Gobustan National Park

Nearly half of the world's mud volcanoes are located in Azerbaijan and included was a day trip to Gobustan National Park, an archaeological reserve, home to mud volcanoes and rock engravings. The mud volcanoes could not be reached by our bus so we transferred to a fleet of Lada taxis driven, close to the safe limit, across a desolate landscape of dirt roads by local drivers demonstrating their skill.  Several of the cars were around 30 years old and the Ladas were similar to the Fiats that I remember from the 1970's - basic but good cars.

The mud volcanoes stand up to four metres high and resemble boils or pustules on the face of the desolate landscape emitting regular burps of natural gas, mostly methane, blowing bubbles or squirts of mud.  These managed to catch almost everyone by surprise so that most/all of us got splattered with grey/black mud.   Disappointingly no one tried to light one.  I imagine that could be quite spectacular - a quick way of getting rid of unwanted hair - like carelessly lighting one of those old-fashioned gas water-heaters - that I'm old enough to remember.

Mud 'volcanoes' belching natural gas - mostly methane
When they burst they splatter the unwary with a spray of mud - no one gets away clean
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Perhaps more interesting, and a lot less dirty, were the ancient petroglyphs on the previous sea shore of the Caspian, dating back between 5,000-40,000 years before present.  These are similar to some we saw in Uzbekistan and others around Australia.  They are difficult to date accurately, as some are quite recent and others are forgeries.  But the most reliably ancient depict animals long since extinct or record human activities no longer practiced, like ancient methods of hunting or fishing.  Gobustan is a well-researched site with over 600,000 ancient rock engravings and paintings that was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007. Interestingly one image appears to be of a Viking longboat.

Petroglyphs dating back between 5,000-40,000 years before present
One, obviously more recent image, from the Common Era, appears to be of a Viking longboat
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