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What can you learn about a country in just two days? Well, not much really. But some things we found noteworthy nonetheless:

Azerbaijan is the first country on our journey where geese seem to be super popular. It felt like every second house in the mountain villages had some.

The road from Baku to Gabbala leads through very diverse countryside. While you start at the Caspian Sea and then drive through semideserts, the landscape changes drastically as soon as you reach higher altitude. Lush green forests and vineyards greet here. Furthermore, there are hundreds of beautiful looking restaurants along this stretch, nestled on hilltops or underneath trees, inviting to take a break and enjoy the scenery. (With hardly anyone around, we were, however, wondering how on earth they all survive...).

Another find, crucial for our travel planning, is the very good cellphone reception all over the country. Something we haven't been used to so far.

And we were also positively surprised by the first recycling machine we spotted in a supermarket. Yes to waste management!

Good for our budget: diesel ist finally cheaper than petrol and every gas station has the same price. Is it government regulated? Don't know, but we're leaving all fuelled up.

As we're looking for nice campspots, we can't help but notice the dried out riverbeds everywhere. It's hard to imagine a full flowing river here, but after all, it's autumn and it might be different in spring with all the snow melting in the mountains? The debris that's lying around suggests that way. We might have to come back and check it out!
Right now, we head to lakes instead. However, as refreshing water sources seem to be scarce, the ones that exist have been capitalised on: the two lakes we approach have been taken advantage of a hotel with a boom gate denying entry to non-paying guests. What a shame!

Last but not least, we realize that Russian isn't very popular here anymore. The Azeri language sounds very different and they use yet another alphabet. A strong Turcic influence can be detected. Time to move on from Russian and learn new words!

We leave, feeling that we haven't explored enough of this country's landscape and culture. But mountains are calling and we need to take advantage of the great weather forecast. Azerbaijan, you deserved more but we tried to make the most of it.Read more