Archives for 2009

Blazes! That’s hot.

Post Velotreki and much-too-long-of-a-wait in a carpet shop, we met our friendly taxi driver for one more outing before our departure. This time we were absolutely assured that our driver knew the way… We were headed to the Fire Temple and Yanar Dag (Fire Mountain) in the surrounding area.

After a short but dreary (sorry, Baku countryside, but it’s true) drive, we arrived at the feet of Yanar Dag. Yanar Dag is a hill that shoots out flames. Really. It just keeps burning. The flames are fed by underground natural gas spread about 30 feet across the hillside.

It’s an interesting attraction and in hindsight made me crave hot chocolate. I wouldn’t mind a yanar dag at chilly outdoor events.

After warming ourselves with the flames, we headed back in the taxi to our main destination, the Fire Temple.

Pretty fiery, isn’t it?

Yeah… so our taxi driver just kept stopping his car for us to take photos of the salt piles, then we realized he was driving us back to Baku. Oops. Fire Temple FAIL!

We joined back up with Evan, packed our bags, ate a pizza dinner, detached from Evan, and arrived back at the Heyder Aliyev Airport. Once again, we were the only flight currently scheduled at the airport.

Thanks, AzerBAN-JAN!

xo, jill

A bit of a rainy mess.

On our last morning in Baku the sunshine we brought from Abu Dhabi finally ran out.

We headed out across town to the old Soviet era Velotreki. A bicycle track, if you will. Or according to our guide, Velotreki is Azeri for “we don’t actually know how to ride bikes anymore but we still have this weird stadium that we don’t know what to do with” Personally, I would be terrified to cycle here… the track is uneven and you’re supposed to go up on the sides, which I would assume requires top speeds.

I can only imagine the rush the cyclists must have felt walking out of the tunnel and amongst the rose bushes to the roar of the crowd.

I’m assuming it doesn’t get too much use these days…

Other highlights at the velotreki included this chicken foot:

Thanks to our champion tour guide!

On the way back we passed the local university. Yay for education!

xo, jill

“Um, those aren’t them… are they?”

After conquering the mud volcanoes, our taxi drove us out to the petroglyphs that decorate the rocks surrounding Baku. Except, we kinda ended up here.

In a field of rocks.

So they’re pretty neat looking rocks… and we felt like a giant should pop out from behind a rock a la this scenario… but it wasn’t the proper destination. Then we lost the taxi.

Eventually he popped up again.

A drive a bit further down the road deposited us at the site of the correct rock etchings.

An English speaking guide took us on a short (yet loooong) tour of the different petroglyphs. He was an entertaining guy:

Guide: “Tell me what this is!”
Molly: “Um…?”
Guide: “NO! It is goat!”

Man was passionate about his ‘glyphs. He would demand we tell him what the images were, then strike us down. Honestly, as someone who can never see the hidden picture… I was pretty ready to be done.

The Tambourine Rock was pretty cool though… it’s hollow so you can play it when you bang on it with other rocks.

We stayed until the park closed with the police guards pretty ready to head home as well. Fancy cop car, huh?

Another good day of travelating.

xo, jill

“… throw them down the mountain and get in the car!”*

Our third day in Baku we headed out to the famed mud volcanoes. I’m not exactly sure how famous these volcanoes are… but our taxi driver didn’t seem to know about them!

Frances befriended a shopkeeper who put us in touch with his friend, a “taxi” driver (he wasn’t licensed). We arranged for the driver to pick us up and take us out to Gobastan, some 45 minutes outside Baku. Despite being assured that our driver, who spoke no English but knew some German, knew where he was going we ended up driving through…a field of sheep.

Much of our taxi ride was off-road and quite entertaining. Each time the driver made it through a particularly rough patch, we’d clap and cheer him on… to his delight.

We only stopped for directions about… 5 times? 6 times? Everyone just seemed to point in the distance… and then we’d head out in that direction. Eventually we made it to the top of a butte after several engine stalls.

Finally, the mud volcanoes.

As with much of Baku, we basically had the place to ourselves. Plenty of space for exploring.

As you’ll notice, the mud just bubbles up from the ground forming mounds of various sizes.

Frances said it best when she described the experience as, “delightful.” It certainly made me feel pretty giggly! Watch the video Frances took.

xo, jill

* Jokingly mimed to me by our taxi driver after he’d had enough of my muddy shoes!

Incest… never a good idea.

That afternoon our personal tour guide was engaged elsewhere so we took sight seeing into our own hands. Our self led attempt started out with a fail.

We walked down to a museum for carpets. The Azeri people make beautiful carpets. I’d love to tell you all about it except there were no English speaking guides available that day. We admired the carpets as best we could without knowing what specifically we were looking at.

Then we headed to Maiden’s Tower, which is actually just around the corner from Evan’s apartment. Not too much is known about the tower, but here’s the juicy story that is totally not true at all and kind of creepy that someone thought it up in the first place:

Way back in the day the king (or leader of some kind) fell in love with his daughter. His own daughter. He loved her so much he wanted to marry her. His own daughter. The daughter didn’t want to disobey her father but she was pretty grossed out by the whole matter. She told her father that she would marry him, but first he must build her a tall tower so she could look over all the land in their possession. When the tower was completed the maiden climbed to the top and threw herself off, thus avoiding having to marry her creepy father.

Now aren’t we glad that didn’t really happen?

But the view from the top is quite nice.

xo, jill