Motourama Part 39: Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Hello family, friends and followers! In this Travel Story, we have finally arrived in Baku and almost settled into a room. On top of that, it is Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend and main race day. We hope you will enjoy.

After the horrible arrival and first impression of Baku – and a good night’s sleep – we woke up and were offered free breakfast, which we gladly accepted. The host still felt terrible about the mishap with the room booking the night before, and offered to guide us along the best route to another hotel with equally priced rooms. We explained to him that we had just been exhausted when we arrived due to the long day in the seat and the heat, and that Esben wasn’t angry anymore. We happily took him up on the offer to show us the way to the other hotel. We got our bikes packed and in the daylight we got a better look at the building we had been sleeping in. On the outside it looked almost finished, but the stairway was not finished by a long mile. The night before, it had been dark in the staircase and in the daylight it was easy to see why: there were the beginning of light fixtures but all it was was wires coming out of the ceiling and walls with no attempt at securing the exposed part of the wires. Another curious thing was the height of the concrete steps. They were not the same from bottom to top. It looked like someone had been creating each step one by one on the way up to the top floor. The tallest step was about twice as tall as the most shallow step, which made going up and down a bit of a gamble, especially if you were carrying something large enough to block your vision of the steps – like motorcycle luggage. Another oddity we saw was a front door on one of the floors locked with a bicycle chain lock. How to do so? See below:

It was creative and possibly even effective. As soon as we had the bikes packed up again, we followed our host through the city – this time along a lot less congested route.

After a short ride, we arrived at the hotel, which turned out to be walking distance to the Formula 1 race track. Esben was very excited about this, as well as the prospect of not having to deal with traffic to get close to it. We checked in to the cheapest room available – which meant no windows. On the up-side, we had A/C! This was blissful in the Azerbaijani heat. We had a bit of time until race start, so we got settled into the room, changed clothes from our hot motorcycle gear to shorts and t-shirts, and did a bit of washing. Having hanged the washing to dry, we set off to see the race. We hadn’t bought tickets to enter the race track (they were quite expensive for our budget), but we were lucky enough to find an elevated hotel entrance in the shade just at the entrance to the pit stop area. From there we had a good vantage point of the straight.

As soon as the engines fired up, the air was filled with the rumble of the turbo-charged V6s. There was no mistaking the start of the race; the rumble suddenly turned into screaming roars, as the cars set off down the straight. After just under a minute and 50 seconds, the first cars had already completed the first lap of the 6 km track, and came thundering past us. Already on the first lap, there was a spin-out and a collision and the rest of the race would prove full of incidents and drama.

It was difficult to track the cars, as they came storming by, but Esben got a few good shots:

During the race there were so many collisions, that the race had to be stopped to clear the track of debris before it could resume. During the stop, we decided to find a place to get something to drink and watch the rest on a TV, as we had run out of water and were quite warm, despite the shade.

We looked around for a cozy cafe to sit and enjoy the rest of the race, but found nowhere with a TV. Esben agreed to sit at a nice cafe without TV but with wi-fi, so he could follow the race on his phone at least. While Esben was watching the rest of the race, Denise researched places to go salsa dancing in the evening and found an event in walking distance to the city center, not far from where we were.

After the race had ended, we went to find the location of the salsa event. On our way, we came through the old city center. The race track itself went around the old city center (which we found out the hard way the day before, trying to reach a hotel there on the bikes), so we found one of the pedestrian bridges crossing the track. The Old City dates back to the 12th century, and has been a part of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites since 2000.

Walking through the ancient streets was a great contrast to the modern city surrounding the area. The mirror glass on the Flame Towers was visible several times on our stroll through the narrow streets and open squares, constantly reminding us of the difference of the ages.

If it hadn’t been for the reminders of the modern surroundings to the old buildings, the smooth cobblestones in the alleyways and the old stone walls of the houses and buildings might have convinced us, that we had been taken back in time.

We had time to get dinner before the salsa party started, so we found a small authentic looking restaurant in the Old City, and had delicious Plov – traditional Azerbaijani rice dish which comes in many shapes and forms. We had ours with fruits and meats.

After a satisfying meal, we made our way to the building where the salsa event was taking place, and it turned out to be an old warehouse with an interesting atmosphere. While Denise made her way to the dance floor, Esben walked around, exploring the building.

The upper part of the old warehouse had been made into a cafe with shelf after shelf of worn books in Cyrillic and curiosities.

Having experienced so much in one day, we were quite exhausted, and after just an hour, we decided to head back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep.

Until next time, have a Grand (Prix) day!