Yazd to Kerman

Hi, we hope you are as fine as we are.
As in the Islamic Republic of Iran facebook and the upload of fotos is forbidden, our blog is suffering of a lack of visual material. We are sorry.

Yazd at sunset

Anyway; we've spend some nice typical Lonely-Planet-like days in Yazd where we finally met a lot of other travellers. One of them from New Zealand. This poor fellow spends already one month in the Silk Road Hotel, and will be there for another 2, because when he arrived in Yazd and stepped out the bus he was rolled over by a car. Still he was lucky, because this broke only his two legs and did not put him 6 feet under...and he received the unbelievable sum of 20.000 Dollar of blood money. Usually it would have been 10.000, but within the holy month of Moharram it doubles...crazy rules.
By the way, we are convinced that traveling in Iran (maybe besides the traffic) is by far less dangerous than to travel in any part of Europe.

Matteo (windtower in the back)

On the roof of this hotel, where we had our little room, far away from the noisy crowds (unfortunately as well far away from the toilet), Mascha cut Matteo's hair with huge scissors,  we borrowed from the kitchen. Now he has about half a kilo of hair less and is looking like a punk from the 80ies. (Mascha likes it!! Matteo accepts it....)

Cycling from Yazd to Kerman we passed an area with a dense wild life. At least we could imagine that from the huge amount of warning signs of animal crossing: sheep crossing, camels crossing, cows crossing, deer crossing and  most exitingly Asiatic Cheetah crossing! We only saw camels...almost boring in this area....




Because of some snow and rain, we were pleased to stop for one day in the small village of Ahmad Abad, where most of the people never have seen an European in their lifes before. This area is famous for pistachios, which we got in huge amounts for free from local farmers. One of them was so kind to bring us with his car to one of the oldest stone villages in Iran: Meymand, which is the winter's base of an nomadic tribe. Like in Cappadocia people dug holes into the stone to live in them.

Meymand and its cave hauses

They still produce almost everything theirselves including carpets, medicine and different kind of food. By the way, if you think it is impossible to drive a car, most probably without winter tires on tiny mountain roads while holding a drink and a cigarette in one hand and a snack in the other, YOU ARE WRONG. If we would have known before that our driver was even severely addicted to opium we might have considered the possibility to go by bike....Well, we survived and enjoyed most of the time.

Mascha's new Afghanian love

In the meanwhile our stuff was kept in a small shop in the village. The shop owner and his two cousins were really nice. Mohammad, a student of law, being the only one who spoke English was a perfect help translating everything for us. His cousin, who finished his studies of law already is the owner of a food shop now. Every evening he teaches Farsi in the tiny room behind his shop to a group of Afghanian migrants. It is common in Iran that people with university degree don't find an appropriate job for their qualification. This is a big problem in this country as well as the brain drain of thousands of highly qualified young people, who leave the county for mostly Canada or USA. We hope our two friends will be able to become lawyers as they wish.

Mohammad, His cousin, Ali and two scholars

Signori e signore, ecco a voi i Pelmelloni

With Salman and his mother

In Kerman we were lucky to stay with Salman and his family, which Guido, a friend of Matteo already met two years ago. And we are lucky to say that now he's our friend as well. Although he had a lot of work to do, he managed to be a great host, with interesting discussions in the evening. He even went with us to his grandmothers house in a Village nearby were we spend a wonderful night with delicious food. Today  we tried to give something back, by cooking for the family. After long discussions we invented "Pelmelloni". It is the marriage between the russian Pelmeni and the Italian Tortelloni. Although cooked with Iranian educts, we were satisfied by the outcome and hope that the family enjoyed the meal as well.

Tonight we'll leave our bikes in Kerman an take a bus to Shiraz to see the last missing highlight  of our trip in Iran.  If you are curious, we'll report afterwards. Pictures will be added once we arrive in the sultanate of Oman.