Gobustan Mud Volcanoes

Despite the name, these are not volcanic in the magmatic sense. What surfaces is cold grey mud, water and gas — mostly methane — pushed up from deep sedimentary layers by subsurface pressure.

The mud is cool to the touch, which surprises most people. You can put a hand in it. There is no heat and no lava, just a slow, continuous bubbling that sounds like something between a simmering pot and a drain.

The cones are small — usually one to three metres — and you walk between them freely. The landscape around them is bare, grey and lunar.

Very rarely, a mud volcano in Azerbaijan erupts violently, igniting the escaping methane and throwing flames hundreds of metres into the air. These events make international news when they happen and are entirely unpredictable.

The sites visited on tours are the stable, continuously bubbling variety. Dramatic eruptions occur at other locations and are not something you can plan a visit around.

This is the practical catch. The track to the mud volcano field is unsurfaced, rutted and unsuitable for ordinary vehicles.

Standard practice is to transfer at the turn-off into a high-clearance local vehicle — usually an elderly Lada driven by someone who knows the route. It is arranged on the day, paid separately, and is part of the experience.

Allow roughly an hour for the site plus the transfer. It works as an add-on to a Gobustan day rather than a trip in its own right.