Azerbaijan is one of those countries that’s off the beaten path but full of wonderful surprises, like this week’s featured UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape. Added to the World Heritage List in 2007, Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is an amazing collection of ancient rock art created over a period of 40,000 years.

There are over 6,000 engravings at the site, depicting a wide range of subjects, including people, rituals,battles,  bullfights, the sun and stars, boats, and more. In addition to the engravings, the site is full of other archaeological evidence of ancient human settlement, such as burial sites and preserved cave dwellings.

Today, Gobustan is rather dry and arid, and is sparsely populated as a result. However, in the past, the region’s climate was wetter and water more abundant, and the area supported a diverse selection of fauna that you would have to travel to Africa to see today, including goats, deer, wild horses, donkeys, wild boars, gazelles , lions, wolves, wild cats and leopards. Naturally, humans were attracted by the abundant wildlife and the natural shelter provided by the caves.

In addition to the rock art, Gobustan is also famous for mud volcanoes. Although they sometimes shoot flames in the air, mud volcanoes mainly just spew mineral-rich mud that is reputed to have medicinal properties.

To visit Azerbaijan, if you are a US citizen you will need both a valid passport and an Azerbaijan visa. You can get a single-entry Azerbaijan visa at the airport if you arrive by plane, but you will need to apply ahead of time if you are arriving by land or if you need a multiple-entry visa. Here’s what you need to get the visa:

• 1 Azerbaijan visa application form
• 2 passport photos
• A tourist voucher from a  hotel in Azerbaijan with a confirmation number.

Remember, you may need other visas depending on what countries you travel through to get to Azerbaijan, even if you’re just passing through. RushMyTravelVisa  can research your itinerary and tell you exactly what documents you need. Then, we make it easy to apply by walking you through the application process and submitting your paperwork for you to expedite processing.

Apply for your Azerbaijan visa today!

Tags: Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan visa, UNESCO World Heritage Sites

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 11:50 pm and is filed under World Heritage Site of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.