Xinaliq (strictly speaking there should be no dots on the i's but I don't have an Azeri keyboard on the laptop) is a beautiful village in the Caucasus mountains of Northern Azerbaijan. It’s pronounced Hunalug, although Michael took to saying it Honolulu! When we arrived in Xinaliq, it had been snowing the previous night and the white covering on the mountain extended all the way down to the stream at the bottom of the valley. That’s where we were taken to our “guest house”. It wasn’t really a guest house as such because there was no landlady to look after us. We were shown to our rooms and the extra blankets and sleeping bags were pointed out to us. Other than that, we were on our own except for meal times. During the afternoon we explored
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