A straight road on the way to the sand desert.
After Yazd me and Arthur took a bus to Esfahan where a man named Muhammed picked us up. After eating dinner with him and his family in Naein, we drove to a small town called Khor, located pretty much in the middle of Iran. Here his family has another huge house which also functions as a guest house for travelers.
The first day in Khor we drove about 70km to a sand desert with his huge Chevrolet jeep. The dunes were a pretty extraordinary sight: tall as three story building and stretched as far as your eye could see. At the north end of the desert, by a pair of vertically steep mountains, we visited a family who lived of their goats. Their house had two rooms: one in which they slept and ate, and one where they cooked food and made products of the goat milk and the goats themselves... It was somewhat surreal, like rewinding back time 200 years.
Anyway they served us a good lunch consisting of some sort of stew made of rise, tomatoes, garlic … and some other stuff along with newly baked bread dipped in fresh goat cream (like cream but with a VERY distinct taste of feta cheese).
After that we went camel riding and when the sun set we went hunting scorpions. Some of them were lethal but the black ones you can see on the pictures only made you spend a few nights at the hospital. I don’t have to mention it was quite thrilling and nerve wrecking. However, as you can see on the pictures I overcame some of my bug phobia (even though the "stinger" was cut of by the time it was crawling on me).
The night was spent outside, on a roof top in a small village called Arusan (pop. 5, sometimes 8). Ive heard that the night sky in the desert is supposed to be amazingly beautiful with millions of millions of stars visible, and I can now confirm that rumor to be true. Breathtaking.
The next day we hung around in the village for a while and in the afternoon we went to the biggest seasonal salt desert in the world (its size varies with the seasons), which is actually a salt sea because underneath the 50cm thick crust surface there is a deep sea. However, since its so salty nothing lives there, the only thing its used for is to extract... yes, salt and some other minerals.
These three days we spent with Mohammed and his family was truly incredible in many was: Firstly the insight it gave you in the simple lives of the desert people we met - living without electricity, water or telephone and being self sufficient somewhere where virtually nothing lives is quite a stunt. And even though they are very poor, their hospitality was amazing. Moreover, thanks to these people and especially Mohammed's mother we got to experience some delicious traditional Iranian food (most often served Iranian style on the floor). Last but not least, nature wise it was incomparable to anything ive seen so far, the "neverendingness" of the desert is quite stunning. Altogether: awesome.
While writing this im squeezed in to a taxi with four smelly Iranians (doing their military service) on my way back to Esfahan. Arthur headed the other way towards Pakistan and then China and Laos. While actually posting this ive spent two days an one night in Esfahan. Ill try to comment on this city as soon as I can, right now its 10pm and the Cafenet is about to close. Just briefly Im having an awesome time here as well (I now Im wearing that word out, anyone got a good substitute?), managed to meet another anglosaxian friend which ive hung out with till now. Gotto go!
ALBUM UPDATED (will add more pictures to it tomorrow hopefully)
