Gobustan & Mud Volcanoes

So today, the 18th, was a PC cultural day. They rented two giant tour buses and hauled all the trainees and staff on a field trip. I actually had a lot of fun, the weather was great today and we got to see a lot of really neat sites, and it was fun to see everyone all at once. Our first stop was Gobustan, “ravine/canyon land”. According to our PC handout “Gobustan, settle since the 8th millennium BC, contains thousands of rock engravings spread over 100 square km depicting hunting scenes, people, ships, constellations, animals, etc… The oldest petroglyphs date from the 12th century BC and traces of Mesolithic period occupation can be seen, with numerous burial mounds and graves.” Well, I didn’t see all that, just some really fascinating petroglyhphs. But, I did get to climb a lot of rocks, which was completely worth the two hour drive to get there. The PC staff corralled us all back on the buses to take us to the mud volcanoes. Now, I was so excited about this because the PCVs in Ganja really talked this place up and said it is a must see. Once again, I had in my head what I imagined mud volcanoes were going to look like – and I am not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed. They were a lot smaller than I expected and not supper active. But as one my friends said “It is like the earth is farting!” What more can I ask for, I mean seriously! I had fun there as well and amazingly enough left relatively clean. I did have to turn down the offer to paint ‘war paint,’ aka mud, on my face. As tempting as it was I just had my weekly shower last night and I am definitely not ruining it on day 2 of being clean! I am posting some pictures from both sites. (I usually don’t like to be in pictures, just taking them, but I have been taking special effort to be in these pictures for you all – so please feel loved!)

Me, Sabina, Amy, & Jordan (another AZ6)

Mud Volcanoes