Lahij

This past weekend some friends and I decided to get out of Baku and explore the outer regions again. We decided to go to this quaint little town called Lahij, roughly three hours away from Baku. To get there, we had to first take a bus out of Baku to a place called Ismayilli and then negotiate a cab ride from there.

I had some particular trouble even getting to the Avtovakzal (the bus station) in the morning. I thought I would be able to do it, no problem, and hopped on a bus. Turns out I was on the wrong one. So I got off and got on another bus. Again, the wrong one. Finally, I boarded my last bus and my friends were calling me asking where I was since there was a bus with three seats going to Ismayilli. I think the more agitated I got, the slower this stupid bus went. I knew I was in the general vicinity of the bus station, but I had no idea why we weren’t approaching it, or where it was. And then I had too much pride to get off my third bus to just take a taxi since I knew it was so close. Another example of Baku and how when you think you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t.

I finally make it to the bus station, beyond irritated. We get on the bus and set off for Ismayilli, however and I got into a better mood. The bus was actually pretty comfortable since we got to sit in the front and we had ample leg room. We were probably loud and annoying the other passengers, since I’ve noticed that Westerners (especially Americans) tend to speak at about 10 decibles louder than everyone else. Oh well.

I won’t describe the whole trip in detail, but there is one thing of note. We stopped at a rest stop in a town called Shamaxi, and on the side of the road there was a caged bear. Absolutely tiny quarters, living in its own filth and meandering from one end of the cage to another. It was heartbreaking. Everyone was standing around gawking at it, and throwing things. Then, they started feeding it coke bottles and amazingly enough, the bear could open the coke bottle and drank the entire thing in one gulp. In the span of 15 minutes the bear probably drank 4 or 5 cokes or fantas, which are terrible enough for human beings, let alone for a wild animal. It was hard for all of us to shake the image of this cage wild bear on the side the road, purely for human entertainment.

So we arrive in Ismayilli, negotiate a cab to take us to Lahij, but then tell the cab driver we want to get some food before we depart. So we sit outside at a teahouse (three Western girls… this is rare in Baku, and we were in an outer region) and get completely stared at, but they were very nice and accommodating. After this, we climbed into our puke-yellow colored Lada and head off to Lahij. Right away, there were almost no roads and we’re barreling down the torn up mountainside. The scenery was truly spectacular though. We went the perfect weekend since the trees were all turning and we were in the midst of hills with gorgeous red, orange, and yellow trees. It was almost like being back in New England.

Once we got to Lahij our cab driver dropped us off in the middle of the village and we literally wandered around until someone came up to us and asked if we needed a place to stay. This is normal, by the way. There actually is a hotel in the village, but we wanted a homestay since you get a better feel for the place, the people, and the food. The houses in the village are all made out of stone with beautiful wooden doors and copper decorations. The town is actually known for its copper and they sell a lot of souvenirs.

So we met our “host family”: husband, wife, two daughters, and a younger son. The husband spoke a bit of Russian so that was our only form of communication. They were super nice and very sweet. They cooked us some amazing food: plov with Iranian milk, meat, and gave us as much tea as possible. The two daughters were 14 and 18, and although we really shared no common language, we all managed to still get along by them showing us pictures and doing a lot of sign language. We collapsed into our warm beds, full and tired to wake up early to traditional Azerbaijani music blasting from their tv around 7 am. Nonetheless, we woke up, got breakfast and wandered again around town. We visited the museum, with a very nice man who was very excited to meet our Norwegian friend since he had been to Norway for a museum conference (random, I know). Then we bought souvenirs for a bit and spent a long time haggling with the vendors. I think I made out pretty decently.

Randomly enough, it turns out an Azerbaijani friend of Helena’s (who I was with) is from Lahij was in town and we randomly ran into him. He invited us over to his family’s house for lunch and then nicely gave us a ride back to Ismayilli. It was a perfect trip, all in all. We had planned on doing some hiking but between the haggling and running into our friend it didn’t end up working out. Lahij would have been a great place to stay for a couple of days and get acclimated to.