Made it

Mountains around Lahic


Seven Beauties waterfall: a little restaurant perched over the water

Hiking around Lahic


The family we stayed with outside Qabala

I'm in Sheki now, a beautiful city in the northwes of Azerbaijan. Unfortunately I can't post pics now, but I'll just tell one story.

We (me and Andrea) stayed in Lahic friday night, leaving Baku after work, making it to Lahic at 11PM. Left Lahic next day on a bus, went to Ismaiyi, where the guest house in Lahic had arrnaged for a taxi to meet us and tak us to a hotel in Gabala. All very last minute, but we went fo it. In the taxi, we were happy to be on the road, that we had made it! Anyway, things the fell apart. We told the driver that we would actually rather stay in a place outside of the city, and we discussed options, but nothing was available. By this point he had picked up someone of the street (that he knew) to "help us" find a place. They took us to a indescript business hotel that wanted 50 bucks a night, and was not in the city, or in a nice area for hiking. We just refused- things had been tense for a while already, and this was just it. Tried calling back to Lahic, but couldn't gt a hold of the guy who booked the hotel (it was NOT this one) for us.

The driver took us to find another hotel, which everyoe said was closed for renovations. Me and Andrea were just waiting to call Lahic again. The driver stopped to ask a STRANGER where we could stay. This guy ended up saying we could stay with him. I was really skepical, it was CRAZY! But me and Andrea discussed it- he was more for it than me- and we decided to do it.

And it was GREAT!

We stayed with his wife, mother, and daughter. He was also a taxi driver and was gone during the night. We played with the neighborhood children for huors, then ate, talked a lot, and had a great time. Slept great, and then we went all together to a few places around Gabala and then to Sheki. Saw some sites, and then I went to the hotel and they took Andrea to get a taxi back to Baku.

Crazy, huh? But in the end, it was OK. I'll post pics and write more soon.