One in one out
Baku, Azerbaijan
August 27, 2007
By Dan Murdoch



WE PICKED up Brady in Baku. He’ll be with us for the next month, which is a great addition- fresh blood.
We met him at the airport shortly after 3am, took him for an expensive beer at the terminal, then treated him to his first night as a trekker – camping on a patch of debris yards from the runway.
He’s from LA, good company and a talented photographer and designer. A front man in a decent band, I spent a good week with him in Germany last year.
One in.


But Tony P lost his passport somewhere on the 500km drive through Azerbaijan a couple of days ago. It was loose in Dante and probably fell out along the way.
He thinks he’s narrowed the spot down to a few miles of road where everyone got split up late in the evening.
OJ went back with him to retrace their steps yesterday, they spent all morning searching, but came back empty handed.
One out.

The passport can be replaced relatively quickly.
The visas are a different matter. Russia in particular takes a while to sort out, and he will need a new letter of invitation – not easy to get.
One option is that we go ahead through Turkmenistan, hopefully he will be able to fly to Tashkent in Uzbekistan to meet us next week, then travel to Kazakhstan with us. Then he will probably have to fly over Russia and met us in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
But the extra flights and replacement visas are expensive, and they could mean he runs out of money towards the end of the trip and doesn’t make it to Cambodia anyway.

Another option is to bail.
His insurance will cover him for his lost passport and a flight home.
He admits he’s tempted.


It is a major blow.
From a social perspective Tony is a steady hand. A calm, easygoing character who gets things done. He’s someone I find easy company, and he knows how to handle Lovey. He’s struck up a particular friendship with Zsofi – the two of them get on well and usually travel in Dante together.
We joke that it’s harder to get into Dante than China. You need a letter of invitation and a visa, and even then you’re unlikely to get more than a day.

And TP’s also our mechanic. Over the last six weeks he has got to know each of the Trabbis intimately. While we’ve been out filming, he’s often stayed behind to work on the cars, and knows the nuances and character flaws of each.
It’s rare that more than a couple of days go by without him fixing one of them, and his expertise will be sorely missed. Particularly now, when we’re heading into the unknown of Central Asia and the ‘stans’.
So the group is changed again. Since we started we’ve lost Justin, which we expected, and Tony and Istvan, which we didn’t.
But we have gained Marlena and Brady – for now at least.

Ends
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