Hiking from Xınalıq to Laza, Azerbaijan

7th Aug 2009. hiking from Xınalıq to Laza, Azerbaijan

We had breakfast with Fa'ik in the guest house kitchen. He gave us fresh milk from the family cow. We shared cheese and bread, washed down with a pot of tea. On leaving, Fa'ik handed me a stick to ward off sheep dogs whilst hiking. As we left a group of local kids were just making their way to school. They had bits of paper scrunched into their pockets or tucked into their trousers. We chatted with them for a short while before moving on. Of course we had to pass through the military checkpoint. The four young soldiers took great delight in picking through all our gear, taking each item in turn and asking questions. Their primary aim was to bag some souvenirs and they asked for food and drinks. In Matt's bag, they found a watch, phone and a GPS logger doobry. Each time they held the item up, saying 'souvenir?', to which we said 'no' and they carried on searching. One of the soldiers found a tube of hand sanitiser in my pack. I explained to him what it was for and he couldn't resist squirting some onto his hands and assessing the result. At one point, Matt was overcome by a surge of uncontrollable generosity and after a bit of hassle, handed one of them twenty dollars. Of course I wound him up about it afterwards. With everything repacked, we were granted passage and made our way through the barrier and into the mountain hinterlands that awaited.

About one hour into the hike we were summoned by a man on the hill to our left. He was sat with a friend and a girl, who was cooking some food over a small fire. They offered us tea and we chatted about their work. Of course they had lots of questions. I had plenty in return. We ate together and drank tea for a while. The men were tough, but friendly enough. The girl never spoke, but concentrated on keeping the samovar hot and ensuring that every plate had some food. The men went back to work and we continued with our hike.

In total we were hiking just five hours before we reached our stop. The route to the West of Xınalıq is a reasonable condition track, easily passable by 4WD. We took some short cuts and stopped occasionally to refill our water containers at springs or streams. The inclines were pretty hard work - especially with 20kg or pack and water. Occasionally we were passed by men on horseback, making their way between their shepherd camps and Xınalıq. At around 5.30pm we reached the practically infinite meadows at the foot of Mt. Şahdağ. The scene is out of this world. At the bottom of Şahdağ, clouds force their way through a canyon and attempt to hug the base of the mountain. In all other directions, mountains fling themselves to the sky, collecting a permanent show cover at their peaks and down their Northern faces. We stepped down onto the immense rolling pasture and looked for a place to pitch the tent.

With everything set up, I went to sleep in the sunshine. Matt was watching the shepherds far in the distance, keeping a close eye on their dogs. The sheep dogs in these mountain regions are enormous, savage beasts - more like wolves than conventional sheepdogs. They are extremely aggressive and they need to be. Matt woke me up when a pack of six dogs started running in our direction. We watched cautiously. They stopped on the opposite side of a ravine, looking and barking in our direction. We couldn't figure out what they were looking at until Matt turned around and spotted three more massive dogs running towards us. I have never seen Matt move so fast as dived head first into the tent shouting 'dogs behind us!'. I dived in alongside and quickly zipped up the front. we were trapped.

Gradually the two packs approached each other, meeting in the ravine below our camp to exchange growls and maneuvers. They snapped and snarled at each other, intimidating their adversaries and never quite descending into total warfare. Eventually they backed off and returned to their flocks, apart from the nearest pack, which turned on a small group of cows, aggressively bearing down on one of them until it was singled out and pinned against the mountainside, snorting and flailing pathetically at the cascade of teeth around its legs. A shepherd eventually appeared and nonchalantly moved the cattle away, sending the dogs back to their flock.

We embarked on collecting combustibles for a fire. With no trees in the area, we were limited to thistle roots and dried dung, but with two sticks, which Matt found on the hill behind our camp, it was sufficient to boil water for our noodles and also to boil up a pot of buckwheat, which we ate with half a stock cube crumbled up in it. Whilst we were eating we were joined by a couple of shepherds. They had three dogs with them and held them at bay with sticks whilst we chatted. After realising that we didn't have anything exciting to offer them, they went back to their 1800 sheep. We finished eating, washed everything and watched the sunlight fade before going to bed. As we were settling in the tent it started to rain. By 10pm we were in the midst of an enormous thunderstorm. The rain lashed at our tent and lightning danced around the mountains. For a short while I felt quite exposed in an aluminium framed tent right in the middle of a vast pasture. The scene was pitch black outside and the balls of lightning were blinding us - I tried to observe the storm through a small gap in the zipper, but eventually gave up and settled for counting the seconds between flash and crash. When the gap increased beyond a second, I started to relax and as the storm rolled through, we went to sleep.