La Hic (La Hij)

This past weekend I left Ucar and went to a village in the mountains called La Hic (pronounced La Hij). La Hic is a town known for its metalworking, especially with copper. We went up Sunday afternoon by bus – it was about an hour and a half from Ismayilli, and you have to go to Ismayilli to get to La Hic. It’s amazing, but I think that this weekend was one of the first times in this country that I’ve actually felt like I was “in” the mountains. In other places I’ve been near or in the mountains, it just didn’t feel the same – I felt like I could see the mountains but wasn't in them. Part of that is probably related to the narrow, winding road that we took to get there (good thing it’s decent weather right now, there are definitely times in the winter and/or heavy rain/fog that the road would be impassable). We wandered around the town area, and walked all the way to the mostly dry riverbed at the other side of town. We also wandered through the shops, the museum, and watched some of the metalwork being done. It’s a beautiful place with stone roads and fresh springs throughout. It’s one of the few places outside of Baku in Azerbaijan that tourists go, and that’s apparent by the spattering of English you hear by the shopkeepers as well as the fact that there are decorative items for sale. We also hiked out to a little waterfall about 2km from town. It was an interesting walk – the path is the riverbed, so we navigated rocks and jumped from one side of the water to the other. Without the path being labeled we missed the big waterfall, but it was still a beautiful place to wander around. It was a great little retreat, both to get away from the normal routine and the heat (lots of people in Azerbaijan go into the mountains in the summer to get away from the heat as well). Now it’s back to normal!