While Mel slept like a baby in the bus again, Andreas only closed his eyes for a short while. Around 06:30 we arrived in Bandar Abbas. The hope of being able to drop off our luggage at the bus station disappeared almost immediately after we had taken a look at the run-down hall. Plan B was needed – but Mel needed her drug coffee first. After coffee and tea, we decided to take a Snapp to the port.

Once there, we bought the tickets for the ferry (2.5 million rial, about 8 euros), which ran only three times a day. More than on time, the ferry left for Hormuz at 09:00. During the crossing, Mel went back to her favorite activity and slept for about an hour. In the meantime, Andreas distributed the cookies from Kerman, which was especially enjoyed by the children present. At first, no one wanted to help themselves to the cookies. However, after it became clear that we were Germans, the interest was suddenly huge – he left the remaining cookies to the crew of the ferry.

Once we arrived in Hormuz, we immediately bought the tickets for the return trip. Unfortunately, there were only three crossings (11:00, 14:00 and 19:00), so we had to choose the 14:00 trip in order not to miss our flight to Tehran. At the ferry port, tuk-tuk drivers were already waiting to show tourists around the island in three hours. Somewhat reluctantly, we bought the tuk-tuk tour for 6 million rial in cash. The cash had just been enough after our attempts at negotiation had failed miserably.

Our driver showed us the highlights of the island: the Salt Goddess, the Salt Cave, the Valley of Statues, the Red Beach, the Majara Residences, the Rainbow Valley, and the Rainbow Cave. From the cliff at Valley of Statues, Sunset Abyss, we had a wonderful view of the ocean. Melanie even saw a small shark in the depths.

At Red Beach, Andreas was painted red for the first time by our driver. With his war paint on, he went to the beach and discovered that the sand was rather silver. In this respect, Red-Silver Beach is probably the more appropriate name. The walk to Rainbow Cave was more strenuous than expected in the heat. Once again, Andreas was colorfully decorated. Our TukTuk driver discovered tons of colored stones along the way. Our driver used the color of the stones to apply them on Andreas arm. Thus, within just under 10 minutes, at least 12 different colors decorated his forearm.

To get deep into the cave, we had to “walk” a part in the crouch – rather crawl, almost crawl. Melanie got a little panicky. The air in the cave was also very stuffy, it was incredibly warm and so humid that the colors on Andreas’ arm ran into each other in no time. Arriving at the end of the corridor, we got to see a wonderful, colorful cave. We had never seen anything like it before. The cave was for both of us, despite Mel’s slight claustrophobia, the highlight of all stops on the island. After just under 4 hours we were back at the port and thus reached our ferry on time.

The crew thanked Andreas on the way for the cookies. After an hour we reached Bandar Abbas. The city was deserted in the afternoon. After everything had closed, we decided to drive to the airport. After we once again could not pay appropriately, the driver charged us less. At the entrance to the departure hall there was already some kind of security check, so we would have been stuck in the terminal for six hours without – we thought – being able to smoke. So we spent an eternity in the arrivals hall.

Late in the evening we checked in. At least a small restaurant had opened in the departure hall. Melanie was so famished that she ordered half the menu – Andreas just wondered if he was still with the same woman. It was the most expensive meal we had ordered in Iran so far – 25 euros. At the neighboring table, three men were suddenly smoking. Melanie let out a cry of joy – she could smoke in the airport building. At this point, Andreas wanted to disappear clammily.

At the security check, we had to separate, according to gender, and into different rows and booths. With Andreas, the check took quite a long time, because he was completely frisked. Melanie was already getting restless. After quite some time, Andreas finally entered the waiting area and described his experiences – with his beard, he might have been mistaken for a smuggler. His backpack had been scanned 4 times, he had to clear everything out and the backpack was examined for secret compartments.

Our plane resembled the category wood class. 23:50 we arrived in Tehran. At the exit we were already intercepted by cab drivers who demanded outrageous prices. We told them that we had ordered a Snapp. We were told that no Snapp would appear because the road was closed. We were not deterred and after a short wait, our Snapp arrived – cab drivers … worldwide … Criminals and liars. Around 01:00 we reached the Heritage Hostel in Tehran and fell dead tired into bed in our basement room.