Our guide, Hasan, arrived at our Baku hotel promptly at 9am to start a day tour of the Absheron Peninsula on which the Azerbaijani capital sits and the cultural and historic preserve of Gobustan with its prehistoric carvings. We headed southwest out of Baku driving almost a hour to Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape where we joined a cluster of cars and buses awaiting the park’s 10am opening. Skipping the park museum for the time being, we bypassed most of our fellow visitors and went straight to the rock art.
Massive rocks that defy the term “boulder” cover the hillside. Natural shelters and crevices used to funnel wild cattle into hunters’ traps dot the hillside and are covered with ancient art reflecting life long ago: Hunters and wild bulls, boar, birds, wildlife of many kinds, caravans of camels and their drivers. Percussion instruments of long raised stones still resonate when struck with smaller stones, an ancient method of communication. Circular carvings in the stone ground caught water and blood from butchered prey. Beyond this ancient stone habitation, flat marshes stretch to the Caspian Sea in the distance. Hasan did a good job explaining it all and the museum provided a final overview before it was time to moved on to another highlight of our day, the mud volcanoes.
Hasan called ahead to arrange our meet-up with our Lada driver on the side of a paved road. Hasan rode shotgun, chatting away in Azeri with our driver, while David and I took the back seat. I’ve read that there are mud volcanoes in the area that are now reachable by a typical rental car sedan, but the road we took absolutely required something more than your average street car. We quickly left paved road, barreling across a barren wasteland, throwing up a cloud of dust and dodging the dust of other vehicles making the same trek. About mid-way, the “road” narrowed to a single lane across what looked to be a rainwater pond. Our path was so deeply rutted that it took a couple of tries for the hardy Lada 4×4 to make it past one particularly steep dip. Yeah, a street sedan would not work for this.
We arrived to a field of “mud volcanoes,” mounds of dried dark mud created by methane gas bubbling up through liquid mud. Surprisingly, the mud is cool to the touch, cooler even than the air around us. Climbing atop one mound, we dipped our fingers in to a particularly active small mud pool that was creating huge bubbles.
Exploring the field, we climbed other “volcanoes,” some barely active, some oozing long rivers of mud; one was on fire. It’s a fascinating landscape. Mud volcanoes exist in other parts of the world, but more than half of them (some 400) are in Azerbaijan.
Heading back towards Baku after the mud volcanoes, we stopped to visit the Bibi-Heybat Mosque. Originally built in the 13th century, destroyed by the Russians in 1936, then rebuilt in the 1990s the mosque’s Arabic exterior encloses a Persian- and Azerbaijani-influenced interior.
We were more than ready for lunch by the time we returned to central Baku for a simple lunch of Azerbaijani cuisine after which we continued on through Baku to head north and then east to Yanardag “Fire Mountain.” Hasan bypassed a line at the ticket counter to buy our tickets before we headed on to view the side of a low bare hill in perpetual flames. Bleacher-style seats leading down from a small museum formed a semi-circle around a broad paved patio in front of the burning area. The place was fairly empty with small clusters of tourists standing in front of the fire enjoying the warmth in an increasingly chilly wind. The fire is natural, another effect of the seeping methane in the area. Ancient Zoroastrians considered the area sacred, a belief that led them to found Baku.
A short drive from Yanardag, we arrived at our last stop, Ateshgah of Baku, a former Zoroastrian fire temple. The temple occupies the center of a pentagonal courtyard surrounded by a former caravansarai and monks’ quarters. The fire temple itself is a small stone structure with open arches on each of its four sides. An “eternal” flame fueled by naturally occurring gas once burned on an altar at its center. The monks’ quarters and caravansarai, a way-station or inn for caravans moving along the Silk Road, provided natural gas fire pits in each room courtesy of the unique geologic makeup of the region. Most of the cells now contain vignettes, artifacts and life-size dummies portraying life in the complex over the ages.
After a full day, we were pleasantly tired and ready to head back to our hotel in Baku. Retracing our route back past the ultra-modern Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku with its curving white walls and imposing size provided a final treat.
Practical info:
Many tour companies and guides offer similar itineraries of this popular day trip to Absheron and Gobustan. After browsing offerings on Viator and Tripadvisor, I discovered a confusing array of potential extras. Reviews of trips to the mud volcanoes frequently mentioned an extra charge for a Lada to carry visitors across rough terrain to the mud volcanoes, entry fees or lunch were or weren’t included, etc. And there were group and private tours available. I decided to message our hotel to see if they had a recommendation for a private tour. They did, but when I contacted that company with the specific questions my research had raised, I found they charged extra for a transfer to the mud volcanoes and suggested a $50 lunch which sounded ridiculously high for Azerbaijan. I opted instead to email Baku City Tours, a top-rated tour company on Tripadvisor. They responded promptly, answered all my questions about their “Full day Gobustan & Absheron Tour” clearly, didn’t charge extra for a Lada 4×4, and quoted a firm and reasonable price for lunch. Baku City Tours WhatsApped me the evening before our tour to confirm pick-up and our driver, Hasan, messaged me as well. All in all, I was very satisfied with Baku City Tours.