Had a lovely night sleep, I was absolutely boiling at one point but aside from that it was peaceful and I was not hungover this morning, definitely grape juice and not wine haha. Annie reckons I was a trumpet in the night and moon shined her at one point hahaha! Whoopsie. Must have been the pillows sending me into a deep sleep. I did have a cramp at one point in my calf and the only way to get it out is too try and stand up on it. Well I happened to turn inwards and stand up in between the beds and coincidentally Annie woke up right at the moment and saw me standing over her in a weird position trying to get the cramp out of my leg haha, I scared the s*** out of her to say the least.

We got showered and ready, we were having breakfast on the 3rd floor in the dining room, it was supposed to start at 8AM which was perfect as we were getting collected for our tour at 08:45AM. Only to find the whole place in darkness, we did go in and have a look around to find the spread with no covers on them under the cupboards and stale bread out on the stand still from yesterday, Annie went around the back of the kitchen counter and found more stale bread. No one in sight, I went downstairs and asked the receptionist, he was adamant that the breakfast was open until I brought him upstairs with my and he was clearly s***ting himself and didn't understand what was going on. He went to call the chef, only to find out that Annie had missed the guy asleep on the sofa circle seat next to the kitchen counter, and when he woke up at the fright of his phone we were stood over him. He had his chef clothes on from the night before and the receptionist tried to tell us that he is working two jobs and slept here so he could wake up at 7am and prepare the breakfast only that wasn't the case and now he was in his last night's chef outfit and hadn't showered, a little disgusting to which the receptionist tried to tell me that wasn't the case and he was clean. No my dear, he is not and that is disgusting. He whipped up some weird arabic/mediterranean breakfast plater with mini dishes of things for us. Sausages had been reheated from the fridge and the some of the stuff was disgusting, this is setting the tone for the review of the hotel!

We got picked up late, a little mini bus with around 6 people in it, hoping that this wasn't the bus as it was a squeeze, luckily it wasn't and we were transferred to a large/medium bus that had about 16-20 people on and a tour guide that was a little weird, he had lots of information but his music choice was awful, his 'games' to pass time whilst driving were also rubbish and when he spoke most of the time he didn't speak up or turn the music down so you couldn't hear him at the back of the bus.

First stop at the mosque (another one) it was pretty with the sand colour walls on the outside but didn't want to go inside I feel as though it would be a slight downgrade from the UAE and how many can you possibly visit without being Islam, its a bit like temples in Asia and Churches in Europe, if you have seen one you have seen them all sort of thing.
No, instead we stayed outside in the freezing cutting wind and air, today it was around 4 degrees, over looking the caspian sea with the oil rigs in view. Afterwards we finally moved on and stopped in the middle of nowhere to a shop, coffee which was delicious and a random bread thing that they were cooking and was some delicacy (why are these delicacies always beige?) it had a s*** tonne of coriander in it swell which was a little weird. The place everywhere was very barren and grey/dull looking, sad looking.

It was nice to look out the window and watch the world go by, nice to see new places! Annie prefers her phone screen to look at.

We got to the Gubustan Rock Art formations, weird looking things, obviously the area of the world/the air quality and sea eroding them into what they are made them this shape. Thousands of years old and the material of the stone often made them hollow and echo inside and used as drums, it was fascinating!

Then we walked through the outdoor rock museum that showed the drawings on the rocks of cows and men and goats, writing that you couldn't understand, it was interesting (slightly) but not as interesting as the guide believed, he was very slow moving around and the view was nice so I sat down on a bench to listen to him, to which he thought I wasn't until I reiterated everything he said back to him. 'Yes, I am listening but I wanted to sit down thank you'. We were the fast walking girls. …No we were barely moving, I wouldn't even go as far as we were strolling.

Next stop the Mud Volcano museum, hmm… this was going to be fun only apparently it was closed due to some unforeseeable reason, so we had to decide as a group if we wanted to go to a different one which wasn't on the tourist route but in the local's 4x4s. Yes… let's do it. We got the outside of the museum gates and waiting on side of the road. A load of scrap cars pulled up that were DEFINITELY not 4x4 haha. Well we got the short straw didn't we, four of us in a car me in the middle seat at the back, the door wouldn't shut properly and the ceiling was breaking with sawdust falling from the roof. The entire gear box/steering wheel and well the entire car interior was shell was on show, he hot wired it to start I am sure and one point once we got off the main road he had to get the car into gear by pulling at something under the steering wheel. Haha, not sure this is what we signed up for and having no travel insurance probably wasn't my best idea.

the mud was thick clay more so than actual mud and with it being cold and damp the mud was thick and gloopy, sticking to the tyres and the car. Our very own Azerbaijani Schumacker (as he called himself) had definitely done this before but the mud planing and skidding, getting stuck in the actual mud and at points feeling as though we were almost going to topple over onto the side of the car or he revved so much that the front end of the car was lifted up and we were staring at the sky as opposed to driving in a flat position was making the hairs stand up on my neck, still enjoying the adrenaline of it and trying to put the dangerous part of it to the side of my brain, Annie clearly didn't have that mindset, the fear had already taken over her before she got in the car haha. Maybe it was the screwdriver and wrench lodged in her window holding it up?

Well our 4x4 wouldn't get us to the top of the hill because of course we got the short straw with the extra large Michael Schumaker driver and the s***tiest car so we had to put plastic bags on our feet and walk to the top of the volcanic clay mud hill. We were the only groups up there and the little volcanoes were underwhelming, our driver insisted on use going shwey shwey (slowly slowly) holding our hands and wanting photos with us, it was very sweet / creepy / annoying lol. We are capable of moving around slowly on this terrain my dear!

The Mud Volcanoes help to produce 20,000 tonnes of oil per day and last approx 82 years before drying up (thats 27 million tonnes of oil in its lifetime and one billion cubic meters of natural gas) they are also approx 10-12 KM Deep!

The plastic bags were breaking and the shoes were starting to look my muddy than ever, Annie's more so than mine but this was going to be very difficult to get off our shoes! We were almost done and the worst thing about it was the plastic everywhere :(
The car was half way up the hill and this time (going back) we were able to get in and not walk all the way down the hill because of course its easier to go down than up right…
Well a quick photo leaning on the back of the car that moved so that filled us with confidence that the brakes do NOT work as they are supposed to. But we have no way else of getting back so we had to get in the death trap, filled with dread and apprehension we were secured back in and Fat Schumaker hot wired his car to get it going.
Of course we were going at a speed that was unnecessary and there were more skidding and whoopsie daisy moments, before finally stopping at a random shop on the side of the road and the other 4x4 cars meeting us there before getting on the main bus (the bus driver was not impressed with the state of all our shoes), the minor little puddles didn't seem to be helping very much either, Annie managed to get some baby wipes from the other driver which helped her more on her suede black timberlands haha.

This of course took longer than expected or what it would have if we were to go to the proper place on the tour schedule and there was lunch (late) and the Fire Wall and Temple to get to now which by my calculation on Google Maps was on the other side of the city.

The lunch wasn't really required, or could have been done as dinner instead if the guide had asked the group, we didn't want to stay where we were as we weren't hungry and so decided to go for a walk and found a lovely little bar that would serve the diplomats or fancy government / office staff on their lunches but there wasn't much going on here on a Sunday afternoon. Bitterly cold outside lovely and warm inside, the beers were going down well, first ones of the day and much well deserved after that mud volcano! haha. We met up with the rest of the team at the time we were governed by and still we left late, this guide was not strict on time and was too laid back which was frustrating because he continuously just let the group rule him as opposed to the other way around which extended this trip unnecessary longer than planned.

The Fire Wall (which looked pretty cool) endlessly on fire because of the natural gases coming out from underground. It wasn't huge but nice enough and big enough for us to stand in front of it and warm up because it was knocking on 5PM now and it was becoming absolutely bone chillingly cold. We STILL had to go to the fire Temple (zoroastrians) way outside of Baku City, we got there 5 minutes before it closed to the last of visitors, a temple / fort with the little rooms in the outsides of it which was cool to see but he insisted on going in every room and telling us about it which in the end turned out to be the same room on most occasions. Yet again 'the fast girls' were ahead of the game (not the only ones mind but he continued to mention us) and by this time the group of dutchies were bored of the tour guide and finished with the long day swell.

Dark and almost 7PM we were all sat on the bus waiting for the guide to wonder on over to the bus to get going back to Baku, again another stop at a museum that was an eye sore for Baku city but somewhere that only 2 people wanted to get out and take a photo of. The driver was getting pissed off now and pulled up along the food van to tell him that we were all basically waiting for him and to put his cigarette out and move his ass.

We asked to get dropped off alongside another couple because we wanted to go to a wine bar to escape the madness of this day (even though we did enjoy ourselves) so that we could chill out and laugh about all of it.

Indeed we did and he asked for a review to which we just go off and ignored and ran away as fast as we could, freezing cold but we made it into the quirky little wine bar that we fancied the look of from yesterday and we seem to have our favourite semi sweet wine.

After a few bottles we swayed back to the hotel as were were shattered and tomorrow would be the last morning we had before heading across to the airport in the afternoon for our flight. But that wasn't before we walked across the front of the sea and up LOTS of stairs and through the old city again, We for sure got our sweat on and steps in and Annie required a Baklava or an Azerbaijani desert before we left, oh and we fell into another wine bar before we left haha!

3 days in Azerbaijan completed and satisfied that we had seen all we can and want and need to here.