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XINALIQ!! QUSAR LAZA and QABELE LAZA !!!

TREKKING COUNTRY!!! you should all come! it is so easy to trek here. all you need are 3 word: 1. salam 2. aleykom at this point you`ll be answered "aleykom a salam", and ordered for chay. this is where you need the third word: 3. OK. from here on you`re set. you`ll get food, advice, interesting conversations and all the locals can offer (including fresh cheese, butter, lavash - lafa, calf meat and much much more!) here`s the story (not all of it of course): we took a marshrutka (which is a like a service taxi) to a little city called Quba. there we went to see the Jewish neighborhood. most of the people there are rich. there are BMW's, Mercedes and so on all over. we even watched the synagogue and ARVIT. HOWEVER, they are not nice people! no one invited us not even for tea, so we slept at our tent near the river. the next day we took a UAZ (Russian jeep) to a remote village named Xinaliq. it has its own language, and apart from the satellite dishes - it look 300 years old. according to the people there and the number of graves in its surrounding graveyards - its a lot older. we did not spend the night there, we trekked 2 hours to a nearby fire temple called ATESHGA where there is a natural flame burning all day and night (its a lot more impressive at night but i have no pic...). we camped there, even having a warm shower! the next day (shabat, maybe it was a sign...) it rained all day and we stayed at the tent all day long. the next day we returned for a welcoming homestay back in Xinaliq. the trek was from Xinaliq to the village Qusar laza, where we slept at Miska`s, a mountaineer and a guide (for mountaineering and crossing the border to Dagestan). from there we started a 2 day walk to Qabele Laza - it took us 3.3 days because we took a rest and acclimatization day at our 3000 m camp. at the end we were "arrested" by the local Azerbaijan army for being in the "Restricted zone" near Russia. it was quite and experience, and we naturally were eventually released and returned to Baku. it was absolutely the best trek i had yet!! as to some of the question regarding my Russian, it has improved slightly. at my current level i can have a conversation with my kidnappers, talk with my robbers or (in the more common use) combine the two and negotiate with Baku taxi drivers! take care, i`m moving on to Uzbekistan on Monday, without Oded 2 (visa trouble)* Aviad. (*) - remind me to tell you sometime how to automatically extend an Azeri Visa... PS about last week`s riddle - the instrument in the picture is a TV antenna in Tbilisi`s flea market. no prizes this week!!! the next riddle is: why are there so many pics of little girls on my site? this riddle gives the psychology-majors among you a slight head start, but still... good luck.

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