GUESTHOUSES & TOWNS
Throughout this trek we experienced heartfelt local connections with Azerbaijan families in unique remote mountain villages. Often rustic accommodations were enjoyed along with flavorful local specialty dishes made with homegrown ingredients - from greens and herbs, to bread and cheeses.
BUDUG GUESTHOUSE
The guesthouse in Budug was my favorite. I loved the owner, Afig’s, creative use of color. She was even wearing all purple! For dinner, one of the special dishes was rice that was rinsed, cooked and the pot wrapped for gentle steaming. It was served with fragrant dates and raisins giving the dish a gentle slightly sweet taste.
During dinner, water was boiling on a stove in a special room with a drain. After dinner, we each had a turn experiencing a sauna like room with a hand pour-over wash. I mixed the hot water with some cold and simply rinsed off. The hand shower felt so soothing after a rainy afternoon and to then jump into a comfortable mattress on the floor under a warm blanket was the best! I also appreciated the outhouse in a small separate building with a squat-over hole. It was clean and no-odor as there was a drum of ash to add after each use.
RESTAURANT IN GRIZDAHNA
The next day we arrived in Grizdahna, which is a small tourist town, so we took advantage of the local restaurant. We had dinner and breakfast the next day. Dinner was vegetables grilled in a wok for the main course. Breakfast was Kuku, a mountain herb omelet.
GALAYKHUDAT
The small villages we pass through don’t have restaurants so we usually pack a lunch. Today, we are treated to lunch in a local home that has a great view of the village Galaykhudat. We enjoyed the juice made from cherries and peaches.
KHINALIG
Khinalig is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which dates back to the Bronze Age. The significance of this site lies in the stonework: the patterns are different from other villages in the region and some buildings have rounded corners. We also visited a small museum showing artifacts from daily life in the past.
LAZA
Laza is a tourist town and a popular weekend driving destination for people from Gusar. They come for the great day hikes. There are guesthouses, hostels, a market and restaurants. We stop here for breakfast (serving Kuku) before descending into the Gusarchay River Valley.
YERGI KEK
To reach the guesthouse in Yergi Kek, we had our highest climbing day totaling over 4,ooo feet! Mid-afternoon rain turned to evening fog and because we couldn’t see ahead, the trek felt like an endless time warp inside a tunnel.
HOW ART INFLUENCES LIFE: Feeling myself trudging uphill endlessly in the fog with my energy level getting lower, I remembered an art exhibit I had seen at the YARAT Contemporary Art Space in Baku by Aida Mahmudova. There was a video of Aida tightly contained in a box, moving against the confines of that space. She talks about “The reality of the landscape, to save us from the claustrophobia of the self.” I FELT the claustrophobia of myself! To break free, I started hiking fast for a short distance, taking a long enough break to hike fast again, and completely shifting my energy - escaping the claustrophobia of myself and entertaining myself in the process.
It was such a delight, after arriving in Yergi Kek, to take a quick shower and settle in with hot tea and sunflower paste cakes. Dinner is Tskan - a vegetable pie filled with potato and greens (including nettle). The crust is flaky and firm: just delicious!
GUKHUR
We have the best lunch in in the home of Afet and her family in the village of Gukhur. We start with tea and home made cakes. Her husband takes us for a walk to the other side of the village to collect some herbs and see the beautiful view over the next valley. We return to a treat of Lavash bread layered with greens (nettle & parsley) called ‘Gutab’. There is also homemade cheese, chick peas and beans.
TAKAR
In Takar we stay at a multi-generational farmhouse where the grandfather, his son and daughter-in-law, and their three young adults all have a farm chore. During the school year, the teens live in a village close to school. In the morning, I follow our hosts to photograph them feeding the chickens, puppies and milking the cows. A treat for breakfast is the still warm cow’s milk that we add cocoa to.
‘CHIPS’ HOSTEL
We has so much fun imagining this over 100 year old building resurrected as a hostel! We would call it the “Chips Hostel” after the potatoes grown here and used in many dishes. We would hire Afet, from our fantastic lunch in Kukuruzes, to create the daily specials and featured desserts. Just down from our imagined hostel is a roaring stream with the freshest looking water that we would serve our guests. Our fun brainstorming session included enticing Aboo to take on this surely super-successful endeavor!
I will miss this country… it deserves more exploring!