Mt Damavand - summit push

I wake up at 5, before the light starts, to look at the weather. There's some cloud. I wait for more light to get a better look at the cloud. I stab my knife into the cream carton, and it goes right through into my finger. No blood. Then I cut three sides to open a flap. At this temperature the cream is thick. I cut chunks of it onto bread and eat it with dates.

It's common to start an alpine climb before the light, but my only torch is the blinking yellow LED bike light. Not much use. And I need to be sure of the weather. Alone, at altitude, with this equipment, this is a fair weather climb.

My equipment has been bolstered significantly since leaving Tehran. At base camp, someone left a walking stick. Not an ice axe, but a lot better than nothing. Also, someone descending that day left their waterproof jacket and trousers hanging in the shelter. Score.

Under one of the blankets I found a windproof fleece balaclava and a fleece neck gaiter. All these gave me much confidence. Much more confidence. I didn't start with much.

My light leather hiking boots didn't get too wet on the way up yesterday. I was able to dry the footbeds in the evening sun. I tucked the inside out socks between my two shirts and left them there till morning. I don't know why I didn't get two pairs of socks. It's because I didn't want to carry any more stuff than I had to on the bike.

I start out at 6. Cloud comes and goes. Sometimes above, sometimes below, sometimes in it.

Up into the cloud.

Clear below

Clear above

Cloud below

The new snow has had 36 hours to settle. There's been a decent freeze and it's good walking. I follow a ridge of rock and snow. Pretty quickly it's too hot for the "warm" jacket. It's army surplus cotton canvas, with a fluffy acrylic liner and a hood. I bargained it down to $15, but then I only had $12.50, so I got it for that. There's no wind at all.

When the cloud comes in my optimism fades. But I look out at the weather and see if there's any real change. There isn't. When I'm in the sun it gets hot. I thought I was reasonably fit, and had a pretty good acclimatisation. But it's hard. I try to keep moving.

As it gets later in the morning the snow softens. I aim for the rocks. I jump up a few rocks at a time. Conserving momentum. It's more efficient. But after a few leaping steps my head spins. It goes black behind my eyes. The higher I get the worse it gets. After a while I decide to stick to a slow plod. There are some headaches. It could be altitude, or it might be dehydration. I'm used to drinking a lot of water. But I couldn't carry much up in my small bag. I spent yesterday afternoon refilling all the bottles from the running eves. But still, it's less than I would usually drink.

I get over the first shoulder and I can see further up the mountain. It's clear on top and there's a white puff. Volcanic smoke. That must be the top. Now when the sun comes out I sweat. I think about taking off the rain jacket, but the sun comes and goes too much to bother. From the top I'll look down into smoggy yellow Tehran to the South. And when the cloud shifts I'll look North across the gas rigs scattered on the gray Caspian.

Sunscreen and sweat

Snow and shivers

There's some icier patches and I think how much happier I would be with some stiff boots and an iceaxe. I must be getting pretty close. Snow starts to fall. There's been the odd snowflake before when I've been in cloud. This is graupel. It's a snowflake that has met super-cooled water, which has frozen on to the flake as rime ice, forming a sphere. 5mm diameter. Soft like snow, round like hail. They land and roll down hill, stopping in my footprints. It means there's convective winds. It may not be a good sign.

Thunder cracks hard above my head. Before it has finished rolling out I've taken two steps down. Thunder is not fair weather. In five minutes I'm back at the flattish spot where I'd stopped twenty five minutes earlier to eat a biscuit and answer natures call in the sunshine.

I'm in the sun again. It's 12:25. I was so close. I must have been 200m short. If I'd just started earlier. Or chosen a better route. Or had bigger balls. More thunder peels away my second-guessing. The sun is coming through a narrow shaft through layers of dark cloud. This has changed. It's not coming in and out. It's just coming in. The shaft closes, and I'm in thick cloud again. The graupel is heavier. There's wind now. It's time to get the hell out of here.

I put the army jacket on and replace the waterproof jacket. I put on the balaclava, folded as a hat. I pull on the waterproof trousers. My feet have been wet for hours, but I've been generating enough body heat for them to not get too cold. Now they will get cold. I pull cycling ankle socks onto my hands as thumbless mittens. I start down, following my tracks. The visibility is nothing. I have to track hard to keep in my footprints. Where I've gone over rocks there aren't prints. Each time I find tracks again is a relief.

The conditions are the same all the way to the hut. I recognise the changes in slope and features of rock and snow, so I know as I'm getting closer. Across the last snow slope I push big holes through the crust and sink up to my knees.

At the hut there's no water running off the eves. Too cold. Before I go inside I go down to the old hut to check for water. There's none.

I go in and change into my dry clothes. Two pairs of ankle socks, a pair of light slacks, two light shirts and a $12 army jacket. It's not the ideal clothing for waiting out a snowstorm in a stone hut at 4000m. It's only taken an hour to get down. I have a long afternoon in my coccoon of horse blankets.

I have found six blankets in the hut. Horse blankets. Horse blankets by weight. Horse blankets by greasy feel. Horse blankets by smell too if it was warm enough for smells to survive. I spend the afternoon in the coccoon, dividing the time between sunflower seeds and Koran. I take some photos, just for the activity.

My nest of horse blankets

The most prison-cell inspired mountain hut I've seen

At six p.m. it's lighter. I go out for a look. It isn't sunny, but the world has expanded from a 10m diameter. The snow has stopped. There isn't even a dimple left of my tracks.

I calculate the options for another attempt. With no stove, body heat is my only way to melt snow for water. And I don't have much of that to spare. Everything is wet. I can't get it dry. I can't start the climb wet. Today was the 21st. My Visa expires on the 25th. If I go down to regroup I'll have to cycle back to Tehran the way I came, or I won't have time to cycle at all. Neither of those sound good.

As the light fades I eat a chicken cassserole out of a foil-lidded foil tray. The Australians gave it to me. At least it's a change from bread and Tuna. I don't sleep all night. My left hip aches. I can't find a comfortable position. It's the weight of the blankets. On my back the weight pushes my feet down, twisting my leg in or out all the way to the hip. On my side the blankets crush my pelvis. I can't keep still. I need a hip replacement. I just want to sleep. Why won't it stop. Knowing it's the dehydration, not the hip, doesn't help. When there's light in the window I get a fitful couple of hours.

I finish the cream with bread. Pack and head out. I take the edge off the icy wet sock misery by leaving a pair of ankle socks on underneath. It's nice now. But the mountain has a lenticular cap. It's going to get messy up here. I'm going to the hot springs. Another good thing about volcanoes.

Damavand is under that lenticular cloud

Mountain style!

Cool rock shapes. Another good thing about volcanoes. As if you needed another one.

Mt Damavand - to Camp 3

I'm on the road at quarter to six, well slept and breakfasted. There's some traffic already, but I've mapped the fastest way onto the expressway. It doesn't quite work. When I get there, there's no onramp in my direction. I stay with the city streets for a while longer until I find an entry. Then it's just a matter of grinding uphill. I noticed as soon as I was on the bike that the speedo wasn't working. I lost the magnet from my spoke somewhere in my bike shop travels. But it doesn't matter. This is a mountain stage. It's all about elevation.

Without speed and distance, the speedo just shows time. So I take off my watch. That's one less random tanline.

I go uphill for two hours, past truck after truck on the roadside selling watermelons. Then I plunge downhill hard for five minutes. There's no fun in it. I lose most of what I've gained. Then I grind on again for an hour and a half. Down for eight minutes, not as hard. Through a town. Still losing a lot. Then grinding up ugain.

This time it's the real climb. There's traffic banked up behind slow trucks in low gear. It looks like holiday traffic. The families and couples all stare and wave. They can't believe their eyes. It is rather insane.

Anger keeps me going on this hill. Anger at the road for not yielding. Anger at the pain. Anger at the weakness that lets me feel the pain. I won't stop. I will have this road. This mountain. I will eat them up. I will own them.

At two o'clock I jump over a concrete edge barrier for a leak. I have lunch. Sitting there on sharp stones, the concrete at my back seperating me from roaring traffic, I drift to sleep. It is siesta time. So I lie down, distributing my weight so no stone is too sharp. And sleep until 3:30.

Five more minutes on the bike and I'm into a tunnel. Then out and on the summit. There's shops and restaurants. I don't bother stopping. The down hill is huge. I'm on the brakes hard most of the way. There's traffic, so I don't get room to ride a good line, and the shoulders and corners are all loose stones. Again, there's no fun in it. It's just altitude wasted.

When the steepness relents there's a village, with a statue of a mountaineer. This is Polur. I ask directions to Reyneh. I get off the highway, and climb gently up. The slopes are lush green and there are cars stopped everywhere with people collecting wild herbs and bunches of red poppies. I round a corner and there's Damavand.

Kuh e Damavand

If I'd left Tehran when I planned to, this probably would have been my summit day. But equipment and bike repairs weren't the only things keeping me back. My bowel motion to meal ratio had been up at 1:1 for a couple of days. About 300% of optimal output. I had a day without eating, which put the bowel motion to day ratio back into the normal range, but didn't really help with bowel motion to meal. And when I started eating again it was still 1:1. That was yesterday. I thought I'd just ride today anyway. Maybe cycling is the cure.

A sign post arrives. It points up a dirt track. To Gosfand Sara, Mt Damavand Base Camp. It's after 6. If I'd bought food already I could have camped here and gone up tomorrow. Reyneh was supposed to be at this turnoff. But it's not. This is what the guy in Polur meant when he said I didn't have to go to Reyneh. Crap. Another downhill without fun. I'll be going back up this tomorrow.

In Reyneh I get a stack of bread from the bakery. There's some wierd communication about number of loaves and price. They're flat. Are they still loaves when they're flat? Anyway, I end up with 12. It's probably more than I need. At the grocery store I get more essentials. Tuna, dates and Digestives. I want nuts - serious energy, but the closest they have is sunflower seeds.

Since I'm in town I might as well stay off the bread diet for one more meal. I go into the restaurant. Amazingly they don't have kebabs. Or rice. Or anything really. It's more of a teahouse. I get meat and tomatos with bread. It's not what I want. I can't even bring myself to chew most of it, but I know I need the fuel, so I swallow it like medicine.

The guy is friendly. No English, but we chat. It's a little bit painful, but he looks up words in my phrasebook to ask questions. He invites me to stay at his house. It takes ten minutes with the phrasebook, and it's still mostly sign language. All I want to do now is sleep, and in the morning go up early. Maybe I'm too tired to find a tent site. Maybe I don't want to get back on the bike. Maybe it's because I know I'll be going back uphill. I don't know why. But I say yes.

I hang around the shop until it closes. I'm so tired. But people come and smoke Qalyan and drink tea and eat and want to talk. It kills me. I have to sleep. His wife and daughter leave when we arrive. Their house is only one room. I drink tea, for politeness, then I sleep at 11:30. Finally.

In the morning we go back to the shop for breakfast. The same customers are there, eating the same thing: dizi. That's what they call it here, but I would call it ab-gusht. It's popular. I'll explain another time. It's ten before I get going. It takes me one muttering hour to get back up to the dirt track.

Before I go up I stop for bread and dates. Two cars try to go up the track but they get stuck in the first 50 metres and have to reverse down out of the ruts. I start riding in the low gears, avoiding the ruts and rocks, and the track gets better after the first bit. I enjoy it.

Still enjoying it.

There's a fork. I take the one with signs, even though they're in Farsi. After a couple of minutes there's a car in the road, and the man and woman are out talking to a shepherd. I go over to ask if this is the right way to Gosfand Sara. As I ask it starts to spit. It is the right way. By the time we are at the road again it is hail.

They invite me to sit in the car with them. I eat watermelon and wait for the shower to pass. Thunder starts. After two vast pieces of melon, it's clearly not passing. I'm going to go. They say it's three kilometres further. Outside the car the visibility is down to condition 1. Less than 10m. And there's contrast here, it's not just all white. The lady gives me cucumbers. Then a carton of cream. I don't get a jacket out. It's raining too heavy. By the time I did that everything in my bag would be saturated. More of a rainy sleet.

I ride about twenty metres, then the wheels spin. I can't start again. The dust has turned to slush. I try to push the bike. The bike slips sideways into a rut. When I get one wheel straight the other slips. when I get both wheels straight the trailer goes sideways. I push. The tyres are huge donuts of mud. The brakes acquire mud until they are so clotted the wheels won't turn. I push at it with my fingers but I can't get ot off. I free enough for the wheels to tun. I push. The wheels haven't revolved once and they stop turning again. I push. The trailer doesn't track. It's slides at an angle to the bike across the sloping road. I push. The trailer is a plow. I'm freezing. I get the bike up onto the grass. It's not really grass. It's tufts of vegetation and rocks with the same mud in between. It's no better. It's so cold. I'll never get there like this. I have to leave the bike. I wrestle the bag off the trailer and onto my shoulder. I should lock the bike. But I can't get the key. I should leave the lock unlocked for moments like this. I slide and slip up the track. A momentary gap in the cloud shows me a golden spire above. I know I'm going to make it. It still takes forever to get there, numb, through thick cloud, hail, rain sleet and peeling thunder.

When I walk into the compound, I can barely see most of it in the gloom. Inside a doorway there's maybe ten men cowering in the dark. They've come off Damavand today. I put my things down in a corner and start looking for dry clothes and a towel. I'm given tea. A guy comes in, he's from the Mountaineering Federation. If there's anything I need, ask him. Is there a shower? He looks at me like I'm an idiot. What do they have? Well, nothing. Is there a toilet? Everywhere is toilet. It's better behind a rock.

I wash the mud off my arms and legs under the icy torrent from the eves. I change into dry clothes. I'm given tea. I don't really warm up. Groups come off the mountain most of the afternoon, and the cars disappear from the compound, until I'm the only one left cowering in the dark.

Afternoon view from the shelter at Gusfand Sara, Damavand Base Camp.

I'm glad when it get's dark, because I can get into my sleeping bag. My ultra-lite sleeping bag. It's a horrible damp penetrating cold. With silk liner, bivvy bag and all my clothes it takes most of the night to stop freezing.

I'm glad when it gets light because it means I can get up and start moving. Generate some body heat. There's no rain. The cloud layer is just below and above is Damavand. There's a lot of new snow.

I head down into the cloud to retrieve the bike. Hoping it's still there. It is.

In the hour it takes to get back to base camp, the cloud has risen. I decide to wait. I spend most of the morning sitting on a piece of cardboard in the doorway eating sunflower seeds. Husking them with my mouth.

Damavand in the morning. Compare snow cover with day before.

Right where I left her

The cloud beats me back to Base Camp

When I've eaten a whole packet of sunflower seeds, I decide it's time to get stuck into that Koran I've been towing around for two months. In my sleeping bag.

I'm asleep when the Australians arrive. I met them in Esfahan. It sounded like we would be here at about the same time. I didn't expect to see them today. They walked in. They have a guide. They're going to head up.

I decide to go with. There's no wind. No rain. Just cloud. With a guide who knows the way it will be fine. I pack. I pay the Mountaineering Federation guy the summit fee. I'm ready. They're not going up. They're going to go down for three days, then come back. I need to be back in Tehran then to extend my visa. This is my window. In an hour or two I'll pop out above the cloud into glorious sunshine. They're not convinced. They're paying for a guide so they may as well listen to him. But now I want to go up. I've talked myself into it. The Mountaineering Federation guy says the hut is easy to find. I go up.

I love the mountains in the cloud. It's good to be moving. The track is well worn. With the fresh snow and low visibility I have to scout around in a couple of places. They said it takes four hours. Some people more, some people less. In 3 and a half I see the hut. I'm happy with that.

Camp 3: the new shelter

Looking down from the new shelter. The old shelter and, more importantly, the cloud layer.

I'm right about the cloud too. I'm happier with that. I spend the evening sitting in the sun. I'm still freezing mostly, but the sun feels better. I like it better up here at 4000m in the snow than down at 2950 in the mud.

Filling in time with sunflower seeds. Lucky I had practice husking them with my teeth, because I can't feel my hands.

Tehran....... abridged. For now.

I spend 10 nights in Tehran. I arrive on the 8th. Birthday on the 9th. Election on the 12th. They announce the results on the 13th. There's some unrest on the night of the 14th. Protests start on the 15th. I leave town on the 18th.

The day after my birthday I spend getting the trailer fixed. It's structure relies on a steel rod which is under-engineered. I'm in the right neighbourhood. I get a heavy washer welded onto the rod to stop it bending under load. I also want to get two replacement rods made, but the shop I saw yesterday that sells steel is closed. In the afternoon I go to the geographic institute for better maps. Tehran and Iran.

It's near the university. I watch the pre-election buzz. Then I walk up through Park-e Laleh to the Carpet Museum. There's some pretty sweet carpets. I'm only there 30 minutes before they close. It's enough. Then I walk to the Artists Collective and Vegetarian Cafe. I ask for a recommendation, something Iranian. It's suggested that the meatballs are very good. Not really as vegetarian as I had in mind. I go with a cuckoo sandwhich and pasta salad. It's not a bird. It's like an omlette with greens, but more greens than omlette.

The hotel guest book has an entry from a cycle tourist, recommending two bicycle shops. The adresses are more like approximate locations. Vague would be a generous description. I find the first one, in affluent North Tehran. I ring the buzzer. They are closed today, maybe open Saturday. What time? Maybe 9am.

A couple of minutes later I go back and ring the buzzer. Do you have 700 x 35c Tyres? 700 x 23? No. 700 x 35. I don't think so. Maybe my colleague knows when he is here. OK, I'll come back Saturday. Today is Thursday. The weekend is Thursday and Friday, but everything is usually open Thursday.

Back in my neighbourhood of cheap hotels, tyre shops and motorcycle mechanics, the steel shop is open. I buy a rod and find a machinist to cut threads. Then I get washers and nuts. The streets are quiet. There is no campaigning the day before the election.

Friday is the election. Nothing is open. It's pretty quiet. I post some blog.

Saturday, back at the cycle shop, they have 700 x 38c tyres. I don't know if they'll fit. I go back to the hotel and get a wheel. They fit. But the tubes are American Valves, the same as car tyres. I have European valves, which are higher pressure and narrower. Their tubes don't fit my rims. I take two tyres, but leave the tubes. I go to try and find the other bike shop but I can't find it.

I spend Sunday on a more concerted effort to find the bike shop. It has to be here somewhere. I ask directions everywhere. I'm sent, literally, in circles. The bike shop doesn't exist. Back at the hotel I slump on the counter defeated. Somewhere there must be a whole street full of bike shops? It's a block away. It's evening, but they should still be open. I ask in the 6 shops, but none of them have anything like 700c tyres. One of them suggests Meydan-e Razi. I heard it yesterday when I was asking around.

Monday, I go to Meydan-e Razi (Razi square). It's full of bike shops. There's too many to ask in all of them, but I ask in dozens of the better looking ones. They have 700 x 17 and 700 x 23. racing tyres. Everything else is mountain bike sizes. So, now I know it's not possible to get what I need in Iran.

It's about 3 and I'm back at the hotel. A couple of the journalists are in the lobby. They've heard there's going to be a demonstration at Enqelab Square at 4. They're not sure if they're going to go. I decide to go out to Azadi Square to see the monument/tower thing that is quite famous here. It turns out that the Azadi stop on the metro is half way between Enqelab and Azadi. The demonstrators are going from Enqelab to Azadi.

I stop for dinner on the way home, and see a couple of journalists for the hotel there. They get take away, so they can get back and file reports. I stay and eat. When I come out it's dark. There are frightening people in riot gear. I make a friend going the same direction and we navigate a way back to my side of town. I am pretty happy to be back at the hotel.

Tuesday I get boots, socks, a backpack and a jacket for going to Mt Damavand. In the evening, the mountains look clearer than I've seen. From the roof of the hotel I see the white pyramid above the brown mountains. Well, more of a sepia through the smog, but I knew it was supposed to be white. The weather is good. I'll go tomorrow, with the tubes I've got. They should be ok with the new tyres. I change to the new tyres and pack. When I'm going to bed at 11:30 one of the tyres is flat. I won't be going tomorrow.

On Wednesday I go back a fourth time and buy 6 new tubes. Then I find a workshop with a drill and drill out my rims so the valves will fit. Late afternoon I go to the National Museum to see some of the artefacts from Persepolis and other ancient sites. They have some of the better carvings, and an entire section of stone stairway. But it's small, so it doesn't take long. It's too late for the Museum of the Islamic Period next door. I go back to the hotel, pack, and have an early night.

Those who keep abrest of current affairs may notice a lack of detail on some topics in this post. These may be filled in at a later date. Like when I'm not in Iran.

2278 to Tehran

I may have covered hard days on the bike in previous blogs, so perhaps I will skip over it this time. Suffice it to say: In Qom, every time I left the hotel for a felafel and returned, walking up the two floors to patch more tubes, my legs felt like stone. They weren't feeling much better on the 130km to Tehran. It was only a run of the mill hard day. Nothing exceptional.

I take the toll road. It is a good choice. There is a no motorcycle sign when the road starts. Not a no bicycle sign. No annoying motorcyclists wanting to chat when I'm suffering. That's good. Also, tolls mean no trucks, and none of the crappy local buses, so no huge clouds of filthy black diesel smoke. Less traffic altogether.

Imam Khomeini Airport, one of Tehran's two international airports, is 30km South of the city. From there on, there are billboards for Swiss watches. Fancy billboards. On curved pedestals clad in aluminium panels. With flood lighting. Who is buying all these Swiss watches? How many watches does each billboard need to sell to pay for itself?

There are police with speed lasers every 10 or 20km. When someone is too fast, they wave them to stop. 10km out of Tehran the policeman is waving. A car passes. He's still waving. There's no more cars in my mirror. I turn and look back. No cars. He's standing on the white line. He has white gloves. Right hand palm towards me, fingers up. Left hand palm towards me, fingers horizontal, pivoting from the wrist, up and down. I point a finger to my chest. He nods his peaked cap. By now I'm right on him, so I squeeze the brakes. My tyre stops just short of his polished toe.

I start. A salaam ashi. Chetori? We exchange politenesses. We run through the usual things in Farsi. From New Zealand. Tourist. Bandar-e-Lengeh, Shiraz, Yazd, Esfahan, Gom. Going to Tehran insh'allah. I am alone. Engineer. Single.

Then we start on other topics, which I'm less familiar with, so I do a lot of guessing. You can't ride a bicycle on this road. Motorbikes are not allowed. It is only for cars. I ride here on the shoulder. There are no cars here. It's good. Okay? Passport. Yes. Show me your passport. Okay. I get off the bike. I get him to hold it. Then I crouch at the trailer and painstakingly start undoing buckles. Buckle. It only takes one and he can't be bothered. Okay. Okay? You can go. Thank you. Goodbye.

The distances signposted are not to the centre of a destination. They are to the edge. So when I reach the distance where Tehran should be, the toll booths are lined up. There are queues. If there's one thing a bike is good for, it's skipping traffic queues. I ride footpaths through the park and rejoin the road on the freedom side of the toll booths. That's 10 cents the regime doesn't get out of me.

There are offramps and overpasses. Time for a city map. I stop and pull out my guidebook. This is way outside the scope. The signs indicate expressways with names that don't feature in the book. A ute pulls over, and the driver calls to me through the window. I tell him bazaar markazi - central market - he says a bunch of things and drives off.

I'm riding again when another car pulls me over to give me directions I don't understand. With the third car I realise they've been asking me for directions. They must be desperate.

There are mountains to the North, running East to West, so I have orientation. Then I see a tower. It's on my map. I still have no sense of scale, but I know roughly the direction I should be going in. I've been warned about the traffic in Tehran. But it's not that bad. Actually, the expressways are better cycling than roads in other cities. Sure, there's still a car parked on a blind corner, the driver out, fiddling with his wiper blade, even though there's no prospect of rain. And it's common practice to just stop in the lane while you're deciding whether to take the exit. Or reverse hundreds of metres to a missed exit. Or do a u-turn and drive off an on-ramp. So I'm one of the more minor hazards for drivers to avoid.

I follow my nose to about where I want to be. Off the expressway, it's just regular city traffic. The first hotel has no single rooms. They won't give me a double room at a single rate, or even a discount. I carry on to the cheap hotel area. I've been on the bike 10 hours. I've been in the city an hour and a half. My trailer has been nudged by cars twice. I wish I had that flag. I go into the first hotel I see.

They don't have single rooms available. We start to negotiate. This hotel is very good. It is Lonely Planet's "Our Pick." Stupid Lonely Planet. In each city they recommend a hotel in each price range as "Our Pick" and every tourist in town goes there. And they are the same as every other hotel. Actually, they're worse because with all the business they've hiked up the prices and they don't need to negotiate. I've been trying to avoid them since Shiraz. Now, not only do I stumble into one, but the hotelier uses it as a negotiating point. I don't care what Lonely Plant recommends. This hotel is exactly the same as every hotel in this street. Are you going to give me the room at a single price or not? I get a room.

The next day is my birthday. My main objective for the day is to eat nothing but cake. Fortunately, I'm reminded in time that fruit and icecream are also part of the cake foodgroup. I spend most of the day fulfilling the objective while watching BBC World and CNN.

Birthday lunch........ and dinner.

Qom for a Felafel

Qom is the Las Vegas of Iran. It's brimming with neon, hedonism and it goes all night long. But there's only religious hedonism on offer here. Shia Muslims come from far and wide, well, from Afghanistan and the Arab nations, to visit the Shrine of Fatameh. Inside, there are tears and sobbing men, people pressing their faces and bodies to the tomb, some are writhing against it, trying to touch every part of their body to the glass and silver, there's much prostration and praying, kissing of door jambs, and pushing of money into the tomb. The tomb itself is an enclosure of silver and glass over a marble tombstone, lit green and draped in cloth and fake flowers. Through the narrow slots, pilgrims push money, so the tombstone is almost buried in drifts of banknotes.

And why all this? After the death of Mohammad, Shias believe the line of succession was passed to a series of descendents, 12 of them, known as Imams (translated loosely as leader or saint). Sunni Muslims do not follow the 12 Imams, and that is the major schism of Islam that remains today. The eighth Imam, Imam Reza, is interred at Mashhad, the holiest site in Iran for Shias. Fatameh is the Sister of Imam Reza, and her tomb forms the second most holy site in Iran.

The golden dome under which sits the tomb of Fatameh.

Anyway, that's all very interesting, but I was more interested in the felafel. I had heard that felafel was on offer here, catering to the Arab pilgrims, and as dedicated readers will know, food that does not involve an impaled carcass singed over coals, comes as a great relief. Felafel is not traditional Persian fare, but, being the middle east, I was hoping for good things. Disappointment, dear readers. Disappointment. Iranians do felafel the way they do all imported foods. In a word: not well.

Felafel is all I ate in Qom. Trying a different felafel stand at every meal, and at some meals, trying three different felafel stands. Of course they were all almost the same. The typical presentation is this: Three felafel balls mashed with a fork (why? why the mashing?) into a long white roll, topped with longways cut gherkins and tomato, wrapped in paper. I'm not certain that the felafel balls actually contained chick peas. Patrons would then stand crammed into the tiny store to sprinkle chilli powder or tip a brownish-yellow sauce on as they ate. The sauce came from a drum (I saw one shop refilling their containers) and resembled satay sauce, but without the peanuts or chillies.

I grew to appreciate the subtle differences. Paper wrap finished with a twisting flourish. Felafel balls fresh out of the oil, not sitting there cold for who knows how long. A more generous allocation of gherkin or tomato. A roll a little less stale. Occasionally I was shocked by a substandard delivery. Only two felafel balls. Charging 400 instead of 300 toman (that's 40 and 30 cents US. Looks like you get what you pay for sometimes eh?). The guy who pecked out the soft inside of the roll with his fingernails (I'm guessing this is what comprised the next batch of felafel).

But my highest salutation is reserved for the only true innovator. The guy who added lettuce.

Perhaps the Zionist regime has something going for it after all. Hell, at least it wasn't a skewered and charred dead thing.

Nomad Country

It's a long time since I was on the bike. I've missed it. Sitting down there, lonely in the hotel courtyard. I spent the day after I renewed my visa giving it its 30 day service. It's rearing to go.

We don't leave town early. I see the palace I've been too late for three times in the morning. Then pack slowly and ride back to Jolfa, the Armenian Quarter after 12. I have two important stops there. First bike store. Then restaurant.

The bike store is a long shot. I've already tried twice. The first time I walked past I saw the flag. I went in. It's the same type as the flag I lost from the trailer. Only it's even better. It's white and it says Giggle in pink and purple bubble letters on both sides. The guy wouldn't sell it to me and I couldn't understand why.

I go back later, I have to wait for the shop to reopen after the afternoon siesta. I want to buy the flag. I can't understand his reply. You don't sell the flag? No, I don't sell it. For a million Toman you don't sell the flag. More long explanation I don't understand. Grrrrrr!

This time it's not open. I give up. I go to the restaurant for another mountain of Bogali Pulau. Rice with dill and broad beans. No meat. It's $1.80. It's really good.

Now it's after 3 and I follow the river out of town. River bed I should say. No busy roads. First I'm going through parks, then it turns into vegetable plots and orchards. Up ahead I see the Ateshkadeh, the Zoroastrian fire temple, on top of a hill. It's one of the attractions I haven't seen yet. When The hill comes adjacent I turn away from the river, and pass several old pigeon towers. Before agrichemicals, these towers housed , I don't know, millions probably, of pigeons, whose manure was collected for fertiliser. Now they are empty.

Ateshkadeh, further up river.

Abandoned pigeon tower

Before climbing the hill to the Ateshkadeh for the evening views, I visit the Shaking Minarets 2km down the road. This unspectacular 14th Century tomb is world famous in Iran, and is probably one of the most over-rated tourist attractions on the planet. Every hour, an attendant climbs into the top of one of the minarets, and with feet and hands planted against the window frames, starts to rock the minaret backwards and forwards. The bells suspended from the wooden frame start to ring. When the minaret really gets going, the other minaret begins to wobble too, and it's bells ring slightly. It's underwhelming.

The Ateshkadeh is much better. A steep climb up the bald dusty rock gives cool breezes and views of Esfahan sprawling in every direction. The sprawl carries on to include Najaf Abad, 30km west. The light starts to fade on top of the Atashkadeh. I need to get out of town before it gets too dark.

Shaking minarets

View of Esfahan from the Ateshkadeh

I ride west on the main road and it's on dark as I get to Najaf Abad. I go down main street instead of the bypass looking for something to eat. By the time I've eaten it's fully dark. Now I want to just get out of town to find a spot to camp.

Not a lot of tourists come through here. I'm followed by boys on motorbikes asking questions. Some of them are very persistent. Where am I going? It's worse when I don't really know where I'm going. They have zero English. It seems like I'm invited to eat or sleep. But I'm wary of invitations from big groups of boys in big towns in the dark. Eventually I leave them behind, and exhausted from it, I find my way through the town to the highway. I find a dusty spot to camp, hidden from the highway behind a steel water tower lying on it's side.

I'm away when the light comes at half past five. I stay off the highway, riding the dirt roads that parallel it until they run out. After 20 kilometres there's a town. I stock up on bread, biscuits, water, tuna. I have nuts already. 20 more kilometres there's a village and I turn north. It's 35 kilometres of sealed road to Dehaq, then who knows after that. The map says there's tracks going North, but it's accuracy has not been too reliable. Still, yesterday I didn't have the map out. Somehow I like having a map better, even when it's wrong.

I stop for morning tea in the shady plantations of a village. A couple of boys spot me and come to talk. It doesn't take long to exhaust our mutual language and they leave. I'm still there when they come back with another friend. This time I leave. The temperatures are still pleasant. There's hardly any traffic. It's great riding.

Morning tea spot

When I get to Dehaq the streets are quiet. Today is the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death. Black flags hang from the lamp posts as I arrive. Dehaq is a big town but at 12:30 it's deserted. I roll through without seeing anyone and find a spot onder some trees for lunch and a siesta. I get going again around 3.

A few kilometres out of town is a power station. The road disappears. A guard comes out to see me. A dirt track goes around the power station, and I ask him if it goes to Hasan, the town shown on the map. He doesn't know the name. He says the road is closed. I ask about the other towns. He doesn't know them. Delijan? It's a bigger size dot on the main Esfahan-Tehran highway 100km North. He points back to Dehak, then I turn off there. to the highway. I'm not going back. I persist with the dirt road. Closed, why? Ashphalt nist. Motor nist. People nist. It sounds perfect. I refill my water bottles, and head up the dirt track as the guards shakes his head.

It has to go somewhere, there's powerlines. Five minutes later the powerlines end at a tin shed in a barbed wired compound. A pumping station probably. Then there's just a dirt road heading straight North.

I cross the flat then up over a line of hills and down into another flat mountain basin. It's great riding. I love being on the bike and out on my own. At the next hill crossing the road goes straight up a gully. A few gullies over there are sheep bells and shepherds whistles as three horsemen herd a flock up through the rocks.

On the top, the sheep are wandering across the road. I wait for a while, but it could be a long time before the nomads come past, so I carry on down into the next basin.


A tiny dust plume ahead shows a vehicle coming this way. By the time I can tell it's a car, I've decided I don't want a human interaction spoiling my solitude. I pull off the road and behind a mound to have a drink while the car passes.

I'm still in the same basin when I decide it's time to stop. It's 6:30 so it's been a long day. But it hasn't felt like it. I take the bike off the road and set up camp behind a mound. Occasionally sounds of nomads drift in on the wind. A sheep bell. A whistle. A voice. I scour the slopes but I can't see anything. The sky is the clearest it could be. The stars are the brighter than I've ever seen. It's high and dry and dark. Later the full moon comes up. It's a beautiful night.


In the morning a wisp of smoke rising out of a fold in the valley reveals the nomad camp. Completely hidden. I'm ready to go at 5:30 but the front tyre is flat. I've ridden through a storm of glass. It takes until 7:30 to pick the glass splinters out of the tyres with the tip of my pocket knife. I ride up the next lot of hills and see the valley below. First there's a big fenced compound square in the middle of the road. Something to do with the radar station on top of the ridge. I don't want to find out. Then further ahead is the next village and the East-West road junction.

I come down the hill, and off the road before I get to the compound. It's early enough that there could be nobody around but I don't want to risk it. The compound is on top of a small hill. I stay far enough below the brow to be out of sight. When I'm past I come back to the dirt road and carry on down into the basin. The East-West road is sealed. I cross it and continue North on the dirt. The junction is to the side of the village, so I pass around the back, seeing only a couple of shepherds. My back wheel is flat. I missed a piece of glass. Now there are also a few thorns from the brief offroad as well. Now It's 9:30 and I've come about 5km, but it's not frustrating. It just seems like a thing to do. Part of it.

I carry on, climbing now, around the side of the hills. I can see the Tehran highway in the valley below, but I avoid it as long as I can. There's wobbling from the trailer. The tyre is flat. I hadn't even checked it. Totally neglected the little workhorse. I pick the glass out of the tyre and repair the tube.

It's hot now, and soon I'll be out of dirt road, so I stop for lunch and a siesta in a mud walled orchard. There's rose bushes and nut trees. I can't really sleep with the flies and the ants, but it's a good rest.

I start riding again around 3 and I'm quickly back on the highway, running through a narrow valley. It's fast on the seal and I race into Delijan. I refill my water bottles eat a couple of icecreams and get through the town. Out the other side I'm back on dirt roads. The map shows a track through the mountains to Qom, passing through a place called Neaufle-le-Chateau which sounds too good to miss.

The wheat fields are crisscrossed with dirt tracks. There's no single obvious track. So I zig zag my way North and up. The other tracks fade and I might have the right one. It traverses the side of a lone mountain. I stop before it turns back down to the valley. I look for clues. I take some photos. There are great storm clouds.

Nothing like a candid snap to capture the mood of the moment.


A car passes in the distance. Quick enough to be a reasonable road, but still dirt says the dust cloud. I watch where it disappears into a fold in the mountains. That's the clue I needed. But it's going to be cross country to get to that dirt road. Most of the stream beds and gullies run east west, but there's a bulldozed creek bed that will take me to the road. Just have to cross a few gullies to get there. I head down into the gullies. Up one. Down one. Up another. Down another. It's too loose and steep to ride. I'm pushing the bike. The place is mad with crickets. All sizes. All colours. Leaping everywhere.

I'm at the bottom of one gully and I hear motorbikes. They come to a stop on the track. The same place I stopped. They'll definitely see me. I'm red and flouro yellow. They're looking. Then the motors are revving and they are coming down. I push the bike up into the creek bed. I can't outrun them, but if I can just get far enough maybe they won't find me. I jump on and try to ride but it's loose stones. I get off, and push the bike again, breathing hard. Then I hear the engines. they're in the creek bed. I push the bike up the side. At least I'll have high ground. No sign of the road.

The first motorbike comes around the corner of the creek bed and rides up next to me. He says hello and asks where I'm from. He has dark stubble all the way up to his hard eyes. Strong shoulders. We start talking. He wonders what the heck I'm doing out here. I tell him my friends are waiting for me at the road, I decided to come the long way. I'm still sizing things up when the next guy comes running around the corner with a watermelon under one arm and a thermos of tea under the other. Followed by the second motorbike. It's hard to be concerned about a group of guys out on a picnic.

I stay for tea and watermelon. The first guy, Essy, speaks a bit of English. They're members of NA. Narcotics Anonymous. It's starting to get dark. I take my leave and keep heading for the road.
Mohammad Reza, Essy and Mahman, chased me cross country to share their picnic. That's hospitality.

It's 8:30 when I get to the track. I drop back down into the gully and put up the tent.It's been another long day. A good day. The storm clouds look like rain but I doubt it.

It does spit a few drops in the night, but not enough to get through the tent. Can't have been much then.

I sleep till 7:30. Take my time packing up. I'm on the road at 9. Sitting on the road. Tyres are flat. All of them. A few thousand years of grazing has left this vegetation well armed with thorns. The tyres are filled with them. It takes me until 12 to ease out all of the prickles. I'm all out of spare tubes, and getting low on patches. The tyres are destroyed.

The place I sit all morning picking out thorns and patching tubes. The hill at the back was where the last track was. I went cross country in between. Looks flat. That's how it looked from the hill too.

Finally I get going. After a kilometer the back tyre is flat. I pump it up again and hope it will stay up. I watch it all the time and it keeps air. I take the road up into the fold of the mountains but there's no pass. No way through.

It's hot again. I follow the road along the base of the mountains. A lot of up and down on steep loose dust and stone tracks. I'm walking on the up hills. On the downs I'm braking, trying to protect the tyres. One of the ups is so steep I take one step, plant my feet and pull the bike up towards me, then take another step. I gain a foot at a time. This is when I start cramping. 1pm. I haven't been mixing salt and sugar into my water. I got lazy. Now I suffer for it. My forearm cramps when I hold the seat. My hip flexor cramps as I pull the bike up. The last two days have been pure fun. Funtime's over. I reach the top and roll down. Walking up the next rise both quads are cramping. I continue up and down until one up reveals a village on the other side. I go down into the village and up the other side, again pulling the bike up loose dirt tracks one step at a time.

Surprise village

Then I have a choice. The road left will take me to the ridge then probably down to the highway. Surrender. The road right will take me down into a valley, with a stream, and it looks like the road might go through a pass at the head of the valley. I go down. I've started coming up towards the head of the valley when a car comes. The road is a dead end. There is a factory in 1km, then finished. Nothing. They suggest I wash my face in the stream. My hands are black with bike grime. My face probably is too. I take their advice and stop for lunch. It's the last of my food. I'm on my last bottle of water. It's 3 already, so I can't stop for too long.

Going back up the hill I just came down is demoralising. I'm walking. Then I'm past the fork and ride to the top of the ridge. I give the back tyre more air and head down. It's sealed. In 20 minutes I'm back on the highway. 24 hours of cross country wiped out in 20 minutes.

Now I slog it out to Qom. The road follows a river downstream. Should be easy. Of course not. The back tyre goes flat. I put the spare tyre on but there's too much traffic noise. I can't hear a leak. So I just put the same tube back in unpatched. From here there's a ridge ahead. Clouds of dust blow across the road. I climb slow. Then it undulates. Then it climbs again, long and slow. I'm shifting from side to side in the saddle to change the degree to which each calf is cramping.

Now there's a long slow downhill, but there's a headwind. Then the seal disintegrates and I'm dodging potholes and cracks. It's slow and painful. I'm pumping the tyre every hour. At 8 I'm on the edge of the city. It's bigger than I expect. There's neon everywhere. It takes until 9:30 to get into a hotel.

Three 12 hour plus days in a row. The first two were because I was having so much fun. The third one wasn't. Time for a rest day.

Esfahan

As Esfahan approaches the road gets thicker with trucks from the brick works and gravel yards. A truck laden with bricks pulls in front of me from a side road. I don't have to brake, but I ease off the pedals. Then I pedal on again to put my front tyre under the trucks brake light. We work up through the gears together. At 55 on a slight uphill the truck crosses to the left lane and I let it go, back to my usual place on the shoulder.

Three hours for 95 km takes me to Esfahan. It's my best run so far. Then there's another hour working my way through the traffic to the hotel district. The traffic gives me some consideration for my novelty value, but it still needs intense concentration. There's generally two lanes of moving traffic, and the suicide lane. The suicide lane is the lane nearest the edge where taxis and busses pick up passengers, cars double park, pedestrians loiter and walk out without looking, motorcycles ride in the wrong direction, car doors fly open, cars reverse hundreds of metres at high speed, cars u-turn irrespective of oncoming traffic. Riding in it is a paradox: to get anywhere, you have to ride like you own the road; to survive long enough to get anywhere you have to be ultra-defensive.

The next day my visa expires. I have to renew it at the Department of Aliens Affairs. There is a small notice pinned to a board at the hotel listing the requirements. I have gathered the photocopies of passport pages and passport photos. I go to the bank to make the deposit and get the receipt. I hope the account number is correct. I hope it's the right amount. I could go the the Aliens Affairs office first to check, but it'll waste a lot of time. I risk it.

It's across town to the Aliens Affairs office, and it takes a while to find the non-descript building. The security office take my camera on the way in. Inside the compound I'm directed to a window on the back side of the gate house. The uniformed officer looks at my passport, then sends me to a man on the second floor. I ask around till I find the right office, then this man looks at my passport and directs me back to the first man. Don't I need to fill in some forms? Oh yes, get them from this man. There's a small booth in the corner of the courtyard where I get a folder listing the application requirements (I have them all) and the forms to complete. Back at the first window the officer checks my paperwork, staples various pieces together, stamps everything, then sends me back upstairs to give it to Mrs whatsername. Come back in two hours.

I wait in the courtyard. After an hour and a half I go back upstairs. I've only just positioned myself against the door jamb when an officer walks through, sees me and says New Zealand. He wants me to follow. He takes me to an office. The guy behind the desk has enough brass on his jacket to rivet a steam engine. He's friendly, he asks about my trip. Do I have photos? They took my camera on the way in. I will go and get it. Is there a problem? No problem. He sends me down to the gatehouse with another officer to bring back my camera. We're up to Persepolis when a suited man enters the office and I'm dismissed.

I lurk at the office of the grumpy woman as other people harangue her with visa problems. She resolutely ignores me. After 15 minutes she tells me my visa is ready to collect from the first guy I was sent to upstairs. He takes my folder from the stack, dates and signs the visa extension stamps and I'm on my way. It's only taken the morning.

Back at the hotel there's a tall bespectacled man with a briefcase waiting in the lobby. He is hoping to find a native English speaker to take to his university class. I arrange to meet him here at 3.

We take a series of shuttle taxis to the edge of town. These are the taxi's that drive along major roads, so you just get in and out wherever you need to. Basically, they're the world's smallest buses. Seven taxis later we're not at Esfahan University, we're at some little institute of a few hundred students. The class has started and we slide into the back row. It's all adult students. They're learning when to use "a" or "an." A horse. An hour.

Behnoud puts up his hand. "Bebakshid" this time louder "Bebakshid!" Now that the whole class has turned around he's proudly announcing where he found me and offering me to read a passage to the class. It's not prearranged. It sounded like the teacher was expecting us but he's not. Behnoud seems to be angling for some extra credit. Now it seems slightly embarassing. I go to the front and introduce myself. There's maybe 60 students. I read a passage from the textbook. I restart twice. This time louder. This time slower. The passage is about village life in Ghana, and a dish called fufu. It says fufu in every sentence, sometimes twice. It's ridiculous. I get applause when I finish.

Class is over. I go with Behnoud to the Dean's office and she orders us tea. Then we go into a tutorial. It's the same teacher. There's about 30 students in a small classroom. I stand at the front and they ask me questions. About my trip. About New Zealand. Do you know who Mr Ahmadenijad is? Of course. Do you like Mr Ahmadenijad? Do YOU like Mr Ahmadenijad. Are you married. Would you like to take an Iranian wife back to New Zealand? That may be difficult on a bicycle.

We leave after half an hour. We get a bus back to the city centre. I almost follow the woman waiting at the curb with us in the back door, but the back is for women. It's separated by railing. I haven't seen anything in Esfahan yet, so I walk and talk with Behnoud through Imam Square and to the River and bridges until late in the evening.

Esfahan is famous for it's historic bridges. The river banks on both sides are parks and the bridges act as pedestrian thoroughfares and hang-out areas.

Imam square is surrounded by Bazaar and houses two of the most beautiful mosques and the Ali Qapu Palace. Jameh Mosque is also a fantastic example. I hang out in treed avenues and parks. Talk to the random people who approach me. Visit the cathedrals of the Armenian quarter. Before I know it I've been here nine days and I have to go.

Si o Seh Pol (Bridge of 33 Arches) built at the turn of the 17th Century.

Si o Seh Pol

Chubi Bridge (Mid 17th Century)

Avenues of Esfahan

Imam Square. Yes, touristy as.

Jameh Mosque. Built from the 12th Century onward, this part is 15th Century.

Inside the dome of Imam Mosque. There's a polished slab for stamping your foot and the echoes just keep ringing.

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

Imam Mosque

Ceiling detail from Ali Qapu Palace. For the acoustics apparently.

It's a pity there's no water in the river (the earlier photo with reflections is from a large stagnant puddle). According to people I met the government has sold the water to other countries or sent it to other cities for urban water supplies and irrigation.