After a hearty breakfast, we had to say goodbye to the nice couple and pay. As much as 10 million Rial we had to pay for the overnight stay, dinner and breakfast and that too in cash. The nice couple gave us back 1 million. At this point we still thought – we “simply” withdraw money on the way. However, we already had a little stomach ache, because in Iran you could only withdraw 2 million per day at the ATM (about 8 EUR). We were still offered to go on a river tour. We had to decline because it would take at least two hours and we wanted to drive to Yazd today.

First we visited the Morteza Ali Canyon on the way. Here, due to the Iranian weekend (which is on Thursday and Friday), there was already a dense crowd. We would have liked to hike through the canyon, but Andreas – fearing that his shoes might break – went on a small warning strike. Through the canyon, only paths led through ankle-high water and over sharp stones, so walking barefoot was not an option. So we went on in the direction of Yazd without having achieved anything.

On the way, we tried again and again to withdraw cash from ATMs with our Iranian bank card, but we kept getting the message that we had already reached our limit. Andreas then contacted our Iranian card dealer. It turned out that we could only use Ayandeh Bank machines – false advertisement says hello. Arrived in Yazd (6 hours and about 400km later), we first visited the Towers of Silence, which are located a bit outside the city (15km). We paid the standard sightseeing tourist entrance fee of 1 million rial per person and immediately found a new friend – a dog, who from then on accompanied us at every turn while sight seeing.

After a local couple thought it was our dog, Andreas got into conversation with them. We or rather our new companion had burst into a small Instagram photo shoot – the young lady literally took the high heels in her hands due to her fear of “our” dog. After a conversation (during which Andreas was certified to have a fragrant scent, despite the enormous heat) and quite a few photos together later, Mel was given a fancy red scarf by the young lady. Good for Andreas, because he could so Mel the rest of the vacation never lose sight of.

Mel and Andi then continued the sight-seeing program in the city center. First we stopped at the Amir Chakhmaq complex. There, too, after a wonderful, ice-cold melon juice, we got into conversation with a local couple from Shiraz – during this conversation, other locals almost pressed their cell phones in our faces while filming us. The couple wanted to emigrate to Kaiserslautern soon and was already learning German diligently. We still exchanged our phone numbers in case we still needed tips for Schiras and the two help in Germany. They had already recommended a few hotels to us – however, the prices did not quite meet Mel’s and Andi’s expectations (from 180 dollars per night).

Next door was a well-known Zurkhaneh (a kind of sports club). After paying the usual million entrance fee, we were unfortunately disappointed. The show started at 19:00 and it was already 19:20 – the “nice” gentleman at the entrance did not mention this with a syllable. Out of pity, a sportsman still showed a short performance of Varzesch-e Bastani (physical training with heavy wooden clubs), which, however, was rather unmotivated and also flawed – in parts we were afraid to be beaten to death.

Afterwards, the way led to the Friday Mosque. Since Mel had no desire to a renewed full veiling, it remained with a few snapshots and slowly we had also really hungry. Driven by the recommendations of various websites, Mel and Andi went to the old town. Unfortunately, no restaurant was open anymore. After a long search we found a restaurant to fight our hunger – the heated food in the basement of a hotel was not good for more. On the way back to the hostel we took several photos of the beautiful old town with its winding streets and traditional wind towers. Actually, we were – once again – dead tired, but hardly arrived at the hostel, we met Masoud. A former truck driver and now tour guide, with whom we talked about all sorts of things and so it came that we fell into our beds only shortly after half past three in the morning.