Gobustan Mud Volcanoes and Petroglyphs

A popular day trip from Baku is to the Gobustan area, where you can visit the mud volcanos and petroglyphs of Azerbaijan. This is usually one of the first touristy things expats do here, and it's definitely where everyone takes visiting friends and family.  But somehow in a year of living here, I hadn't yet mustered up a trip to Gobustan, so I finally decided I shouldn't wait any longer.  

Whitney and Jeremy marvel at a bubbly mud volcano

The mud volcanos sit in a desolate, lunar-like landscape.  The day we went was also chilly, cloudy, and windy, adding to the lonely aura of the location.  Besides the forgotten feel of the place - which had no signs directing us to it or any markers once we'd arrived - the first thing I noticed was the sounds.  The ground was literally gurgling around us, gently and infrequently, but audibly.

Erica enjoys the mud volcanos

Following the sounds, we found the "active" volcanos, which were bubbling and runny.  As curiosity got the best of us, we stuck our fingers into the liquid mud.  Contrary to the expectations of the name, the volcanoes were not hot.  Azerbaijan's mud volcanoes exist because of gases emitting from nearby petroleum deposits, rather than from heat erupting from under the earth's crust.  The mud was also fairly odorless, tasteless, (yes, we sampled it), and not noticeably effective as a facial mask!

Having had our fill of mud, we took a short drive to Gobustan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of prehistoric rock engravings AKA petroglyphs.  Visiting the petroglyphs was a bit like being on a scavenger hunt. Significant groupings of petroglyphs were identified with markers, but considering that some of the carvings were tens of thousands of years old, they didn't always stand out.  We were sometimes looking up and down, squinting, or stepping back for perspective until someone called out "Found it!"

Erica at Gobustan

The most well-known petroglyph is of ten dancers.  I had seen this image several times already in Azerbaijan, and was anxious to finally see the real thing.  But as we went around the area and got closer to the exit with no dancers in sight, I was getting worried we had missed them.  Finally Jeremy pointed high up in a corner and called out "There they are!"  Our day trip was complete.

Gobustan's ten dancers