The Desert

Persepolis was cool, really cool. Unlike a lot of ruins, the stones are still standing in their original format. The carvings on the staircases are still intact, as are the staircases themselves and so it makes for the most awesome sight. It was strange to think we were walking through the same city that Alexander the Great had burnt to the ground two and a but thousand years ago. From Persepolis we powered onto Yazd. Being a desert city, Yazd proved a vast contrast to earlier Iranian cities. Unlike the others it had no huge square but was rather a maze of covered streets and alleys. Whilst at Yazd we decided to spilt the drive to Mashhad across two days and so set off the next morning to complete 600km of the 900km to Mashhad. Deserts are generally hot and so is Iran; this combination made for a rather warm journey in the unair-conditioned Subaru. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the Subaru - its partially air-conditioned. What I mean by this is that you get about 5 minutes of air-conditioning every two hours. However, despite our horribly sticky backs, the landscape more than made up for this. Despite its barrenness, there is something really cool about being able to see sand and absolutely nothing else.  Along the way we visited the site where six American helicopters had crashed in the desert during Operation 'Eagle Claw'. Whilst the wreckage itself was interesting, what really caught our attention was the poster announcing the site. On it was a picture of an Iranian soldier machine gunning the Statue of Liberty. Following this, after about 6 hours of this hot and cold treatment (mainly hot), we arrived at an Oasis in the middle of desert. The surrounding landscape was as dry as a bone yet out of nowhere appeared a huge spread of green. There were pools to swim in and so it was a lovely antidote to the sweat machine of the Subaru. Having stopped for the night we then set off for Mashhad. This was one of those nothing drives and so four hours later we arrived at the hotel where I am writing this blog post. We have set about sorting out our car for Turkmenistan. Given that it is a very secretive country, none of us really know what to expect but I suspect it will be fun and games at the border as usual. KBO.