Exploring Azerbaijan: Camping and Beaching

We had a long four-day weekend this past week and since we'd just gotten over jet lag (and were late in realizing it was a four-day weekend) staying somewhere in the country was the best option. Unfortunately all of the hotels were sold out because everyone else had the same idea! We own all the gear to go camping and decided to put it to good use over the weekend.

We hadn't been camping before with the girls and were able to find a campground that also had cabins and included breakfast. We decided to go ahead and rent one to have the fridge and toilet and also use the bedrooms worst case scenario depending how everyone did in the tent. We made the three hour drive up Friday afternoon and had plenty of time to setup before night fall.

When we pulled into Long Forest, Madi asked "Where is the playground?" We laughed gently and told her everywhere was the playground! Over the weekend the girls has so much fun playing with rocks and sticks. We spent hours exploring the area with the owners dog following us and enjoyed picking blackberries as a snack and being given apples by a local passing by.

Introducing the girls to banana boats and smores. Yum! 😋

The girls did great with the outdoors part, but questionable when it came to the actual tent part...they didn't want to stay in sleeping bags and weren't quite sure how to handle the freedom of not having a crib. We woke up multiple times to toddlers wandering the tent and attempting to locate the zippers to escape. 😳

However, overall it was a wonderful time and we are excited to try camping again with the girls. But this time with cots. 😂

We packed up and headed back to Baku Sunday night to shower and get a proper night's sleep!

Monday was still a holiday and we met our friends Tricia and Jason in Old City for the traditional Azeri breakfast, which is a favorite and Tricia's husband Jason hadn't gotten a chance to try yet.

Afterwards we headed to Dalga Aquapark. The girls had fun splashing and going down the slides before lunch and then playing on the beach and getting ice cream after lunch. It was a perfect way to end the long weekend and spend time with friends!