lightning storm | Chaos roaming the world

Last bit of road in Iran

Writing the blog post from two days ago in the morning, with the thoughts on returning home at the end, left us in a bit of a low mood after breakfast. Thus, packing took extra long this morning. Not a big deal, though. We had only 130 km to go to the border.

Near lunch time we hit the border town of Maku. We filled up one last time with the obscenely cheap fuel and sat down along the main road through that narrow valley for lunch. It is always good to tackle a border with all primary functions tended to. Just as we were doing some last minutes preparations (I forgot to take proof of my German bike insurance which is valid and required in Turkey) Iran decided to give us a very Iranian parting gift. A guy jumped out of a taxi, shoved a melon and some bananas into my unsuspecting hands and jumped back into the taxi with a “welcome to Iran!”. Now we had bananas and a melon to declare as well – and another amazing memory of Irani hospitality.

Random gift of bananas and a honey melon. A melon?!?

We reached the border shortly thereafter. By the looks of it, it is only ever used by thousands of trucks or pedestrians. There is a lane for passenger vehicle crossing, but all booths are abandoned and no one was to be seen. It was relatively easy after all. Dodge the hawkers, find an official and then get led to the equivalent desk in the pedestrian terminal through back doors. Maybe 45 minutes later we stood in front of the two gates that separate Iran from Turkey with all the required stamps. Iran opened its gate for us and we called over to the Turkish guys …

… and waited. A long while. The Turkish border guards who saw us after one minute played manly man games with the Iranians and us. They left us hanging for about 20 minutes before pushing the the button that would open the gate. What a great start. Smile and wave …

Note the line of truck starting at least 6km before the actual border

We had to work around a similar way on the Turkish side. Passport immigration police guy was only available in the passenger terminal, so through some more back doors we went and met Mr. Grumpy Number two. I will never understand why some guys feel the need to underline their authority with outward rudeness. It did not get better when he saw our German passports. “Deutsche? …” sneer … then he only stamped one passport and got really annoyed when I remarked that I would like to get an entry stamp, too. Smile and wave …

Great light and dark due to the rain clouds

Luckily customs guy did not know what to do, really, so our workaround regarding the insurance remained untested. I helped him with the carnet and off we went, into thick storm clouds on the horizon. We put our full rain gear on, ducked down and headed into the Kurdish town of Doĝubayazit. This grey border town had nothing to offer, neither phone shop nor ATM in sight, so we pushed on northwards along the border.

Our first sight in Turkey was the former Armenian capital of Ani. To get there, all roads lead through Kars, the regional center. En route there, I felt the strong need to answer nature’s call and we stopped on the first pass. Right then a van pulled over and four soldier type guys came out. One was a sergeant and had this way about asking what we were up to that showed suspicion hidden behind mere curiosity. We moved along.

The world appeared to end at the horizon so I, wisely, packed the camera away

The rain started for real beyond the pass, with lightning and thunder hitting left and right. It was cold, too, and just kept on getting colder as we got closer to Kars. The last pass went over 2300m, we were soaked and shivering by this point. Looking around there were still patches of snow on the ground…no wonder it was cold! We had done another 200 km on the Turkish side by then and stopped at a petrol station maybe 5km before the longed after hotel. The guys there took pity on us and shouted us a hot çay (tea). That got us the rest of the way through freezing rain without frostbite.

The hotel was cheap, which was the best to say about it, really. To make up for it, we went out that night to a really nice restaurant. What a treat – tablecloth, fresh bread and really good not-kebab food. Just what we needed to get the spirits back up again!

: Last bit of road in Iran

: Arriving in Maku, the town before the border

: Random gift of bananas and a honey melon. A melon?!?

: The smaller peak of Mt Ararat seen from the Iranian side

: Note the line of truck starting at least 6km before the actual border

: Looking back towards the border post. So glad to be through!

: The smaller cone of Ararat seen from the Turkish side

: The whole Mt Ararat in the distance

: The road led through a vast landscape of nothingness

: Great light and dark due to the rain clouds

: Glimpses of the river canyons from the road

: The world appeared to end at the horizon so I, wisely, packed the camera away

: Going out for really good food: Vegetarian plate with grilled seasonal veggies and chicken in special sauce for Flo

Porridge with mutton for breakfast … hmmm .. going local

Breakfast after a very comfy night was the Persian standard with a European twist. We got the usual bread, cheese and tea with the addition of hard boiled eggs but then coffee, orange juice, milk and jam were also available. Carrot jam really isn’t my thing, while sour cherries jam is a good match to the flat bread. I, then, felt obliged to also try the rose jam which was weird but tasty. Enough food talk now.

We left Shushtar to ride to Choqa Zanbil, maybe 30 more kilometres away. Choqa Zanbil is a Unesco heritage site, protecting the 3300 year old ziggurat. From the pictures on the internet, we weren’t really impressed. Being on the site though, our view changed. We’re unsure if it’s the scale of the ziggurat or if it was a combination of the loneliness of the place (we arrived before the tour buses did) with the dramatic, lead-coloured sky announcing a storm. Whatever it was, it was impressive. The whole structure is built of mud-bricks, some of them burnt. It has five levels going up and is being restored at the moment (or rather, for a long time).

3300 years … wow

The first person I ran into, while Flo took the longer way through the outlying buildings, was a restaurateur. His English wasn’t quite that good but he managed to give us some information, guided us for a bit and allowed Flo to get up on the first level of the ziggurat. All that while lightning could be seen in the distance behind the structure (and I didn’t get it in a single picture) and then the thunder boomed overhead.

The information available in English is much better here than in Persepolis, probably because it got some Unesco funding from 1998 onwards. When the first drops started to fall, we tried to hurry back to the bike…unsuccessfully. A German guided tour had just arrived so we talked to them for a bit and shortly entered the ziggurat again with them. At the bike, we answered more questions of locals, took a couple more pictures with them…and rode off into the storm. The wind was incredible. The rain still hadn’t reached its full potential so we decided to play it safe instead of being soaked through to the bone. At the next intersection/check point with a bit of cover, we put on our entire rain gear, this time including pants.

We took the toll road for 38 km – not sure if we were allowed to, but it was fast

Choqa Zanbil was the last point in the low lands of Iran for us so we headed towards the mountains again for which I was grateful. Yes, it was stormy today but yesterday it had been just too hot for me to cope well. So we looked towards Kermanshah as a next destination which we wouldn’t reach today. Lunch was had at a real (real) truck stop where I had rice with yogurt and a salad because all they sold was kebab. It was a slightly weird experience to stop at a real truck stop, I must say.

Parts of the afternoon went by in cruise mode before we stopped to pick up ingredients for dinner. To mix up our usual bread-heavy camping grub, Flo wanted to boil potatoes which could be mixed with the remaining eggplant-tomato-dish from a can. The roadside vendor where we stopped refused to take any money for a handful of potatoes and tomatoes and instead insisted on giving us a watermelon for free as well. No amount of shaking our heads could dissuade him (where should we put a WATERMELON on the bike?) so in the end, we went for the smallest one he had. It got stored in the bag that usually holds our waterproof gear which we were wearing now.

Loaded to the brim like this, we headed into the mountains proper. Already tired, we let one or two promising spots slip before stopping on a meadow with trees that seems to be a popular picnic/camping spot. There was no one else around though so we put up our tent and had a quiet but delicious dinner. By the time we were ready for bed, the now familiar rumbling of thunder was back. The night’s rest was interrupted when the lightning storm started as the strikes could be seen very well even from inside our tent. Luckily, it didn’t cross right over us so we went back to sleep not long after. Earplugs are your best friend in such cases.