Ramblin Scot

For my first post to this blog, I’ll recount my excursion from the Azeri capital Baku to Qobustan, an area famed for its volcanoes and prehistoric cave-art. And a completely unexpected turn which lead to an interesting local encounter. This post comes towards the middle of my overall hitchhiking journey across Eurasia.

Baku

Baku as a city is at a glance, very glamorous, its oil wealth is proudly stated in its many Skyscrapers, often displaying impressive light shows, European-style streets and boulevards, and many expensive cars nipping around its roads – often crashing into eachother which I witnessed a few times. Azeri people, are Turkic, their language is very intelligible with Turkish, and there is significant cultural crossover between the peoples. It is however, very different to Turkey, with a more stable economy and much more visible secularity. I feel though, a slight difference in temperament here, they are a little more reserved than Turks, and many of them know Russian due to their soviet past, which is also responsible for its secular nature. If you were to go back in time to the 19th century in Baku, you would likely be very surprised at what you saw. From a small port town with a mere 7000 population, it became a thriving oil-rich port, now home to 2.5 million people. So its rise to prominence, as cities go, is fairly recent.

Road to Qobustan

A few people I met compared it to Dubai, which I wouldn’t disagree with, and in complete honesty, after the first few moments of awe, I found it fairly devoid of substance. Its centre and downtown are certainly nice to look at, but that’s about it. And after a few days of mulling around I decided I would hitchhike south and take a look at Qobustan, a desert area boasting cave art and some ‘mud volcanoes.’ I set out rather late in the day, in my regular fashion, caught a bus to the Southern periphery of the city and crossed the highway onto a road connecting to it. From there I stood, as I have on thousands of roads stretching from here to Ukraine by now, and stuck my thumb up. I had purchased some nuts and pastries, as well as some water and juice from a local shop, so I was well equipped in that sense. But I had left my hat at home, and hadn’t applied any sunscreen, which was a little reckless.

The Sun was pretty intense, it definitely looked and felt like you were in the middle east, and you could make an argument it was, the area is not far from Iran, and just over the border it doesn’t change dramatically. The highway is surrounded by forbidding desert, with pumpjacks rhythmically drawing up oil dotting it. So I hoped, sweating in the heat, I wouldn’t wait too long. The first car pulled up and stopped for me, practically running me over, which would become a trend – even when there was plenty of space. He asked me where I was going in Turkish, I said Qobustan, but that I had no money. He was confused, and a little angry and he drove off. Not a brilliant start, but it didn’t take long to have someone stop which was a good sign, the next person stopped for me, again cutting right into me, I had to dodge him a little. He was in an SUV, he asked me where I was going and I gave him the same spiel. He said he would take me for only five manat, I had no manat, I also had a principle of not taking rides unless they were free, the last time I paid for a ride was Romania, practically a continent away – so I wasn’t going to start now. He tried to persuade me, but I just walked away, I had it happen two more times, outright asking if cars were taxis so I could just walk away from them without having the pointless conversation. I began to figure a lot of these cars were actually taxis, and just didn’t have any of the markers they had in most countries, aside from a small insignia I was noticing on their windshields. But I couldn’t notice that until I had already flagged them. With the last car I initiated by asking if they were a taxi, he said something I didn’t understand, so I turned away, but he gestured me back. I told him I was going to Qobustan, but I had no money, he waved me in, so I jumped in the car.

We trundled along the desert, watching as pumpjacks, refineries, and massive cement plants passed us by. Any housing or shops we saw were of a far simpler nature than the city, even looking like they were from a different country entirely, supporting a suspicion I had that basically all the wealth was concentrated in Baku. We chatted a little, but my Turkish is almost zero, and my Russian is also nearly zero. But I was able to tell the driver, and his young passenger, a guy in his 20’s, that I was hitchhiking from Ukraine. Mostly of course, since you cannot enter Azerbaijan by land as of the current year, which has been the case since Covid, no one seems to know why. So it was the one country I needed to fly to, unfortunately. He mentioned something which made no sense to me, it sounded like ‘ulian ulas.’ I had no idea what he was talking about, until he said ‘shotlandi cinema.’ Then I realised he was talking about William Wallace, and of course the film ‘Braveheart’, which we laughed about. It was an experience I’ve had in many countries during hitchhiking rides, at some point after I’ve mentioned I’m Scottish, often from people with zero English, will mention Braveheart, if they’re of a certain age. With one guy in a restaurant in Diyarbakir in Eastern Turkey remarking to my friend as we paid for our meal that, ‘my people fought bravely,’ the kind of response we deserve in every restaurant really.

We got into Qobustan, a really small place, with high sandstone walls splitting the highway from the residences, comprised of some soviet tenements and small housing. The attraction in this place was of course the volcano, you could see the dried lava flows snaking down its body, and also the cave art which seemed to be at some museum. However I never saw any of those things, except from afar, as the driver had invited me to his home for food. An all too familiar experience to those hitchhiking Turkic countries, and one which I hadn’t the heart to refuse. We made our way to his soviet apartment, going up one set of stairs, and walking along a hallway completely made of wooden planks. I was the first to enter his home, meeting a woman standing in the entrance, puzzled to see me. The man proclaimed that I was a tourist, and suddenly excitement fell about the room. I felt like I just walked into a hen house. Women were running around and fussing over me, I recalled the nunnery in Monty Pythons ‘The Holy Grail.’

Birthday!

I was immediately sat down for a plate of ‘dolma,’ maybe more familiar to you as ‘sarma’ if you’ve ever been to the balkans. The Azeri version is a leaf wrapping stuffed with meat, rice and some herbs. I don’t really care for any version of the food, the Turkish version is not bad, this Dolma and the Dolma I had in general in Azerbaijan was serviceable. But I of course appreciate any free food and hospitality. There were two girls, the man’s daughters, who spoke very good English and were incredibly excited to talk to me. And talk they did, for a few hours, asking me endless questions. I became a bit weary of it, but was happy to entertain them and others. After my meal the son came home, a very hyperactive seven year old, it was actually his birthday! Maybe part of the reason I was invited in. We celebrated his birthday with cake and chatted a bunch. The kid seemed far more interested in Roblox and stealing my phone than in the foreigner in his house, which was fair. I also got the impression, at least from the girls that I could stay, which I elected not to do because all of my stuff was back at the hostel. Eventually I decided to leave, before some vodka got broke out and I got stuck there, I said my goodbyes to my wonderful and completely enamoured hosts, and walked out to the highway.

From there I slowly hitched back, with some more terse interactions with Taxi drivers, but eventually a tomato salesman, who gave me a free tomato, and I believe a taxi driver who decided to take me for free took me to Baku. I was completely exhausted, I’ve had far more tiring days but the Sun, the chat and some weak sleep recently had knackered me. It certainly isn’t the most eventful day on this journey, summing up my experience in Azerbaijan in general to be honest, but it was a nice little day. And sometimes its nice to relax and meet locals. So there you have it, my first small tale from this journey on the blog, hitchhiking can be a very random experience, it doesn’t always lead to something like this, some days are incredibly eventful, some are mind-numbingly slow. But embedded in its spontaneous nature is a real chance of encountering something special.

– Me at an Azeri kid’s birthday party, 2025