Exploring Azerbaijan Off The Beaten Path – Mountain Spirit Tour

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Come Day 3 and it was time to explore Azerbaijan like a local. We were to do the Mountain Spirit tour. In other words, after the Baku city tour and various other day tours from Baku, I was going to be unravelling this Eurasian beauty off the beaten path.

After having Aziza’s adorable smile along with omelette & pancakes for breakfast, we embarked on a 2 hour journey to the Guba region.

Sadly Taleh, couldn’t join us as he had another passenger troupe to receive at the airport. As a result, Jamil was our guide for the day with the addition of a weirdly silent tourist couple from Dubai for company.

EXPLORING AZERBAIJAN – MOUNTAIN SPIRIT TOUR

BESH BARMAG MOUNTAIN

I remember it’d been an hour into the journey and we’d had zero conversation with the couple. Now it was too late to even try to start a conversation.

Our first stop was a point called the Besh Barmag mountain which literally translates to “Five Finger Mountain”. It’s located in the Siazan district of Azerbaijan. The mountain’s a solid rock and one of the most famous mountains in the Caucasus known for it’s mythical stories.

Jamil informed us about this story of how it’s believed that there lived a Prophet in this region thousands of years ago. Hence, the Muslim pilgrims see it as a sacred place.

Also, the ritual of sacrifice of sheep & goats is performed at the mountain on the pious occasion of Eid. Travellers generally use this mountain spot for exploring & experiencing Azerbaijan through their hikes and treks.

As soon as Jamil finished his explanation, the lady from the couple, surprisingly, spoke to me. She asked me my name and details about my job, albeit after her husband got down to pee.

Funnily, she turned silent again after her husband returned. Anyway, from there we continued our journey, reaching the forest region of Guba after an hour’s drive.

SECRET LITTLE RESTAURANT & EXPERIENCING AZERBAIJAN’S VEGETARIANISM

Walking along the 2 kilometre stretch in the forest, we admired the greenery all around soaking in the fresh cool air.

The river (which had dried up) nearby separated the residential part of the region from the forest area. I found walking through the forest a very offbeat & soothing way of exploring Azerbaijan.

The trees on both sides of the road almost formed an A-shaped tunnel, barely allowing a bit of sunlight to percolate through them. It helped us as it kept the temperatures down.

Having walked half a kilometre, we spotted a small restaurant of sorts with a couple of benches for us to sit and enjoy the view of the mountain.

Did we make use of that opportunity? Yes we did.

The menu of the restaurant brought a smile to my face. The vegetarian option they had was an egg dish with veggies. Clearly, to them vegetarian food just meant some grass from the forest, which was boring.

So they’d rather modify the meaning of vegetarianism itself where eating an egg is a prerequisite. I was loving the whole “let’s eat in the forest ambience” experience. Meanwhile I got lost in my own train of thought.

The dish was really flavoursome and tasty to be honest. So was the chicken dish that Ava’d ordered. I absolutely recommend you to try this low profile restaurant (whose name I couldn’t read). Afterall, who’d mind experiencing Azerbaijan’s cuisine in the middle of the forest?

AFURJA WATERFALL

A 30 minute drive from the forest took us to our next stop – the Afurja waterfall. Located in the southern part of Guba, it’s considered to be one of the most beautiful natural wonders of Azerbaijan. I didn’t find the waterfall worth the hype to be honest.

But what I personally liked was the view of a river stream silently making it’s way into the mountains. The river passage had curves of an F1 racetrack with greenery on both sides for bodyguards.

Also present in close proximity to the waterfall was a strangely built restaurant. It had an extremely narrow staircase going up till almost half the height of the mountain. We put our cameras at work and clicked a few pictures enjoying the view. From there we made our way into the home of a local Azeri family.

DINING IN THE HOME OF AN AZERI FAMILY

This was my most favourite part of exploring Azerbaijan. Having a meal with the locals. A lovely woman named Sevta greeted us at the door with her cute little grandkids Rehman & Aaysu. 

I remember Ava nudging me and saying – “Look at her! She’s so gorgeous, I wish I look like her at that age”. Seeing the youthful exuberance that Sevta exhibited, I agreed with her. She served us a delicious 3-course home cooked meal with sherbat (thankfully more vegetarian options were available in my case).

After our lunch, I headed to their yard talking to Rehman and trying to make sense of his world. Rehman however, was busy alternating between running behind the chickens in his yard & shooting me with his playgun.

I was busy capturing Rehman on my phone. Just then I see Aaysu innocently trying to be a part of the picture. So I realised she loves posing for photographs.

Jamil joked with me about how their yard was once completely filled with chicken and how each time a traveller group has a meal here with the family, the population of the chicken in the yard reduces.

Since I absolutely loved my experience, I vouch for it and recommend fellow travellers to experience the authentic Azeri lifestyle.

We bid adieu to the wonderful  little family after our meal and stopped by a beautiful lakeside to chill for a bit. Nothing earth shattering about the place.

It was calm, quaint, charming and a lovely picnic spot. We sat there for a while soaking in the setting and then went back to our hotel.

A BRUTAL FULL BODY MASSAGE IN BAKU

I was craving a full body massage but little did I know what was in store for me. A well-built, 6.5 ft tall Azerbaijani masseur dude fresh from watching the film Rocky almost broke my spinal cord. Never experienced such brutality in a massage room before.

He knew each and every sensitive zone in a human body and had scanned all my weak areas. Each finger of his just hit the pain threshold of my nerves and I wasn’t surprised when he told me he’d worked for the army previously.

It’s only after his massage that I realised I didn’t have any particular stiff area, in fact I had a stiff body. I remember him saying – “It’ll pain now but you’ll be okay later”. I prayed for it to be true since it was going to be my birthday in a few hours and I did not want to walk like a war casualty. Anyway, we put on our party clothes on eve of my birthday and headed to the Fountains Square.

RINGING IN A MEMORABLE 26TH BIRTHDAY

On our way we finally got to witness the Flame animations on the Flame Towers. It surely was magnificent seeing the towers in sparkling colours lighting up the night sky.

Thanks to last night’s amazing experience at the place, we again landed up at the Coffeeshop Company. This time, we had a young Turkish couple namely Safak & Laila for company.

10 minutes into the conversation and we were already divided into two teams – Ava & Safak who loved alcohol and Laila & I who loved coffee.

Enquiring about Turkey and exchanging travel notes with the couple, we headed to the Otto bar around midnight to ring in my 26th birthday. And I admit, it turned out to be memorable.

We partied away the night – which was all about Romanian music, hip ambience, chilled beer, some gorgeous ladies making passes at me and me becoming wise enough to not bring them back to my hotel room.

From admiring it’s modern, eccentric yet traditional capital city of Baku to living and breathing it’s hidden natural treasures, exploring Azerbaijan had truly been a traveller’s delight.

And spending time in the forests and mountains of the country breaking bread with a welcoming Azeri family only made the experience more authentic & heartwarming.

Though the duration of my vacation was short, it was an absolute pleasure to get to know the country thanks to an amazing package from Holiday Factory!

Thank you Azerbaijan for being a wonderful host and making my 26th birthday special. Till next time!

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