Qabala

What to do a free weekend in Azerbaijan? When I had that opportunity last week I decided to go to the buss hall to find the first and best ride out of the city. With a bag of toiletries, fruit and overnight clothes we boarded a minibus headed for Qəbələ, a small city north-west in Azerbaijan. I'm getting used to these long-distance trips in crowded non-airconditioned busses, so the 4-hour trip didn't feel too bad, though it always feels good to stretch after sitting cramped in a small seat for those times.

As we were late out that morning we arrived around 15:45 in Gabala (or Qabala), without a place to stay or much knowledge of the city. After a delicious kebab (think BBQ grill-spear, not shish-kebab) lunch in a garden restaurant we headed to find a place to stay for the night. We were lucky to get in touch with a cheap hotel, but when we arrived they told us to find another place, as we didn't have a marriage license (required to get a hotel room in some places). So we ended up in a more expensive room in a international hotel.

After settling in we went for a walk in the city. Qabala is a small town, but because of its historical significant and nature its a popular tourist destination, for international as well as Azerbaijani tourists. The city is trying to become a bigger tourist destination and has some nice parks in the center where we were walking around. And the surroundings adds to the relaxing environment; The city is surrounded by green forest clad rolling mountains, the cleaner and not moister-heavy air was a refreshing break from the humid & hot Baku.

Outside the city there lies the famous waterfall "Seven Beauties" at the foot of the mountain. I should have learned by now that the time assessment is not so accurate, so when we were told that the spot was about an hours walk away, we should have guessed it would be longer. We ended up walking in the rural countryside terrain for about 4 hours to get to the village where the waterfall lay.

Along with hundreds of other tourist we bathed our feet in the cold water, refreshed ourselves on spring water and ate lunch in the valley. After reaching our destination we started walking down toward the main road where we hoped to catch a bus to Baku, luckily we met a nice guy that gave us a ride to the road and actually chased the bus down the road and stopped it for us so we could get on! I truly do appreciate these wonderful acts of kindness from friendly Azerbaijani. Again we were on a 4hour bus ride to Baku and before long the 30-something hour adventure was coming to an end.

5th city I'm visiting in Azerbaijan,
Can't wait for the next one♡

Camilla