Do you like volcanoes? I climbed a couple of times to the highest volcano in Europe, visited the picturesque crater of Avachinsky volcano, strolled through the hot lava erupting Tolbachik, admired the volcanoes of South and Central America.
Well, today I will tell you about the volcanoes of Azerbaijan.
They are located near Baku, you can get by bus - from the citycenter you first need to go to the 5th, then change to the 195th. You need to leave in Gobustan, where you will be captured by taxi drivers and immediately try to drive to the museum with rock paintings. First, they need to try to explain if you want to go to the museum, secondly, be sure to bargain - you can reduce the price in two or three times. We did not go to the museum, we are only interested in volcanoes.
Five minutes along the road, then ten minutes along the mud, and, here we are on the spot.
Yes, mud volcanoes are not very similar to the giants we are accustomed to. Most of them are slides of clay a few meters high.
But at the same time, they do not cease to be volcanos with a seething lava in the crater.
Craters are overflowing, and the mud begins to flow down the slope.
According to the number of mud volcanoes, Azerbaijan ranks first in the world. On the Internet they write that there are 800 mud volcanoes on the Earth. 350 of them are in Azerbaijan.
Usually mud volcanoes slowly gurgle with mud, but sometimes there are real eruptions with the release of a flame to a height of up to a thousand meters. This is all due to the fact that mud volcanoes are located in oil and gas fields.
Come tread the dirt of the Gobustan, but be careful, if you step on the not completely dry "lava", then you can lose your shoes :)
Pretty cool pictures and post man! Would love to see more of Azerbaijan as most of what I know and have seen is all and only about Big Oil, especially BP.
Your pics would do good with a little light/levels/contrast adjustment in Photoshop or comparable cuz I can see some serious hidden beauty in those shots. Just a comment :).