Baku, Azerbaijan

Over Spring Break, 4 other volunteer and I took a quick trip to our neighbor country, Azerbaijan. Although it was a short trip, it was totally worth it!

From Tbilisi, we took the night train to Baku. It was my first time ever taking a sleeper train, and it was definitely an interesting experience. The compartments were minuscule, but fairly comfortable given the circumstances. The border crossing was the hardest part, as it took 2 hours total to pass through both border controls - including having our photos taken and compartment searched! For anyone considering making the trip, be warned that the train staff and Azeri border officials speak little to no English (or Georgian) so be prepared for some sign language communication! Also there is no food so bring your own!!

The train was Soviet era, but had been refurbished inside

tight conditions!

waiting at the border

Baku is an interesting city. Outside the city, it is a desolate desert full of oil rigs and not much else. But the city itself (financed by oil money) is large, modern, and full of life. And, most importantly for us volunteers, it has a Mexican restaurant!

If you order the mariachi nachos, a marachi band comes and plays for you

Here are some of the sights of Baku that we enjoyed:

Heydar Aliyev Center (named for the president and styled after his signature, and with a lawn filled with plastic statues of rabbits and snails)

the whole crew

Heydar Aliyev Square: 

The Caspian Sea!

Old Town

The old city wall

There were signs everywhere...but they were blank

Palace of the Sharvanishah's (historic rulers of Baku)

the view from the palace

The Caspian Sea out of the palace window

Possibly my favorite thing in Azerbaijan: historic mustache trainers!!! 

Shirvanashah private mosque

tomb/mosque destroyed by the Armenian invasion in 1918

We also took a trip out to a small town about an hour away from Baku, Gobustan. There is an ancient petroglyph site out there, as well as mud volcanoes! The petroglyphs were absolutely fascinating and well preserved! The landscape was very dry and rocky, but the museum said that thousands of years ago, this was all forest which explains the amount of wildlife represented in the drawings.

the road up to the site

humans and a deer

ancient aurochs (ancient wild cattle)

dancing humans

view fro, the site

humans and a boat

horses

From the petroglyphs, we were eager to see the mud volcano site which we had heard so much about. Azerbaijan is rich in natural gas, which bubbles up from the ground sometimes resulting in eternal flames or in mud volcanoes! The problem is, the site is extremely off the beaten path (there is no road to it) so you have to have a local drive you. Luckily, the manager of the petroglyph site spoke English, and called his friend to take us. What resulted was the most exciting and wild ride of my life: speeding along off road through the desert avoiding wild dogs and potholes, all while the driver laughed at our reactions! When we arrived at the site, we were the only people there (and for miles around!). The site itself is very odd: mounds rise out of the ground filled with bubbling mud, and gas comes out of the ground as well (our driver was prepare and whipped out his laughter to show us how you can set the ground on fire where gas comes out!)

mud volcanoes

bubbling mud

the moment the mud burst out

All in all, Azebaijan was an awesome trip, and I got to visit a country and culture that I never imagined I would ever see!