Kotal

Today we drove with the guide on a standard itinerary exploring the “goodies” outside of Baku. The drive outside the city really showed us that this country is built in the desert, all revolving around oil - we passed a lot of oil rigs and pumps - and not much else. Our first stop was mud volcanoes - a fascinating phenomena where methane gas comes outside, forking mud mini lakes and mountains. The mud is believed to be great for skin and general health and our driver even filled a bottle of the mud for us. The next stop was famous petroglyphs that have been discovered in the area - we saw many different rock carvings. Then we drove to the “burning mountain” which is created by the constant gas coming out of the ground, so once it was ignited millennials ago, the mountainside keeps burning like a giant stove. The last stop was the Fire Temple, which originated as the Zoroastrian temple and was then rebuilt and still functions now with the fire that also is fed by the underground gases. We finished the day by the fabulous dinner at Sahil, a great restaurant on the boardwalk. We then flew back to Tbilisi.Read more