Gobustan's Blue Clay Craters, Bibi-Heybat Mosque and the Last Fire of Absheron

Seventy kilometres south of Baku the road reaches the Gobustan desert, and the day runs about nine hours from there. The mud volcanoes are first, down a dirt track to the active craters. The mud is based on blue clay, which is what gives the ground its lunar colour, and local legend puts the djinn here. Gobustan National Reserve is the reason the area is known abroad: the largest site of primitive settlement on the planet, with the village of the first Cro-Magnons intact. The modern museum sets out the Palaeolithic first, then the trail runs among the rocks above the Caspian, past the petroglyphs, while the guide covers how those people lived and how they organised themselves. On the way back the route passes the Bibi-Heybat mosque, built by the Shirvanshah Abu-l-Fath Farrukhzad in the 13th century, with the Caspian on one side and the cranes of the cargo port on the other. Lunch is three courses of Azerbaijani cooking and tea, at the Baku restaurant in one of the central parks. Ateshgah, at Surakhany, was founded in the first century BC where the natural flames were thickest, by Hindu Brahmins and Persian Zoroastrians. The Silk Road passed here, so a caravanserai stood beside the temple for the merchants. Yanar Dag closes the day. Of the several dozen fires that once burned across Absheron, this is the only one left, and from the platform at the top about a third of the peninsula is visible. Cancel at least 24 hours before departure for a full refund.