Ok. We’re being honest. The last sentence of yesterday’s blog entry with “going to bed early” was a little fib. Due to the fact that we had gone to bed after all only around 01 o’clock again, Mel had to do some animation work to animate Andreas to breakfast from the plastic box. From the plastic box came cucumber, tomato, pita bread, orange, cream cheese and jam – a now already familiar, always the same breakfast ensemble, but still edible.
Our main destination for today was the town of Varzaneh in the desert of the same name. On the way there, we had decided to make a small detour to the small village of Abyaneh with its 300 inhabitants. After about an hour we had reached the small village of mainly red mud huts and parked our faithful vehicle – after paying for an entry permit – at the edge of the village. It was blisteringly hot as we strolled through the narrow streets of the village, which has been on the waiting list for UNESCO World Heritage status since 2007.
We could admire several holy places, temples, small mosques and chic houses, before we had to serve on the one hand again as photo motives and on the other hand us – for the first time in this vacation and for the first time since some vacations like stupid tourists behaved and us properly the money from the bag pulled let. The typical female clothing in Abyaneh includes a long white scarf with a colorful flower pattern covering the shoulders and the upper part of the torso. We both found a (after later, closer inspection handicraft miserably made) traditional scarf quite nice – a clever older lady took advantage of this and so the scarf changed hands for 3 million Rial (about 10 euros).
After a short break on the side of the highway, we reached the town of Varzaneh around 3:30 pm. As soon as we arrived, we met our host Reza. A man in his prime who not only had a master’s degree in geography, but had also opened the first guesthouse in Varzaneh and an eco-camping site long before Varzaneh became popular (especially for Iranian tourists). Reza raved about the surroundings, the desert, and the nature and beauty of our planet in general. You couldn’t help but follow him and his remarks with rapt attention, so we weren’t surprised to learn that he had also founded an NGO dedicated to saving nature. If you ever come near, be sure to visit Reza and take a tour with him:
Relatively shortly after our arrival at Reza we met a family from Steinfurt. The parents, pediatrician and teacher (funnily enough, both had studied in Leipzig) and 5(!) children (12, 11, 9, 8 and 1 year(s) old) had already been traveling for a little over 2 months in their old Mercedes fire truck, converted to a camper, and still had more than 2 months to go. They had started in Germany and entered Iran via the Balkans and Turkey. Their stories and problems – especially concerning the organization of Diesel in Iran – were very exciting to hear. The children were probably also happy to be able to speak German again and so Mel and Andi were “squeezed” about all sorts of things by the little Waldorf students in the course of the day and evening.
After our small acquaintance with a – as always very good black tea – started our desert tour with Reza and acquaintances 30min earlier than planned. As the first march rations there was – extremely clever and we should experience this later even more often – water in plastic bottles completely frozen to ice.
Our first destination was the salt desert nearby (about 40min drive away), after the Steinfurter had parked their huge “ship” at Reza’s campsite and we had distributed ourselves with 13 people on 3 cars. The salt desert was breathtakingly beautiful in a strange way – Andreas was speechless anyway, as it was the first time for him to see a desert with his own eyes. Reza knew a lot to tell us about nature, animals and ecological conditions. Also it was interesting in the small salt lake to stick the finger into the salt water in and to lead near the tongue – hardly touched, we felt a stinging on the tongue like from acid or pin pricks, due to the high salt content.
After we had strengthened ourselves, after the detour in the salt lake, with a wonderfully sweet watermelon, Reza led us into the actual desert to enjoy the sunset. Again, you could always tell his enthusiasm for nature. Andrea’s attempts to make a time-lapse recording of the sunset in the desert were unfortunately “sabotaged” 2 times by the Steinfurters – the spectacle was nevertheless breathtaking. Reza had also brought 2 “surf boards” for the kids to do some sandboarding.
We ended the evening with a fantastic barbeque. There was tea, salmon, chicken, fresh fruit and vegetables, all freshly prepared and grilled in the middle of the desert. Reza still explained to us the beautifully clear starry sky, which was not disturbed by any light with his laser sword … uh laser pointer, which probably would have had to be registered as a weapon in Germany. While we were eaten by mosquitoes, it was soon time to say goodbye to the Steinfurters, after we had collected all our belongings.
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