Qobustan (Almost)

I’ve been surprised, and somewhat saddened to find out that most people in Azerbaijan haven’t been able to see some of the beautiful and historic places in their country.  I hear the reasons:  I have no time, I have no money, I have no chance.  The last rings true for me.  When you’re a woman, who is not used to traveling, organizing an expedition to someplace you’ve never been seems impossible.

When one of my counterparts said she’d like to go to Qobustan, I said “Let’s go.” When she asked how, I told her, “We’ll get a bus, we’ll get a bunch of people to go with us, and we’ll go.”  She didn’t seem to think this was possible, but when we mentioned it to our AzETA group, most teachers were keen on going.  The date was set, and the bus was booked, the plan was made.

The day before the trip, I asked my counterpart to call a phone number I had for Qobustan, to make sure they knew we were coming, and everything was ok.  We were assured it was.

Everyone was excited getting in the bus, and we made a few stops around town to pick up some stragglers.  But when we came to the  Qobustan highway exit, we could see it was closed.  Our intrepid driver tried to go around the barrier, but a construction worker told him we couldn’t use the road.  Our driver did the next most logical thing, and tried to go around the construction worker.  It might have worked, except the worker called to a dump truck driver to back down the road and block our way. As the truck came closer and closer to pushing our bus backward, we had no choice but to back up.

We went further up the highway, found a place to make a U-turn, and approached the entrance from the other side. 
We parked at the museum, and piled out.  I was so happy when I overheard one teacher tell another , “This is my dream come true.” 

Unfortunately, our euphoria was short lived.  We toured the very interesting museum, and enjoyed chatting and snacking under a nice sunshade.  Now, I thought, it’s time for the real thing, to see the petroglyphs on the rocks, left thousands of years ago. Then I was told we couldn’t go up there.  We couldn’t see what everyone wanted to see, because there was some  " work" being done there.  An international forum was coming, and I think "security and safety" precautions were underway.

  I don’t know if I was the last to get the news, but I was definitely the angriest one on our bus.  We came so far – not in distance, but in possibility- how could our dreams be dashed so quickly.  They were.

This could be a heartbreaking end to the story of hope and exploration, but fortunately it’s not.  On the way back, I heard one teacher say to another she’d like to go to Sheki, and she had never been.  Several others said they wanted to go, and they agreed to go two days later.  I have to admit I wondered if it would happen…  But two days later, I got a text, they were in Sheki.  Now the door’s been opened, who knows where they will head next.