We „enjoy“ the typical Iranian traffic on our way out of Kerman. It is surprising how the mentality changes when the friendly, polite guys start to drive. Who slows down, looses. We stop all the time, but still feel like winners. When we finally managed to leave the city, wind is coming up. We are lucky: tailwind. But it is very strong and carries lots of dust and sand with it. To protect our eyes and lungs we cover our heads completely – but despite the murky visibility we enjoy the stunning landscape on our way to the last mountain pass at 2400 m altitude. It seems like all the car drivers get the impression that we were struggling – and they provide us everything necessary... and unnecessary. Again we got lots of fruits, basil seeds, dried figs, water, bread and so on. With some kilograms more we are happy to reach the summit.
Looking down from the mountains to desert is impressive. It is completely flat and we can spot at least 20 km of our road. Which is full of trucks, for the first time we are happy about the traffic as it gives us the opportunity to hitchhike if needed.
We expect the temperatures to raise to an almost unbearable level – but we are very lucky. Same applies for the street, at the moment 2 additional lanes are under construction, which we use most of the time to escape the traffic. A highway only for us – however the road condtions vary from perfect tarmac to very bad gravel. During our first days the weather is good and we get quite some kilometres done. We enjoy the scarce landscape. Until we spot a haze on the horizon, moving towards us. We wonder whether it is rain or sand.
The first sandblast blows us off the street and pushes sand into every pore of our body. Quickly we lay our bikes on the ground and hide behind a small hill. For the next 30 minutes we do nothing, except for covering our face with our scarfs and hands and try to breath as shallow as possible. When the sandstorm subsides we make our way to the next village, just in time! As soon as we entered a restaurant it picks up again. We spent half of the day waiting for better wheather, but the storm only gets stronger. The whole house was shaking, the windows rattle and the owner seems quite stressed. Only in the evening it was possible to cycle a bit further, a nice strong tailwind blows us up the next hills, 20km/h without pedalling at all. The next morning the wind force is still the same, only its direction has changed. We fight for the next three days to reach Ferdows, were we celebrated the first birthday on tour.
As our visa are about to expire, we take a bus from there to Mashad, to then cycle the last bitt o the border Unfortunately we did not have too much time to visit Irans second largest city. We spend most of our time there trying to exchange our remaining Rials. Official exchange offices stopped to work and banks refused to exchange as well. A luxury hotel was finally able to help.
The border to Turkmenistan is situated on a mountain pass. On the way there we use our bicycles and a tarp to create shade. A windblast blew Christians bike over. Normally no problem, but then we notice that the front brake sockel broke off the fork and the brake is dangling down. With the tallest mountains of our tour ahead this is really bad news. We decided to try to get it repaired in the border village. There we find exactly one mechanic, for motorcycles. He has a look at the damaged parts. Mumbles something in farsi, rummages around in a box with spare parts and comes up with a kind of hybrid of screw and brake sockel. Perfect. Relieved we sleep very well during our last night in Iran. We are a bit sad, that we have to leave this country after 4 weeks, a bit anxious because of the border crossing to Turkmenistan and mostly look forward to the downhill stretch from the border to Asgabat. 1500 m altitude difference on 50 kilometers will be fun! More of that in the next blog article.
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