Friday 26 August 2011

First full day in Iran, the day before yesterday.

We had pizza for dinner last night, the pizza place was a little overwhelmed by the order of nine pizzas, but they were delicious when they arrived an hour and a half later. Thoroughly seasoned with hunger.

We stayed the night in a hotel that was being renovated. Between us we had the elements of a five star hotel. One room had towels, two rooms had air con, three rooms had sheets and three hot water.

We stopped at a shrine that looked like a cross between a mosque and an RSL club on the outside, on the inside... photos will follow.

We found a place to eat lunch where we wouldn't get into Ramadan trouble and it was a glory of soft Persian fetta, ripe tomatoes and Iranian flat bread. Followed by sweet watermelon and sweeter peaches, deep gold with a red heart.

I should stop talking about food. My stomach is restless and I'm drooling a bit remembeing lunch. It is after 8pm and we are quite a way from our destination. Asima spent most of the afternoon overheating. Then we stopped and it turned out, after much investigation, there was something wrong with the gasket. The boys were fixing it when a helpful man in a tractor pulled up, pulled out  big knife and did some magic to the engine.

And all the while it was super chilly. The clouds poured down over the mountains, we had a bit of rain, I have a jumper on over my tunic and hijab.

And Iran continues to be impossibly romantic with towns that look like illustrations from a history book when you get to the page on the Tigris and Euphrates. As we drove towards the soft pink setting sun, the clouds between the mountains looked like beaten egg whites and the towns looked like scatterings of fairy dust.

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