The heat was pouring down from the sky. As far as the eye could see, we saw only sand and rocks and the great mountain where Petroglyphs were located could be seen.

To arm ourselves with knowledge and, above all, to find some shade, we went to the museum at the foot of the mountain. The museum building encouraged to enter, it was well-kept and shone with novelty. Immediately upon entering, we were overwhelmed by the nice coolness of the air conditioning. We gave the backpacks to the cloakroom, bought a bottle of cold water and went sightseeing.

The modern building was turned out to be fully multimedia with hihgh European’s standard . In the museum we learned what it was hard to believe that in the post-glacial period, this area was very humid and ideally suited for human habitation (there was savanna here). Remembering the extremely high temperature outside and the scorching sun, we definitely missed for the old times.

The Gubustan Landscape Park is 537 hectares with unique rock engravings on the world scale (inscribed on the UNESCO list of monuments in 2007). During the movement of tectonic plates, limestone hills were created in the Gubustan region, in which there were numerous caves.

The protoplaists of the present-day Azerbaijan found shelter in these caves. It is very difficult to determine when the first rock paintings called Petroglyphs were created. Scholars claim that this could have been even 20,000 years ago (Gubustan is the only place in Azerbaijan where frescoes from the Pleistocene era were discovered). To date, around 600,000 paintings have been discovered and cataloged. Their diversity is enormous, they represent: people, animals, ritual dances, camel caravans … and everything that the then inhabitant of Gubustan could observe. I was impressed by an animated film depicting the life and death of tribe members. The drawing line (reminiscent of that of petroglyphs) music and the whole atmosphere gave the film an amazing atmosphere and I felt as if I had moved to that era.

After leaving the cool museum, we were hit by a heat wave, we decided to go up the hill on foot (about 3-4 kilometers) on the asphalt road. The march was slow, because in this heat every move caused incredible fatigue. As we climbed higher and higher, a semi-desert with sun-burnt stones and dwarf vegetation appeared to our eyes.

We had a luck, a small car stops and very nice Russian tourists gave us a lift. The view of the surroundings from the viewing platform was breathtaking. The petroglyphs themselves were also impressive, traveling around the recesses of rock caves we came across new paintings. The whole composition, view of the surroundings, petroglyphs and visualizations from the museum combined combined amazing experiences, imagination worked flawlessly. After the visit we went on foot to the museum (it was easier to do it from above), and we returned to the town by taxi.