After our late night last night we were supposed to be having a sleep in and a late breakfast, but people were up and shuffling (crashing) round from 0600, so that didn’t really work out.
The one thing it was this morning was cold, 5ºC which for sleeping was great but after the last couple of weeks I’ve slowly shuffled all my cold-weather clothes into my permanent bag so it was pretty chilly getting packed up in camp.
Rider’s meeting was pretty quick as the instructions are decidedly simple
Stage 84 route notes
Breakfast done and I wasn’t mucking round getting out on the road as I wanted to get warmed up – the initial climb soon solved that. The climbing was something of a change from the last couple of weeks of completely flat terrain and it took a while to get back into the rhythm.
It soon warmed up and by the time I was at the top of the first climb it was already into the 20s so my GCC white shirt was in its element. And as requested a selfie
The inaugural outing of my GCC white shirt
A few undulations, but mostly we’re heading downhill today which meant that the distance disappeared in pretty short order and I was rolling into camp by 0830.
We’re camped at the municipal park, but we’re not allowed to put our tents on the grass which is something of a shame given that it’s the nicest looking grass we’ve seen in a long time (which I guess is why they won’t let us camp on it).
Ivan and Jackie have just arrived in a taxi from Mashad where they had caught back up with each other and spent the last two days trying to find out exactly where we were so come and join us.
The dinner van has gone into town to find out where we can change money and get SIM cards so for now we’re just sitting round under the trees on the side of the road watching the world go by. I’ll go down to town once we know more about where things are since without any local currency there’s not really much point.
Later: The initial news wasn’t great – they had all sorts of problems both changing money and finding SIM cards, so there’s a suggestion that we might be able to try some jewellers or other stores to change money, but none of that seemed overly promising.
A short time later Fari said that one of the store keepers who they had changed some money with would be able to come to camp around 1600 to change money with us. Based on that I decided that I didn’t need to go into town and was quite happy sitting here in the shade reading and snoozing.
Once the shade had moved onto the path which we’re allowed to camp on I set my tent up so that job was done and that I had somewhere to get out of my cycling kit without upsetting anyone with a view of my naked bum!
Those who did go into town reported that it was pretty hectic, but otherwise much like any other Central Asian city that we’ve seen so it doesn’t sound like I’ve missed much. I also got treated to a guitar performance by a young lad who was walking by (I need to remember to hold my phone landscape when making videos!)
The money changer’s just been and I’m now a millionaire, at least in Iran – my $50 USD turned into 1,750,000 Rial, including a million rial note
I’m rich!
Next up is dinner which from where I’m sitting is smelling pretty good, though Adam wouldn’t be thrilled as I can smell the dill from here 😉
Riding data
| Total distance: | 51.6 km | Total Time: | 02:01:21 |
| Max elevation: | 1887 m | Min elevation: | 1232 m |
| Total climbing: | 753 m | Total descent: | -1026 m |
| Average speed: | 25.51 km/h | Maximum speed: | 70.92 km/h |
View from my tent
More a view of where my tent went once the sun had moved on
Goodness that’s a firm looking floor for your tent.
It certainly was – for some reason it seems to be the preference of many a North American camper on this trip.
Cokes (for goodness sake)
I figured that was what you meant 🙂 and yes, 1,000,000 Rial will get me plenty of both.
“On the road again,
I just can’t wait to get back on the road again. ..”
Hope the 1,000,000 Rial gets you many ice creams and Comes ?