Travels with Kathryn

Well, I am now safely installed in my new hotel. Slight issue on check-in as they did not have a reservation for me. It turns out Mum had a room, and Keith had a room, but I did not. All was quickly resolved, and I checked in later that afternoon. It feels a bit weird to be in a hotel again, but it’s nice to have a view:

And (most excitingly) fast wifi, which means that photo uploaded in less than 20 seconds = whoop!

I knew that my geriatric travel companions were on route as The Monkey (Mum’s monkey. NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!) was spotted at Manchester airport:

Sometime in the middle of the night, I did get a WhatsApp to tell me they had arrived in the hotel around 5 am, so I was not expecting them to surface before lunchtime (which was a relatively accurate assessment). Much magical reunioning and I got to act as tour guide for the day (which I do enjoy!). First lunch, then a trip on the funicular up to Highland Park to see the Flame Towers, etc, then a walk along the promenade with an opportunity to sample some local wine. A delightful meal in a local restaurant, then early to bed. But just to prove they did arrive safely:

The next day, we were told to meet our new guide (and group) in reception at 10 am, so we are:

• us 3;
• another British lady;
• 4 Australians – a couple, and 2 single ladies; and
• 3 Americans, including a very elderly couple.

Again, I am the youngest (I am sensing a theme), and 2 of our group are certainly going to struggle and should probably have joined the Canadian group I met at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. Does make Mum and Keith feel pretty sprightly, though! We also met our guide, Afqhan.

Our first trip of the day was (by bus) to Highland Park to see the Flame Tours! Bit of a fail in my tour guiding there as I did not think we would have had a tour around the park (which we did) and it meant that Mum and Keith got to see it twice in 2 days (oops!). However, Afqhan did give me some new facts: Did you know that the Caspian Sea is actually 4 x bigger than Azerbijan itself? Or that the ratio of the population comparing the Baku penninusula to the rest of Azerbijan is 1:42? It is always good to learn new things. He is also obviously a bit of a keen photographer, hence the shot of all of us above and this one of me below:

After a brief walk along the promenade (to really ensure that Mum and Keith had fully enjoyed it) we stopped for lunch and were persuaded to have the “fancy” national dish of Shah Plov (which translates as crown pilaf):

This is (essentially) a plov (which you all now know how to make) or pilaf containing rice, chunks of lamb, chestnuts, and dried fruit baked into a dish of thin layers of bread. This is then surrounded by additional meat (in the form of kebabs) in case you did not have sufficient meat on your plate and served with a candle on top (for additional fanciness). It is (as you would imagine) delicious, but oh so filling.

After this delightful meal, it then took us some time to try and calculate the bill (even I was considering offering to help at one point and we all know what my maths is like!). The learning point for next time is group bills/give it to one of the mathmaticians in the group.

To try and waddle off some of this meal, we then went on a walk of the Old Town – I will not repeat what was effectively the same as the tour I have already completed, but we did actually go inside the Palace of the Shirvanshahs which I purposely didn’t previously. As (I think) I wrote about previously, the Shirvanshahs relocated to Baku in the 15th century after a series of earthquakes in the former capital of this region Shemakha. The Shirvanshahs ruled over the region from the 7th to 16th century, when the Turks conquered the region. The complex includes a palace, hamman, mosque, and masoleums, all built at different times. I had been expecting a large European-esq palace, but actually, what has been renovated is only a very small part of the palace, which would have originally had 52 rooms, but its still rather on the small side. The first thing we all commented on was the depth of the steps – either people were very tall or were very bad at judging depth when building?! Much of the palace rooms are dedicated to exhibitions of various local items.

In terms of the other buildings, the hamman has been left pretty much as was at the end of the 16th century which is actually rather nice to see as much of the Old Town (including the plaace) has been rather over-renovated so you do not necessarily get a sense of the history of some of these buildings. However, the Tomb of the Shah (or Divanxana meaning to make counsel) was very atmospheric, particularly as it had, by now, gone dark and we had a beautiful view across to the Flame Towers whilst the place security tried to get us all to leave so they could lock the doors!

A long, but very successful (imho) day.

Today, we set off in the bus out of Baku. Baku is a rather sprawling city, but as you start to approach the outskirts you can clearly see evidence of oil extraction on which this country has been built with pumps and a number of industrial looking complexes (including a JCB factory!). Our first stop of the day was the Gobustan reseve – this is an area of 3,000 hectares that features many ancient petroglyphs. Due to earthquakes and other seismic activity over the past centuries, rather than these being in caves as one might expect, they are strewn about on boulders, giving the landscape a certain suface of Mars appearance. These drawings were made by many different peoples over centuries of time, but the earliest date back 20,000 years.

For me, what was most impressive was the sheer number of petroglyphs and how well they have survived (considering this is limestone exposed to the elements). Apparently, the preservation is due to minerals in the water, which coated these images and managed to protect them. It also seemed strange that people have gone over and over the same areas rather than starting on a fresh bit of wall as it were, the theory here is that these caves (when they were caves) had greater signifiance and hence needed continual decoration.

Our next stop just a short distance away were the Gobustan mud volcanos. Now, do not get over-excited with the word “volcano” as they were more (as beautifully described in the guidebook) “geologically flatulent conical mounds.” However, they are certainly fun to watch – essentially, they are formed when natural gas bubbles to the surface through mud, pushing out the gas and oil. But watching them every now and then, you would get a small release of bubbles meaning (hence the flatulence comment) that the mud would eventually ooze over, creating taller mounds. Interestingly, NASA geologists studying Mars have concluded that these volcanos have a very similar structure to those of the surface of Mars, so from now on, I shall claim to have been to Mars…

There is currently a spa hotel being built next door to allow people to really benefit from all this fancy mud, so I wonder in a few years if they will allow tourists to clamber all over them (making jokes) without paying for some kind of mud bath/wrap/facial. We shall see.

Returning to Baku, we made a short stop at the Bibi Heybat mosque. I was somewhat underwhelmed by this as it is a 1990s replica of a 13th century mosque, so it was all a little too shiny for my liking. It is also a working mosque and something of a spiritual centre in the area, so I am not sure whether our visit was entirely helpful for the ladies who were trying to get some serious praying done.

Unfortunately (more for Mum and Keith than me) we were unable to visit the Heydar Aliyev Centre as an International Cosmonauts Convention (which sounds rather fun) is going on next door so it was not possible to even do a drive-by. However, instead, we visited the carpet musem. This is fabulous from the outside, but inside has (considering it is dedicated to carpets) a rather limited collection, with the oldest only dating back to the 17th century.

However, when I get bored of cross stitching, I do really feel that I could now move into carpets – even though they are less portable when being made!

And that is it. I am definitely ready to leave Baku, but it is a really fascinating place and I would certainly recommend it for anyone looking for a long weekend. Tomorrow, we are driving to Shaki and its Palace of the Shaki Khans. I am very much looking forward to it.