Vodka shots, vodka sanitizer... vodka medicine!

So on Saturday I made the trek out to this little village Xinadliq (pronounced Hah-nah-ligg). It’s in northern Azerbaijan about an hour away from the Russian border of Dagestan. It’s set completely in this little hill, almost frozen in time which great hiking and gorgeous views. It’s very remote and hard to get to and thus takes a lot of peserverance to get out there. There’s also no hotels to speak of, and no one speaks English or really an Azeri or Russian, they have their own dialect called Chekt.

To get there we met in the morning at the bus station to take a marshutka out to Quba, which is about 3 hours north. I went with my American friend, Pam, and a British guy, Tim. We got off to a bit of a late start and wandered around a little confused at the Avtovokzal, but finally managed to get on a normal sized bus (!!) with legitimate single-sized seats and everything. Usually the marshutkas are a tiny van jammed-packed with people, so we were really lucky. The bus left Baku around 12:40 and it’s around a 3-hour journey to Quba, but the bus also makes frequent stops for hitch-hikers and random people getting on and off, so factor in another half an hour. When we finally get to Quba it’s about 10 degrees cooler, overcast and we have no clue where to go next. The three of us all have on these big backpacks that scream “foreigners”. We immediately get harassed for our passports by a policeman who is confused by the three of us and asks if I’m married to Tim. Apparently men are also overtaken by the national obsession with marriage. After this we wander around a bit and it turns out Pam’s co-worker who has family in Quba is there so we head out to meet her.

Pam’s co-worker’s mother owns a carpet factory in the area that’s funded by USAID and the UN because she’s a woman entrepreneur in Azerbaijan and has one of the only all-women factories. It was actually quite amazing, there were huge looms set up with all these beautiful carpets, spools of thread and tons of wool. Since Pam had been there before she explained a lot of the technique to us and then we had tea with their family. It was really pleasant and they were very accommodating and very nice. They helped arrange for a taxi to drive us out to Xinadliq and they even bought us dinner to take with us for the ride.

Once we got into the taxi our driver took us down these windy roads where we had to frequently stop for cattle or sheep. After about a half an hour of this we were in the middle of nowhere driving on a semi-paved single lane road with no guard rails along these deep ravines, through waterfalls and under giant mountains. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, once you got over the fact that one false move in the Neva (another Russian car) and we were dead. The driver was really nice and made frequent stops so we could take pictures. This bumpy car ride went on for about an hour and a half until around dusk we arrived in the sleepy town of Xinadliq.

Our driver took us to this guest house where a man appeared and after some mixed communication we ended up paying 20 manat for dinner, lodging and breakfast. At this point it was nightfall and totally pitch black outside. All we could hear were the noises of the animals, and we could only see a million stars in the sky. Xinadliq is set into a hill and we were at the bottom so when we looked up there were about 40 houses with little lights set into a hill. It’s really unfortunate cameras can’t capture those kind of images.

So we ate dinner- lamb, potatoes and fresh vegetables and of course, tea. After that we put on some warmer gear (it was pretty cold at night) and sat outside and looked up at the stars for about 40 minutes. It was blissfully quiet and peaceful. At a nearby house all these dogs started barking and the neighbors had to come out with their flashlights so like the city girl that I am, I started getting spooked about wolves and we soon went inside. At one point Pam and I went to the bathroom (an outhouse, by the way) and as we were walking back another man staying in the guest house goes, “I hear someone speaking English!!”. So we talked to this guy and discovered that he and his crew were working up in the mountains. Little did we know how much we would be together the next day.

We finally all go to bed, and thankfully the room has a heater and very heavy blankets. The next morning we wake up early and get our first view of Xinadliq in the daytime- again, it was absolutely breathtaking. It’s set in a valley of all these hills and beyond them are huge mountains of different terrain. There are 11 climate zones in the world, Azerbaijan has 9 of them, and 7 of those are within this region. So that means in one part of the region it’s very hot, in another it’s snowing, in another it’s humid, etc.

Our original plan was to just wander into the village and try to find a guide to take us up into the mountains. However, at breakfast Tim ended up chatting with our English-speaking friend from the night before and he offered to show us around and take us up into the mountains where him and his crew were doing their work. Since it’s Ramadan, their driver wasn’t taking them up until noon so he had some free time on his hands.

So we drive into Xinadliq and wander around. There was a museum (closed) but we just wandered up and down the “roads”. There were tons of little kids running around who took an interest in us since we were obviously foreigners. All of the women had their heads covered. There were chickens wandering around just about everywhere and lots of men in the typical Russian-style furry hat. The houses are all made out of stones and since they’re set into the hill the top of each house is the yard of the one behind it.

The man whose house we stayed in invited us over for lunch and it was one of the most amazing experiences ever. We walked into his house and into the dining room where there was an elaborate spread of traditional food. His wife served us tea and then brought in plate after plate of food. We had plov (rice), lamb, fruit, vegetables, and pastries. This man was 23 (although he looked much older) and had a 4-month old son. They also owned a bakery, which explains the pastries. The people were just so accommodating to us and insistent upon giving us everything they had, it was unbelievable. Elman (our friend from the guest house) explained a lot of the history of the area and helped translate for us.

So after we left his house we went back down to the guest house and got ready to explore the mountains. The crew that we were with was Elman (Azeri), Dima and Alek (both Russian). Elman speaks English really well, Dima knows words and phrases and Alek was pretty silent. They told us we didn’t have enough warm clothing so the three of us ended up borrowing clothing from these guys (which we all looked a little ridiculous in) and then we headed off. The vehicle getting us up to the mountains was this retired military-grade truck where we had to sit in the back in the open air and hold on for dear life hoping it didn’t throw us off into a ravine. (Mom, you might want to stop reading now.)

So we clamber into the truck, and Dima makes sure that Pam and I have the most secure spots in the corner of the truck. Then we head off to border patrol. Since this part of Azerbaijan borders Russia (read: it borders Dagestan which is where Chechnya is) they have some pretty strict border patrol. There are only two spots where you can enter Dagestan from on the Azerbaijan side and we were trying to get through one. They knew the men we were with but since there were three obvious foreigners in the truck we had to give them our passports and they called them in to headquarters and everything. It was all very official and little off-putting. But they let us through and then we continued our journey.

It took about an hour to get to the site where the guys had to go and we were on this treacherous bumpy path where if it was one wrong turn all of us would have been flung over a cliff. I was not enjoying the heights so much which amused the Russians to no end and made me the subject of many jokes for the rest of the day. At a lot of points I was clinging to the railing of the truck and trying to ground myself from being tossed around. The car waded through a lot of water, mud and sheep to get to our destination.

When we finally got there we climbed up a hill and saw the mountains from even further up. Words really cannot describe how gorgeous it was. There were about 5 different visible mountains, one called the golden mountain, another is the sun mountain, another called the king mountain and I honestly forget the other ones since they didn’t translate into English. Some were entirely orange rock, others were snow-capped. So we wandered around the top of this hill for a bit where these men were repairing energy installations.

Elman called us back down and we went into this little shelter and then starts brandishing a bottle of vodka. (It’s 2 pm, by the way.) He asks if we’re cold and starts pouring the vodka into a cup. Dima appears out of nowhere and drinks it and then goes back to work, totally normal. We’re standing there agog and then Elman tells us to put out our hands and starts pouring vodka into our hands. He tells us this is sanitizer. Right. Then he tried to offer us vodka so we’ll get warmer, which we all politely refuse. Dima wanders back in with his broken English and tells us that it’s medicine, and starts saying how much medicine you need in order to get warmer, feel better, etc. This conversation continued throughout the day.

After this Elman took us back into the truck while the other men did their repairs and took us for a little tour around the valley. We went to some random shepherd and dropped off about 5 bags of salt, which I thought was a little strange. As we drove around we encountered flocks of sheep heavily guarded by sheep dogs which all the men described as vicious and whenever they would near they would tell us to keep all our limbs in the truck while the dogs barked and ran after us. Then Elman took us to a nature conservatory where they were making guest houses as well. It was completely alone in the middle of a valley and under construction. When Pam and I got off the truck we joked about when the last time a woman was at this conservatory which could quite possibly be never. However, we were greeted with hospitality (as usual) and given a grand tour.

Pam and I had to use the bathroom (again) and so Elman took us to yet another charming outhouse. This one was a bit more rudimentary (if you’ve ever seen Slumdog Millionaire… think of that first scene.) On the way Elman lectured us that since we had been sitting on stones we were going to develop bladder problems. We both just kind of smiled and nodded and then walked off to the bathroom. After this we wandered up back to the truck where there was sheep tied together and occasionally making noises. Then it got tied to a stick… then a man emerged from a little hut sharpening a knife on a stone. They were making a sacrifice since it’s Ramadan and I didn’t stick around to see anything after that.

So we clambered back into the truck and made our way back to the site where the men were working. They were almost done so we were offered bread and cheese (and vodka again) and then we descended down to the truck and made our way back to the hotel. Clumsy fool that I am I fell down in the mud so I had to change all my clothes before we departed. Since the crew were all going back to Baku that night we hitched a ride home with them. However, there were 6 of us total and 5 spots in the car, so 4 of us had to squish into the back. Pam and I had to wiggle around about every 30 minutes since some part of our body would be numb from falling asleep. This continued for 6 hours. Not exactly the most comfortable thing.

The worst part of our journey was getting out of Xinadliq. We left at dusk and clouds (read: thunderstorms) were descending into the valley making parts of the drive virtually impossible to see. And this was around windy cliffs and steep drop-offs. At one point Dima had to get out of the car with a flashlight and direct Elman to drive. Not exactly reassuring. Once we got to Quba (aka a normal road) we stopped for dinner. They ordered a plethora of food and tea and instructed us in the proper way to eat it. They also were insisted that we all drink vodka since we were getting pretty cold (vodka medicine). It was a hilarious endeavor with all the different languages at the table but the common communication of just laughing about various food and drink items.

We loaded once again into the car and had about 3 hours left to Baku. We stopped again for tea and this time we were all pretty much exhausted from the day. We were dropped off at our respective homes around 2:30/3:00 AM and I collapsed into bed.

All in all, it was quite an amazing journey. The scenery was beautiful and it was nice to get out of the city and see more of Azerbaijani culture. I also got my first taste of traditional Azerbaijani food, which was really good. I’m beginning to learn that the best trips and experiences come from those experiences which aren’t planned and are totally on the fly. Had we never taken Elman up on his offer to show us around we would have missed out on so many experiences.