The day we didn't arrive in Yasuj

Friday the 13th

It has rained the entire night resulting into 10 mm of water in our mugs when we wake up in our tent in the orchard. We prepare for our longest day tour so far, around 1200 meters of altitude difference and a pass of 2650 m to reach Yasuj, where hopefully a hot shower is waiting for us. The weather doesn’t look too bad, when we try to drag our bikes back to the road.

Sticky mud trap

Unfortunately, the rain has transformed the soil into a very sticky yellow mud and when we arrive at the road our bikes have turned into monsters spitting out the yellow mud from different parts. With the mud it is absolutely impossible to bike: not only it adds approximately 10 kg to our bikes, but also it blocks the wheels and the brakes. We are over half an hour busy cleaning our bikes. Probably we would have done better the night before when the owner of the orchard tried to do his very best to invite us in his home, where he had a room (otagh) and a bathroom (hamam) available, to accept his offer, but we didn't.  Rain (barun) was expected and he was right. We refused, not knowing that we would run into this sticky mud trap. The owner of the orchard was so concerned about our well-being that he returned in the pouring rain and woke us up to make sure we were not drowned.

It is easy to get water, but how easy is it to get ONLY water?

Around 10:30 we are almost ready to go, but first to the village to get us some drinking water. From the first house at the right a couple of men is walking downwards and Martin asks them for water (ab). No problem at all, we hand over our water bottles and someone goes back to fill them for us. In the mean time we have a sort of conversation and we are also offered bread (nun), which isn’t a bad idea because we don’t have that much left. Then we are invited into the house to drink a cup of tea, although the men actually were on their way to visit family in Shiraz. While we walk to the house one of the men comes with a pile of banknotes and gives us one each. I really don’t know what to say, we can’t accept money, even if it isn’t that much, but we also don’t want to spoil the men’s pleasure in treating his guests well.

The likelihood that we will ever reach Yasuj  today is drastically reduced and we sit down on the carpet, drink tea, eat seeds, nuts, popcorn, poprice and toffees. Then I smell something hearty coming from the kitchen. We are also invited for lunch that was kindly speed-prepared by the women of the house. Noon is not really lunch time in Iran, which uses to be much later in the afternoon. All the men join us at lunch: rice with vegetables, piles of very thin bread, two types of yoghurt, green leaves, tomato, onions and the very nice buttermilk with mint and saffron. Well, with this in our stomach and some tomatoes, mini-cucumbers and walnuts in our bags, we should be able to bike to Yasuj, plenty of energy in our bodies and bags now.  

A second lunch

So, at 12.30 we are ready to go. We proceed slowly but steadily. It is pretty cold and we are having a tail wind most of the time. Then we turn around a corner and an ice-cold wind blows into our face and we see a dark grey sky in front of us. The first rain drops start falling and we quickly pull on our rain coats and trousers. Just in time, a vigorous thunderstorm with hail beats us and since there is nowhere to hide we continue. We approach a small village and I ask myself whether it is not better to ask for a room to stay the night but I do not see any road that could lead to the village. Before we can spend another thought, Allah already makes the decision for us. A white car approaching us, turns around and overtakes us. Whether we would like to follow him (or that is what we like to hear, because we don’t quite understand what the guy is saying). So, we follow him, get invited into a house, we are asked to give our wet clothes to our hosts, they pull the wet hijab from my head, bikes get a dry a place and then we have our second tea, with nuts, seeds and candies, followed by lunch. We don’t feel particularly hungry anymore, but who can refuse chicken with French fries and a tomato salad?  

Since we are now definitely too late to cross the pass, we try to ask whether we could stay the night. Since our Farsi is not yet optimal (and I forget to consult my translation app) we call Ali in Shiraz and ask him to translate. Everything arranged. The family comes to bring us blankets that are spread out on the carpets, pillows and shows us where the steaming hot shower is.

No Yasuj today for us, but who cares?