late start | Chaos roaming the world

You’d think that with not much packing required (staying put and not even chairs to be used) we’d be quick as to get going. Well, no is the answer. Maybe it is the missing drive of a travel day. We did a bunch of things in the morning, though. Breakfast no.1, some more blogging preparation and the attempt of a shower. I say attempt, since the solar heated water reservoir had been thoroughly emptied by party goers last night.

That was not the only thing going a bit off script. We had a late start to begin with, since Number 3 had another bad night – at least he extended official rest time till 8 am to compensate. Long story short, it was maybe 11 am by the time we hit the bus. Good thing we were not going as far today.

We arrived at Belém only 20 minutes later. The main draw here is a 15^th century monastery, build on the riches of Portugal’s Indian trade routes. It was actually officially commissioned in honour of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a route to said India. Interesting parallels to our last trip come to mind, where we saw multiple times the other end of that golden age in Timor Leste and Oman.

Before we would do any of that, though, a spirit boost was in order. The lines in front of the monastery made us anxious. We wandered a brief while considering our options and decided on 2^nd breakfast and a later lunch in town. There was another line in Belém full of tourists – the one in front of the famous pastry shop that claims to have invented the Pastel de Nata, here called Pastel de Belém. But we skipped the line for the much better option of sitting down inside the labyrinthine place and getting served our pastel and coffee like proper people. They were good – but a place that churns out maybe 10,000 of them in a day can only do so much. It was worth it for the crazy atmosphere.

With enough sugar and caffeine in our bellies, we were ready for the lines – and they were gone. Somehow we managed to slip into the adjourning church as the very last two people before it was closed to the public for a wedding. We saw Vasco da Gama’s grave while the choir already warmed up.

Out again, we bit our pride and got in line for tickets for the monastery proper. It was rather late, but we managed to push lunch out. As we stood in line we got tapped by two ladies telling us that people with little kids can skip the line and go to the special service counter. We could not yet quite believe it when the security guy saw us and pulled us out. It was true! In our cheerful mood, we even thought of looking out for another set of parents in the now much longer line and made one couple out in the bright noon sun very happy indeed.

The monastery was impressive, but most is probably told in the pictures. Once we felt we had taken in the place, it was time for lunch. Something that could best be come by back in central Lisbon. There would be time on the tram to figure out the details. After a bit of deliberation, and ruling out a bunch of places too far out of where we wanted to go, we decided on Indian food. Hey! First of all, big cities are food free for all, and secondly Portugal has a colonial history in India. I even ended up going for the Goan speciality (lamb in tamarind sauce) – it was great!

After that, we had only one more item on our list: Ginjinha shots! I had seen it yesterday but felt like this might be not the best idea before gaming, so today it was on. The drink, apparently first served in the joint we picked (A Ginjinha) is a super sweet cherry liqueur served with or without a soaked cherry. For some reason, I managed to talk Nina into a round of 3 pm shots in 28° C heat. It was decided afterwards that the best next step would be coffee and another bite to eat. We managed to get offered weed three separate times on the same square in the space of a minute. Do we look that much in need of a fix?

Coffee was excellent, but it was time to head home. Days with the little one in the carrier are tough. Plus, the bus ride is still almost an hour and we had some blogging to catch up on. All of it worked out surprisingly well.

Belém has retained a very small town feel
Guard in front of the presidential palace
Yeah, nah …
… much better
Authentic twist is cinnamon on top – not a fan
Some real money went into this …
super detailed stonework
much better preserved than most we have seen
obligatory church shot
little one impressively quiet
Grave of the great navigator … for a european 😉
Portuguese coat of arms
Number one and three on the loose
They had their meals here …
… under the watchful eyes of Hieronimus
inward perfection, hm?
two stories
this wing houses a museum, nowadays
they can do pompous in 17th century style as well
Asleep just before lunch … hmmm …
The elevator had a line like the cable car during cruise ship visits … all it does is skipping the hill
SHOTS!
COOOFFEEEE!!!
they managed a solid flat white!
I had no appetite left, but apparently Number 3’s was fine …

Camping spot in the morning

Right, there exists something called weather in most of the world …

We woke up in between showers. The rumble of thunder was still audible somewhere in the valley. When I poked my head out and tentatively started to make breakfast, the drops started falling again. All around were dark clouds, except for one small patch of blue that sparked our hopes. By the time breakfast was ready, the rain was in full swing again, though. So we climbed back into our little bubble and sat it out.

Sun…over here, please. Epic sun beams on the other side of the valley

By 10 am we had packed everything up again. We had some luck and just got all in during a brief pause in the rain. The tent will have to be dried at some point within the next two days, though.

I must say I enjoyed the change of landscape and weather. For the first time that I can remember, we were both wearing the full Compañero, including the rain proof layer, so the cold and wet did not phase us at all. Besides, we only had 150 km to go to reach Kermanshah, where we would likely stay overnight.

…except for sheep…

I am not sure if it is just the lack of a direct route or my setting the GPS to shortest distance, but we took a real back country road for the last 90 km or so. It was nice and quiet, but could have done with a pothole or two less. The quiet road made the contrast all the more stark, coming over the last hill into Kermanshah. From subsistence farmers with donkeys to the three lane boulevards of a ¾ of a million people city within 10 minutes.

We stopped soon after getting into town to set a waypoint for a recommended food place near the city centre. Open street maps are pretty reliable, but most waypoints are only stored in Farsi, which the Garmin does not handle well. So instead of searching, I usually have to set waypoints manually by matching them with the maps in the Lonely Planet. Kermanshah is big, so it took me a while right there on the side of a busy road. A few people stopped, until Hesam came out of his car to check up on us as well.

Into the city

A moment later, he got his sister Sara on the case as well, who’s English was even better than his. Instead of fiddling with the GPS, they offered to lead us there with their car. Once again, we are blown away by the kindness and hospitality of the Iranian people. It is a strange thing, on the one hand, we are getting used to these random acts of kindness, on the other hand we have to laugh hard imagining this kind of genuine “Menschenliebe” anywhere else. In Germany, people would probably rather call the police than follow a stranger.

We only went for 20 meters, when Sara and Hesam stopped again and Sara came to talk to us once more. She asked if we were only looking for a simple room. If so, we could come and stay at her family’s home, where her mother and aunt live. She and her brother were also just visiting at the moment. We had not gone with an invitation since Azemeh’s home and with the rain still going on, we were really glad for a dry place, so we kindly accepted and followed them there instead.

We got a very warm welcome by mother Fereshteh and aunt Shahin, got immediately treated to tea and biscuits and when we remembered that we had still not eaten, Hesam went out to organise Felafel sandwiches for everyone. They had a spare room in the cellar which was just perfect for us and while I unloaded our gear, Nina got the chance to take the shower first.

Flo was moderately excited

After we got everything sorted, plans were made. Sara was only in town till tomorrow and had family matters to attend to this afternoon, which left plenty of time for us to explore the city’s main attraction Taq-e Bostan on our own and sort out some things in town. We got back on the bike and headed for “the mountain”. Taq-e Bostan is a Sassanian era bas relief at the foot of a massive mountain that rises almost vertical and forms the natural northern end of town. We took a little detour up the public park that stretches one third up the slope of the mountain, to watch all the picnickers and weekend frolickers out and about. At the sight, the restaurant next to the entrance was kind enough to let us park our bike under the CCTV and we got in to once again pay the ridiculous 400.000 rial ticket price. This time, I was really a bit annoyed, since there is little to the site but the relief, a spring and a pond – no explanation or much of anything else given. The annoyance lasted only for a moment, though, since the setting was rather nice and the people were continuously lovely. We sat on the grass for a while and took some photos with a group of polymer chemistry students while generally having a good time.

A group of chemistry students swarmed us at the park 🙂

Back at the bike, we made the day of the young soft ice cream seller’s daughter by letting her hop on Rocinante for an Instagram. Pa was in a good mood as well and outright refused to take our money for the two soft ice cream we had.

Back at the house, we had a good time showing Shahin and another aunt some of our pictures from Oman and Iran and communicating without pretty much any shared language. When Hesam came back later, he asked if we would like to join him catch up with a friend at his restaurant. We tagged along and had a good time with even more tea, tochmeh (roasted sunflower seeds) and cheese flavoured popcorn.

We did explain to Saleh how this sign could be misunderstood 😉

As a bonus we got to observe friend Saleh and his crew try to improve the decoration of the place.

After such a full day, with many great and unexpected moments, we had to retreat to our room pretty soon after coming back to get some good sleep. On top of the long day, I was also coming down with Nina’s plague from last week …