. The miles continued as we both wanted a hotel instead of camping. We finally found one after 66 miles. It was a rough day but we were proud of our miles.
We just found out that our Azerbaijan e-visa is not ready yet. Besides it has an entry date of July 23rd and entry cannot be made before then. The major city of Tbilisi, Georgia is our destination (about 60 miles from here) as it is about 12 miles from the border with Azerbaijan. This seems to be a biker party town as many wait there for their visa entry date. Unfortunately I guess we will wait there several days also.
The biggest and best news is that our Iran visa has been approved and is ready. We had no idea that it was still in work as we had applied several months ago. Our plan is to pick up this visa in Baku, Azerbaijan then proceed south to Iran. We will miss the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan but explore the beautiful country of Iran for 28 days. Of all the biking blogs I have read Iran is the favorite country to traverse. We are so excited about this route change.