This is what I was most interested in seeing in Azerbaijan. It took us about an hour and a half to get here. The views were breathtaking. This section of the mountains seemed like striped, layered candy!!

I had read about this before I came to Azerbaijan. This is not the best time to see the Masazir Lake turn pin. Later in the summer is better. But we wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Driving from Yanar Dag, we crossed Mirzaladi Gol (Gol = Lake). That looked distinctly pink to use. Encouraged, we pressed on. As we neared Masazir Gol, you would clearly see the pink effect. Unfortunately, the sun was high, and the angle was not perfect from all directions. Additionally, the entire lake was fenced off (there is a salt lake factory on its banks), and we could not reach a convenient spot.

Hamid insisted that we keep driving south. Eventually, we took a side road, and Hamid’s efforts came to fruition! There was an open area to get to the water!

You can clearly see the color difference. Again, the bright sun was not making it easy. But I have a shot of this lake from the airplane that I will post later, and you can see the difference!

Apparently, the pink color is formed by the salt and a certain kind of algae (that thrives in summer heat).

Dag means Mountain and Yanar means Fire. Azerbaijan sits on a lot of oil and gas. Some of it has has been leaking thru gaps in the mountains and burning from time immemorial. This particular one is easily accessible for tourists.

We were touring the Ateshgah Zoroastrian Fire Temple. Inside the compound, around the sanctum sanctorum, there were many small rooms. They were used as abodes for the monks in the yesteryears. Today, they have different artifacts from those days.

In one of the rooms, you could hear constant chanting. Went in there.

Was in for a surprise. It looked like somebody was chanting hymns. And there was a person lying next to him. Presumably dying or dead.

But the chant itself was the interesting part. I could distinctly hear “Om!”, “Ganapati!”, “Namah!”, and similar words. In fact, there was a light display on the wall which had the “Om” written in Sanskrit!!

Later, I did some research and found out that this temple was used for worship by the Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Sikhs!

I had no idea!