A cool and surprisingly damp night as clouds rolled in overnight – it’s the first cloudy day I can recall since Almaty which is many days and several hundred kilometres away. We decided to do a ‘term photo’ for the GCC this morning, however it now needs to be renamed:
Current members of the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Cycling Club (LGCC) in team uniform. From left, Ron, Ruth, Michael and I.
All the usual morning things and I was on the road around 0615.
Route notes for stage 87
Initially the wind was against us and the downhill gradient was terribly great which was beginning to make it look like it was going to be a long slow day. Once we got into the gorge which forms the centre of the national park the gradient increased and the wind dropped away which significantly improved progress.
It was also nice to see some real forest as we went
The forest of the Golestan National park
The run through the forest was great fun with occasional tail winds and a good descent which meant that I averaged 36.4 km/h for the 81 (non-stop) kilometres to lunch.
The language in Iran is Farsi (sometimes referred to as Persian) and is written using the Arabic script. Unlike Arabic itself when it’s spoken it sounds almost melodic, and much less ‘angry’ than Arabic does. It also looks really nice – even the graffiti
Graffiti on the river wall
Another form of local bread for lunch which was also really nice, clearly the Iranian’s have mastered the art of bread unlike most of the Stans who don’t quite seem to have got the hang of it. Grant came and went while I was at lunch before I continued on to cover the last 33km to the hotel.
Into town and I managed to miss the hotel as I came through the roundabout, it turns out because there was a large truck parked in front of the hotel, the flagging, and the van so I did an extra 1.5km up the road and back before I found it.
None-the-less I was still the second person into the hotel which wasn’t necessarily a good thing as they were far from ready for us and in the end it was gone 1400 before our rooms were ready by which time everyone else was here as well. On the plus side the lobby of the hotel was comfortable, air-conditioned, and had decent WiFi 🙂
After a shower and some sorting out I needed to take my laundry to be done – my timing turned out to be near perfect as just as I left the hotel three other riders were returning in a taxi from having done the same thing so I simply got into the taxi and indicated to the driver to ‘take me to the same place’. He waited while I dropped off my laundry, took me back to the hotel, and said (signed) the he’d be back at 1900 to go and collect the clean clothing. And all that for 60,000 IRR which is a little under $2 USD.
Back to the hotel and I uploaded the most recent blog posts and generally enjoyed the air-conditioned comfort of the hotel lobby with the occasional trip to the store next door for a cold drink or ice-cream. I tried out one of the local ‘beers’
Nothing like beer at all, but actually a really nice pineapple drink.
Michael and Rob had found a restaurant not far from the hotel and brought a copy of their menu back to the hotel which Fari had kindly added translations to so that we had some idea of what we were ordering. It turned out to be pretty tasty, though took a while for what is essentially ‘fast food’ to arrive – so long in fact that I had to abandon Michael while he was still eating in order to get back to the hotel in time to go and collect my washing.
Our taxi driver showed up smack on time so the four of us piled in – the taxi had definitely seen better days and had webbing straps attached to the seatbelt anchor points behind the seats to stop them falling backwards, no window winders in the back, the left rear door didn’t open and instead of carpet in the back it had a custom-fitted wooden grating on each side.
At the laundry every things was clean and dray, however everything was all mixed in together! Back in the taxi and back to the hotel where we duped everything out on one of the couches in the lobby and proceeded to sort through identifying our belongings. All in, including the taxi rides it cost me 210,000 IRR, so about $6 USD which is one of the better washing costs, particularly when you factor in the taxi rides as well!
A bit of time spent arsing about on the internet and it’s now time for bed.
Riding data
View from my tent
Was so boring I didn’t bother – all you can see are the roofs of the TDA vans and the road.
