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Published: November 11th 2008
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One of the main sights people head out of Baku to see are an hour or so's drive South of Baku near the town of Qobustan (often called Gobustan as that's how it's pronounced). For once we had a nice Sunday to make the trip worthwhile and we hired Kamaran, one of our school's drivers, for the day. It was good as he has enough basic English to explain things for us from time to time and it was good practice for him! A free English lesson!!
As you leave Baku, one of the first things you see is the Bibi Heybat mosque. It's a beautiful building and a popular spot for drivers to stop and and give an offering for a safe journey. Apparently during the Soviet era here, it was one of two major mosques, and orders came from Moscow that one of them must be destroyed. The city government decided to demolish the out-of-town mosque so this one has been completely rebuilt since the collapse of the USSR. Unfortunately we haven't yet discovered if non-Muslims can enter, so we can't tell you what the interior is like.
A little bit further along the road (which is
undergoing major rebuilding) is the nearest beach, Shikhov. It's not beach season so we don't really know what it's like in hot weather. The view over the Caspian Sea is certainly different though with a large oil rig just offshore!
The road continues past industrial parks, gas plants and cement factories. It's not exactly beautiful! When we reached Qobustan Kamaran drove us straight up to the National Park where the rock carvings are. The setting is fabulous and, after a quick look at the caveman dioramas in the museum, we were off exploring the ancient art galleries. They were not easy to see in places thanks to centuries of erosion. The images of animals and people were more visible than those of boats and fishermen. We did manage to see a large live lizard perched on a rock though. What surprised us most was the amount of tourists; school trips, French embassy staff and the odd backpacker.
From there we headed towards the prison! On the way there is apparently an ancient piece of graffiti. This is supposed to be the furthest East that latin inscriptions were ever found. Unfortunately time has not been kind and now you
can't see anything! The rock is still protected by a fence but we didn't stay longer than about 30 seconds!!!
Next we wanted to see some mud volcanoes. Amazingly Kamaran had no idea where they were. According to the guide book, this is a common occurrence. After asking several people we headed off the main road about 8km South of Qobustan and followed a terrible track towards the sea. Kamaran's Lada did very well and, despite several places where we may have turned back, he got us there. At the end of the peninsular we saw a community of fishermen. They and their families spend a lot of time out on the water, living (albeit temporarily) in wooden houses on stilts. Being a Sunday it was almost deserted and they had no fish to sell us for dinner. What a shame!
Anyway, we trekked a short way up the the mud volcanoes. They were eerily fascinating. We followed a small flow of liquid mud (which looked like milk chocolate!) up to the crater. There we saw a large pool of mud oozing out of the ground, bubbling constantly. We didn't venture up to the higher crater as we
were already running much later than expected. We managed to climb up to what we though was a trig-point. It turned out to be an old lighthouse. Well, an old concrete pillar which once housed a light to warn the shipping of the nearby peninsular.
The volcanoes we actually wanted to see are not accessible from the main road. We didn't have enough time to try to get to them so we can easily justify another trip down to this fascinating landscape. It's not easy but well worth the trip.
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