Things I love about Azerbaijan (cont.)

AZERBAIJAN-The Land of Fire

Parks,Flores,Wallingford, and Fitch families

Tonight we went with some wonderful friends to Yanar Dagh-Fire Mountain as we foreigners call it. This is a place where flames burn continuously from the side of the mountain.  Just like with the mud volcanoes I can't give you the scientific reason for why the side of this mountain stays on fire but it is really amazing. If you are interested in the "how" you can follow this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanar_Dag to get more information.
 It's located only about 15 minutes from our home so we have visited here many times over the years. We have had chai and jam sitting out by the fire, and even roasted marshmallows and hot dogs. My advice is to have a very long skewer(sish) if you are going to do this. It is hot!!!  Just like the mud volcanoes there isn't really any regulation about how close you can get. No fences. No admission fee.  That still amazes me after all this time.

 As we are leaving for the States this June this was probably our last visit there. I realize I am sad about that. We all said good-bye to Fire Mountain as we drove away. I silently hoped that, Luke who is just 6, will remember being there. It's a special place and I really hope he has the memory like the rest of us will.  I realize what an opportunity I have been given to see so many wonderful and unique places but more than that to know so many wonderful people.  Life is full of bitter sweet moments. Tonight was one of those for me.

Noah and I

Things I love about Azerbaijan

Our family with our friends the Wallingfords

 It is Spring Break for our kids and we are revisiting some of our favorite places.  We leave for the States in June so we want to take every opportunity to visit places that are special to us. Yesterday we visited some of the mud volcanoes.  These are truly amazing and  remind me how creative God is. It is said that there are nearly 400 mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan, which is more than half of the total the continents.   Since I can't accurately explain what a mud volcano is I've included a bit of a description of  below. This is taken from Azerbaijan International. The author is Ronnie Gallagher.

"Mud volcanoes," also known as "sedimentary volcanoes" or "gas - oil volcanoes," are close cousins to magmatic volcanoes. Just like magmatic volcanoes, they can erupt powerfully and hurl flames to great heights (sometimes even several hundred of meters). They spew out millions of cubic meters of hydrocarbon gases and tons of mud. Mud volcanoes also exist on the floor of the sea and can form islands and banks that alter the topography and shape of the coastline and even trigger earthquakes.

Another feature of mud volcanoes is their direct relationship to oil and gas fields. Mud volcanoes resemble super-deep exploration wells in the sense that they are direct indicators of hydrocarbons at great depths and provide valuable information on the formation and migration of oil and gas. Both mud volcanoes and hydrocarbon fields are the result of a single process of oil and gas formation, which has a characteristic vertical zone with methane gas forming in younger strata, overlying a zone of intense formation of oil and fatty gases
http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai112_folder/112_articles/112_mud_volcano.html

Below you will find some pictures of our family enjoying the volcanoes. As you can see we can get up close and personal them.  I can't help but think that if this was in America they would be fenced off  and we would be able to get no closer than 1/2 mile to any of them. We would have concession stands and a gift shop. All we had was an onlooking shepherd and his sheep!!

Chased by a pack of wild dogs on the way. FUN!

Luke hanging out of the sunroof. I guess he was navigating.

Notice the mud "bubble" It's getting ready to explode!

The end of the explosion

The race to the top

Our friends daughter. Enjoying a mud spa treatment. haha

David and I

Notice it bubbling from the gasses.

Luke and his friend. Both very dirty!