Shepperd on the moon

We met two other bicycle travelers' on  the road to Iran. There is Stephan from Belgium, who is cycling from Bristol (GB) to Dahramsalla (India), and Zo who has long way home from Los Angeles until his country Malaysia.

Here we are arriving together on the Turkish and Iranian border, we overtake the trucks and avoid a few dogs. Then, we do the customs formalities by watching an old Bruce Lee movie translated in 
Turkish.

Our passport stamped, we can introduce ourselves to the Iranian customs.

Them: "where do you come from ?"

Us: "Turkey">

Them: "Where do you go ?".

Us:"Iran".

The iron gate is opening, they take our passport and ask us to go to the next building, by wishing us the welcome in Iran.

They give us a few recommendations and information about their country and then open the lock to 
let us in front of many currency exchangers, "Turkish Lira, US Dollars, Euros…". We go straight to the bank

We are all a little bit exiting and careful about this new country, the time to dread and "feel" this new environment.

I change 300$ and came back with three big wads of one hundred notes of 10000Rials (around 1$), there is about 3 millions Rials, I am rich but the illusion doesn't t last, one hour later, the pockets full of money, we are stopping for the night behind an abandoned house in a field.

Zo is making a soup that we will share with fruits and nans (local breads).

We decide to take the same road together along the Azerbaidgan border until the Caspian sea and to avoid the classical road by Tabriz to Teheran.

Small roads and villages, this is our way.

For ten days we have been traveling in the north part of Iran now, which is a Turkish speaking region,  we are really enthusiasts about the remarkable and sumptuous landscape, mountains are very colorful, grey, red, yellow, crimson…

So we often stop to appreciate this quiet and imposing nature.

Above 1500m, the ground is very dry, rivers and torrents are drained, the air is also very dry, like our skin now.

The road we are going on, has a very good asphalt, much better than In Montenegro, Albania or even Greece. It winds between gorges and rocs.



The gradients are following on et we are constantly pedaling around 1000m until 2000m. Every valley seems to run its own culture, in first it was melons and water melons, then apples, and vines.

On the Caspian Sea, paddy field and tee plantations are lined with road by small squares.

After seven days of effort, we are finishing to get around the Mont Sabala (4811m).

We crossed a tunnel with no ventilation for 300m and arrived at 1600m high above the clouds and a green and big forest. The air is humid, what a crazy country, in 300 m, we passed from a quasi desert to the jungle.

This is the time for a pause to appreciate this new landscape. We gulp down cucumbers, nans and dates. Then we hurtle down the slope from 1600m to -20m, the Caspian sea level, in 40km to arrive to Astara, a town on the border with Azerbaijan.

The Iranian geography is confusing and surprising but not as much as the Iranians themselves.

During this first week, we crossed some small villages only lived by farmers and shepherds and this people are full of hospitality, generosity, smiles and mischief.

In the Koran, inviting travelers is bringing back God in your house. But their spontaneity to welcome us is far from this mean calculation and we live fully this fleeting meetings above unuseful words that we don t have in common.

Depending on the valleys where we are cycling, people give us melons, water melons, apples, nans, walnuts, marmalade, cheese, grapes, jewelry, if we meet a shepherds in the middle of nowhere, we will receive what they have in their pocket, fruits, lighter…and impossible to refuse anything despite our heavy bikes already too much loaded.

Everywhere people wish us the "welcome in Iran" and ask for if you need anything.

Spontaneity, long hand shake, eyes looking, all this generosity and attention are deeply moving even if we need to get back in touch with suspicion and precaution as soon as we approached from big town.

I think about my apprehension of Iran before to get in, to the newspapers I read… what ignorance, I forgot again that political relations are submissive to economical interest and don t reflect the reality and the complexity of a country. We forget that men and women are living behind this tensions and stakes.

I believe that this shepherds are far from political and religious influences,  their harshness life's conditions make them closer to essential and simply things, maybe a little bit like us bicycle travelers and this is a good base to start to learn from each other.

Maybe, during these short instants of sharing, can we forget by looking each other eyes in eyes, the cultural, religious and political background to catch sight of this fragment of humanity we all have in common.

Elyar, a student we met in Ardabil and invited us for the night in his flat, was telling me in an English which was not really worst than mine :"I love foreign people, Iranians love people from all over the Earth, but if there is war, Army will take me and I will make war".

And I think to their and our newspaper, to the government s declarations justifying their decisions and I know that nobody will speak about Elyar who only wish to live in peace, like us.