Gobustan Petroglyphs

Can't believe it's December already. Time flies so fast now we have to catch every minute of our stay and even though not much can we do, little things can make us happy: sushi, hookah, car rides and most of all trips outside of the city!

Last weekend we decided to visit Gobustan, region of Azerbaijan, 64km south-west from Baku. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm and hanging out with the best people made this trip absolutely amazing!
We started out trip by taking a bus from the center of Baku ater transfering into a second bus. As long as I already got used to the typical marshrutkas the bus was far from the public transportation we were used to...

When we got to Gobustan we had to take a taxi and if I can recommed anything here is to take the one that has the funnies and open taxi driver since you're going to spend the whole day with him :))
We started our Lada journey by taking a bumpy road to see the mud volcanoes. If you're familiar with the crazy way of Azerbaijani driving (which is quickly beeing absorbed by all the people living in Azerbaijan..) just imagine how it felt like in the back seat of the car while driving up the moutain.. But the view outside of the window was too great to worry about our lives ;)

In the middle of the desert we were driving on, on the top of a montain, we found the famous mud volcanoes! They're active so be careful because it's quite slippery and you can see the mud-lava coming out of the volcano! Some of them were bigger, some of them were smaller but the most fun was a lone volcano a little difficult to climb at. Being afraid of hights or not you better climb it because the view is incredible.

After that we headed to the Gobustan National Historical Artistic Preserve which was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007. It cointains ancient sites, the relics and vestiges of culture from over 2000 years ago. The place is famous for its rock carvings and proves of the human early civilisation. More information about the preserve you can find here: Gobustan Petroglyphs
Some of the carving you will see very clearly but with the others it's a little harder. If you use your imagination you can probably see a lot more than this place has to offer! Just look out for the snakes! Bu ilanlar var

The rocks you see on the pitures came here as a result of tectonic movements makind such a grea landscape that's so typical for this region. Some of them, like Qaval Daşı, might wake up the inner musician in you!

There's also a muzeum near the entrance to the preserve but I didn't get enough information about the petroglyphs nor the region but that might be because the taxi driver was in a hurry. Later we found out why but at the moment we didn't even have enough time to talk to the pretty boys standing outside of the museum...

We finished our trip sipping tea and talking to the family of our taxi driver. It still amazes me how hospitable those people are here. The day could not have ended better - eating Azerbaijani food while listening to the sound of a guitar in a genuine Azerbaijani home. Inshallah our next trip will end the same way :)