Qubustan
Qubustan mud volcanoes
August 12, 2005
We again slept in today then rushed out to get to Qubustan to see the petro glyphs
and mud volcanoes. We grabbed some food at the corner shop, got a taxi and headed
south. We arrived without a problem and soon got a tour of the petro glyphs. The
tour was good in that the man was extremely knowledgeable and had great English.
The "pictures" were alright and I only enjoyed “cave one," however
Elizabeth loved every minute of the tour. I guess petro glyphs just don't interest
me, however Elizabeth enjoyed it so the trip was worth it.
We also saw some “Roman graffiti” on a stone not far from here, written by a centurion
near the turn of the century, the furthest east roman script has ever found. They
say the soldier must have been on a re-con mission from the Roman stronghold in
what is now Iran.
The man from the museum insisted that the mud volcanoes are 20 kilometers away and
its impossible to find so we should hire him for $10 in addition to paying our driver
another $10 for the extra distance. This seems to be typical in Azerbaijan, in that
the people often times work together to help each other, however this at times come
at the expense of the traveler. Lonely Planet gave us directions to the mud volcanoes
so passed on the guide.
The route to the mud volcanoes was rough both for the car and for distinguishing
what roads are actually roads. We went a long ways; however I believe at the end
our driver said it was 6 kilometers each way. We finally decided that the volcanoes
must be atop a hill so headed up without our driver, who was behind us in the car.
We were right and the volcanoes were incredible... well worth the trip.
Our driver was incredibly impressed and actually thanked us for showing him. These
volcanoes bubbled and spewed cool mud down hills in little valleys of mud. Much
of the earth was hard as a rock from the thick mud and beating sun, however the
fresh mud was a darker grey and even the mud a few days old was darker and not yet
cracked.
The surrounding was also unique, not a living plant or creature for miles around,
the Caspian Sea could be viewed in the distance with the Iranian highway close by.
The old sea bed lay beside the water and only where we were, on this hill and west
of here was the terrain elevated. To the west the hills were rigid and the dirt
created an almost sand-like appearance from the distance. In places there were sporadic
dead bushes and the heat coming off of the earth made me feel like I was in the
Middle East. The atmosphere here is very unlike that of Baku or anywhere I have
ever been.
This was hands down one of the geographic highlights I’ve ever seen. The trip back
was quick and our driver so enthralled by the sight, he bought us ice cream on the
trip home.