19-Jan-2003 -- This was another "long drive/short walk" confluence visit in central Azerbaijan. Lots of interesting sights on the way – oil rigs parked offshore in The Caspian south of Baku (picture 3), a fresh mud-volcano flow on the hillside N of the Ali-Bayramli highway (picture 4), the Imam's mausoleum at Pir Hussein in the same district. After such a scenic trip, it wasa pity to find the confluence in an undistinguished dry valley off the northern flank of the Mishov Dag oilfield to the East of the town.
We parked next to an abandoned wellhead (picture 5) and followed the valley NE towards the confluence, under the curious gaze of a local shepherd and his flock. The valley must once have been a watercourse, but the streambed was paved with a hard tarry substance that looked like weathered crude oil – maybe the residue of an earlier oil-spill in the field. It led us directly to the confluence. The only view was of the valley walls closing in on all four sides, the grass on the hillsides severely cropped by the flocks of sheep. The point itself, as far as we could determine, was marked by an alarmingly large souvenir left behind by the shepherd's horse. But he probably didn't realize where he was, so we're claiming it anyway. Definitely a hazard for anyone attempting the "GPS zero dance", when you have both eyes on the display as you move along the cardinal direction axes. Fortunately there was enough drift that we eventually got two lines of zeroes in a more hygienic location.