Tengealti and the Tengi gorge: the ravine in northern Azerbaijan with the country's highest waterfall, half an hour from Quba

South of Quba, in northern Azerbaijan, the Velvelechay river comes down from the Greater Caucasus and, before reaching the plain, enters a ravine of rock walls with forest hanging from them: this is the Tengi gorge, and at its mouth lies Tengealti, a mountain village of stone houses, apple orchards and springs that the Soviets turned into a place of rest. A step away, up the same valley, falls Afurja, the highest waterfall in Azerbaijan. It is a place where people from Baku go in summer to eat kebab by the river and where almost no foreigner arrives, which is why it deserves the stop. This guide tells what there is, what to walk, how to get there and when.

The gorge and the village

Tengi, in Azerbaijani, means narrow, and the gorge is: for several kilometres the Velvelechay runs boxed in between hundred-metre limestone walls with beech and hornbeam on the ledges, and the road and the river fight over the bottom. At the exit, where the valley opens, is Tengealti, some 25 km from Quba, with its mosque, its orchards, the mineral springs that made the place famous in the sixties, when rest houses were built for Baku's workers, and the riverside chaykhanas, where you eat grilled lamb with tandir bread at tables over the water. In autumn the whole valley smells of apples, which is what the entire Quba district grows.

The Afurja waterfall

From the village of Afurja, some 5 km up the valley from Tengealti, a half-hour trail through the forest leads to the foot of the waterfall, which drops in a single leap of about 75 m down a rock wall and which in May, with the snowmelt, is a real torrent and in August a thread. It is the highest waterfall in Azerbaijan and is on the country's list of natural monuments; it is best seen in the morning, with the sun on the wall, and combined with a dip in the river pools and lunch on the bank.

What there is to do

Walk the gorge, along the track that runs through it, with the river beside you and the walls above; climb to Afurja; swim in the Velvelechay in July and August, when it is cold and clean; eat at the chaykhanas; and, with a car, carry on up the valley towards Qonaqkend and the mountain villages of the northern face of the Caucasus, which are the Azerbaijan from before the oil. For mountain tourism in the district, Tengealti is the southern base, as Khinalig and Laza are the northern one.

How to get there and when

From Quba, half an hour by taxi or car along the road that climbs towards Qonaqkend, paved to the village and track beyond; by marshrutka there are departures from Quba station to the villages of the valley, few and in the morning. From Baku, 170 km to Quba, two and a half hours, and from there to the valley; in a day from the capital you do Tengealti and Afurja with a stop in Quba, and with a night in Quba you add Qırmızı Qəsəbə, the Jewish town, and Khinalig. May to October; in spring the waterfall runs full and in autumn the forest is in colour; in winter the gorge freezes and the track closes at times. For the west of the country, Ganja and Lake Goygol are another trip, five hours from Quba.

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