Archive for February, 2008
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
75km Persepolis to Sa’adat Shahr
A chilly morning made getting out of the tent difficult work but once we got up the courage to leave our sleeping bags we had more historical sites to explore than you could shake a stick at. The area is littered with ruins so we spent a few hours going from one to the other, seeing elaborate tombs carved high into rockfaces, stone reliefs and the remains of ancient cities. All of this was on the old road instead of a newer route north so between sites we pedalled along with relatively few cars to disturb us. The sunshine was on our backs and all in all it was just about as perfect a day as you can have on the bicycle. In the afternoon we stopped in a small town to try and find fuel for our stove. With petrol rationed here, the queues at gas stations are quite long so we prefer to ask around and see if anyone is selling unwanted fuel from small shops. In fact we’ve never had to pay for fuel yet for our stove and today was no different, although we didn’t get it from a container as usual.
Instead a man siphoned some out of his blue pickup truck for us! We’re glad it was him and not us getting a taste of petrol. Yuck. We didn’t time our day quite right and we found ourselves in a town as the sun was going down, not ideal for tenting. So, we pulled out our emergency card and asked at a police station on the outskirts for help. We had our eyes on a field next to the police station but the chief had other ideas. For whatever reason he didn’t want us at his post so a constable led us back nearer the centre where the men in charge at a second police station motioned for us to put our tent on the gravelled walkway just outside the station walls. It’s a little noisier than we’d like with traffic going by but it’s certainly secure. We don’t expect anyone will try to steal something when two men with machine guns are on guard a few feet away!
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by andrew
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
68km Shiraz to Persepolis
It’s nearly Valentine’s Day and nothing says love like watching your husband rush down the street to defend your honour. There have been very few incidents during our trip where Friedel has been the target of inappropriate behaviour – even less so in Iran where the vast majority of men behave very respectfully – but today someone decided a grope was a good idea as we were walking our bikes in Shiraz. Friedel’s yell of surprise and anger sent Andrew’s protective-husband instinct into overdrive and he instantly set about chasing the offender. Our pudgy villan didn’t stand a chance against a fit cyclist and let’s just say he limped home with a few bruises. He won’t try that again.
The rest of the day was full of encounters with the kind of wonderful people that will form some of our best memories from Iran. One man stopped his car and leapt out with dishes of rice and meat stew and two bottles of cola for us from a local restaurant. Several people waved and smiled from their cars as they passed and when we arrived at Persepolis two souvenir sellers begged us to come home with them. One man was accompanied by his very charming eight-year old nephew from Australia, who translated for us from Farsi to English and peppered us with questions about our trip. What kind of animals have we seen? Don’t we get tired? And is there really a Santa Claus? (more…)
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by andrew
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
A visit to Persepolis
We’ve spent longer than expected in Shiraz, notching a few tasks off our ‘to do’ list. Andrew’s shoes have been repaired. They were literally falling apart and a fellow customer at the shop said they should be in a museum. We are hoping they’ll last another six months! Friedel has a new rim on her back bicycle wheel (replacing the cheap Chinese one we put on in Syria when the original Mavic gave out). We finally got our application in for a letter of invitation for a Uzbek visa and amazingly in between all this we managed to fit in a visit to Iran’s most famous archaeological site, Persepolis.
Actually we really lucked out, meeting a wonderful tour guide Arash a few days earlier. He was going to Persepolis anyway and invited us along. Normally you have to charter a taxi to get there or for us we’d have faced 60km of motorway cycling. Now we’re free to plan a different route to Yazd without missing this amazing site. We’ve worked a few pictures into the post but our gallery has many more from Persepolis.
No Comments » - Posted in Iran, Journal Entries by friedel
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
69km Dasht-e-Arzhan to Shiraz
Our luck in getting a room at the mosque last night was even better than we first realised. A hail storm appeared just after dark and all night we listened to the sound of howling winds and icy rain falling. It would have been a very cold night indeed in our tent we hate to think what our bikes might have looked like the next morning. How fortunate we were to meet Arash and what a big thank you we owe him for making sure we were in a safe place before he continued on his journey.
When we emerged from the mosque in the morning everything was covered in ice and a light dusting of snow. At first we were quite worried about the roads but they turned out to be surprisingly clear for the whole trip into Shiraz. The wind was biting but it was mostly on our backs and we went downhill quite a lot so we made very good time coming into the city, zipping along at 40-50km an hour surprisingly often. (more…)
