On the Origin of Man, and Other Slimy Things

I’m really just going to point you to some other internet sources for this one.  Over the weekend we had a sweet trip south of Baku (the capitol) to Qobustan (remember that Q = G), home of the famous petroglyphs! These are the cave drawings that are thousands of years old, older than the Egyptian pyramids and various other older-than-old things.

We also found a random group of Azeri men hanging out at the bottom of the climb up to the top of one of the cliffs, so we had tea with them and chilled for a few minutes in the shade.  Tea is becoming an addiction, I think.

 

The other part of the field trip got us to the mud volcanoes–Azerbaijan is home to more mud volcanoes than you can shake a stick at.

 

And, as must always happen when mud volcanoes are involved, someone fell in.  Luckily, it wasn’t me.  Our good friend Tim happened to be standing near one of the larger volcanoes and it collapsed under him.  He sunk in up to his waist, giving his pants a completely new shade.  He did manage to save his camera, however, so all was not lost.

For more info on the mud volcanoes, check it out here.  Nearly half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth are concentrated in Azerbaijan.