Crossing Zagros Mountains
Leaving Esfahan after all going to some very unknown places, finding the best roads was one more adventure. Carlos, an other cyclist from Argentina joined us and we enjoyed his company. 
First day was almost usual desert with a very nice old fortress and village built of adobe. Some beautiful takes were probably filmed there. It was getting more mountainous till we reached the second day Zagros mountain range and just passed all of it. Mountains around us were 4000 meters high again and we crossed roads between at least 1500 and 2910 meters. It was not soo hot anymore, just 38 degrees during midday and cooling off to 20 during the night. Landscape was amazingly beautiful, water existed and was used again for rice plantations. We even had the possibility to take a bath sometimes.
We all agreed that we did one of the steepest uphills in our lives with a good production of endorphins afterwards. Passes there have sounding names like Baba Hasan Pass orGardan-i-Halwai Pass and are probably the highest ones in this trip.
It was carrying on for days just up and down and sometimes a tunnel and when we entered villages, which sometimes consisted of just a few houses to find food or water again we probably were the first tourists ever coming to this place.
One midday we took a rest under a tree at the end of a village and all the boys from one family with three wives (it is allowed by law to have more than one wife) came and gave us an unforgettable show of throwing stones with a piece of cloth really far, how to fight each other with nobody taking the side of anybody else and were really fascinated when Aggelos took out his Mac and showed them their photos in Photo Booth.
Another evening we were trying to find a place for putting up our tents and found a nice spot close to a settlement of Nomads, they had water and trees. Politeness taught us to ask before setting up our tents and they probably didn’t understand us right away. One of these guys came over with his motorbike and explained us very friendly that they would shoot us if we staid. The good thing is that we captured this situation by chance on video.
Due to Aggelos one day sickness we stayed in the capital of this region, Yasuj, for one night that he could take some rest and this was some interesting impression. In the evening time everybody seemed to sell anything on the street, from herbs to fruits or heads of animals and we could understand at this point why there were some headless animals lying around in this region. It was so crowded and we didn’t meet anybody who could speak English, but were offered illegal whisky which we didn’t accept.
Leaving from there and avoiding the main roads was a beautiful decision, finally being able of riding in the middle of the road and hearing the wheels of the own bicycle. It led us right away to a never ending uphill and plenty more. Downhills where similar steep which allowed speeds up to 86,5 km/h. We also passed Margoon Waterfalls which was a 20 km ride with 12% gradient down and finding out that leaving this valley there is no other reasonable way but going back..
Persepolis is situated close to Shiraz and is one the ancient leftovers that are shown in every history book. Alexander the Great captured this residence of the Persian Kings and at a fiest one of his whores would suggest to burn this place down and so it happened till they realized what they did and extinguished what was left. It was forgotten for many years and is now in very impressing shape and you can still imagine how great it was. Xerxes, the enemy of Alexander was called “King of the Kings” or “King of all Nations” and his castle is in referable scale.
Shiraz has not the same flair than Esfahan, though also very green and climate a little milder. Winds brought so much dust from the desert from Iraq that you couldn’t even see the sun. The situation was also different, we were getting ready for our first flight since Pakistan was not for us this time.
From Shiraz we took the airplane to Dubai and further to Mumbai. Going through Bandar Abbas with ferry boat is more expensive and much hotter,it is said to exceed 50 degrees Celsius in this period and people there just live during the night. Pakistan was sadly not possible right now, Visas would be difficult to get and situation is not the safest.
We will be in Mumbai in high monsoon season, from where we will straight be heading south again to gain the monsoon break in the very south.
Iran Review
Prejudices
Iran is a different place than presented in the media, it is not a place where terrorists are hiding and preparing for war with America. It is furthermore a very hospitable country, people are usually very friendly and helpful, though I had the impression that it differs from North to South.
America’s president is surely not a favorable figure in Iran, though in Kurdistan area of Iran it was heard that they would prefer being bombed and freed by the Americans. On the other hand some people go to military service for two years, in order to get a job and a passport, and mean that they would like to protect Iran against the same powerful man.
I was much more often called into a house in the north and given food than in the hard south of Zagros Mountains or in the desert. More and more people seem to see you as a money source and try to rip you off however possible. Sometimes it was really obvious and you feel even more stupid but there is not much you can do but to call them names and leave.
Women are very much in the background in Iran. Not only that they have to cover almost all of their skin, wearing extra clothes on their head and around their hips, having separated wagons in the train and the bus, have to go swimming with all their clothes on if beach is shared and generally you would see much fewer women on the street. Women usually would never start talking to men and if you want to talk to them and they have male company you should ask them first if it is allowed. If you are called into a house by some men you would await all the women of the family being inside. They are usually more educated and it is said also more trustful in matters of doing a good job, if they talked they would more often understand and reply in English.
They are mostly treated with respect and men would stand up for women in the metro. Stone trowing to death is something that should not more be of existence in this country.
They definitely have plenty of oil, it is even cheaper than water. You could fill a tank with about two dollars, one liter costs 10 Dollar-cent whereas water about 
30
Energy is so cheap due to loads of gas power plants and their not ending resources in the Persian Gulf. So, till there is plenty you can even waste it, air conditioning in open rooms, even Bazaars where effects would just take place in the front of the fan.
There are some new approaches for the winning of pulp and even paper. In the north at the Caspian sea are very many rice plantations, the idea is to decentralize the production and every few kilometers should be one factory to produce pulp from the leftovers from rice cropping. The pulp should be then finished off to paper which would be enough for at least all Iran.
Copies
Iran is a country where copying is not only just legal but is a whole branch that give work to many people. Reverse Engineering is widespread and there is nothing original that wouldn’t exist as a copy or is soon to be made. Cds and DVDs cannot be bought in original, only copies. From all plastic spare parts of cars, children equipment, clothes, sunglasses or even bicycles you can find everything for a percentage of the original price and with a name that almost sounds li
ke the real one 
but maybe one letter is missing, added or scrambled.
Business
Everybody is selling something.
At some times of the day, either in the morning or in the evening certain areas get crowded usually around the bazaar and people trying to sell anything you can imagine. In some areas we were wondering why there were animal corpses without head and we found the heads again on these special markets. There were all this classical products of the region and more things and spare parts you couldn’t even imagine that you might ever need it.
Centralizing of products is very common, if you need one special thing you have to found out in which area of the city you should go and arriving there you would find one of these special shops next to each other. For example there are certain areas for electronic devices, bicycle spare parts, outdoor equipment or for clothes. If the city is big you should take into account traveling for some hours.
Landscape
Landscape varies from north to South. Wet with rice plantations and everyday rain over hot and dry in the vast deserts and hot-humid in the very south. Details can be obtained in the roadblog or in the pages from my company.
Company
I entered Iran together with Sabine and Andi and we spend two very nice weeks together, having fabulous meals or great camping sites. We passed some beautiful scenery in the North of Iran.
Sabine was pretty unlucky recently, she was involved in an accident two times in Iran. The first time mostly the bike was to get fixed and the second time she was injured badly. She was hit on the highway entering Tehran right at the time when leaving a few kilometres outside the house they were staying. She now went back to Switzerland, Andi moving on with Salva till Tashkent and from there they will try there luck again next spring.
In Tabriz we met Salva and Steve. Stephen Lord writes a new edition of a book for bicycle touring even recommended by Lonely Planet. Salva did all the way to Cape Town and back and is now on the Silk Road heading to Japan. We had some great time together for example at stormy camp sites.
Then we stayed at the best couch surfing place in Karaj close to Tehran at Azadeh and Amirs house. When I left I really missed them, but we will see each other again for sure.
After meeting my greek friends from Esfahan to Shiraz at Zagros mountains, Carlos joined us, whom we will maybe meet again in India or somewhere else on the road.
Desert trip to Esfahan
I was really happy when I finally got to meet my good old friends, Aggelos and Dean. Dean will stay with us till Dubai and Aggelos really got very good connections and fancy equipment. We start making a documentary for Sky, details are on his site: http://www.filmografik.gr/
We will also get more organized soon, besides a real Internet site, we will write for Geo, Der Standard, NOEN, Velosophie and MBike.
When we left Karaj I already got used to my very friendly host family. They are really good people and I hope to see them again. Maybe even in Australia when we pass there this winter.
The way to Esfahan is straight through the dessert. It was very hard to find good sleeping spots and places with some shadow to rest during midday. Sun is merciless burning down with about 40 degrees Celsius and we had to carry about 10 liters water with us at all times. One midday we found a very beautiful spot under one tree in front of ruins from an old village.
We had a new record in flat tires, in just two days we had seven punctures, actually some tires even had three holes at once. It’s dessert thorn’s, created by evolution to last even under worst circumstances, where is nothing else to eat around for hundreds of kilometers.
The same scenery was carrying on for days and we decided that this is not what we wanted and said for the last 200km to Esfahan we will hitch hike and really a truck stopped, took us to Esfahan and afterwards wanted the amazing sum of 150$. We started explaining that we could have also taken a bus if we wanted to pay and conversation were tiring since they spoke no English and we no Farsi. Police explanations in Farsi again couldn’t solve situations till we finally worked it out with tourist police and he got our idea and was satisfied with 30$ for which we could cross Iran three times..
Anyway, Esfahan was really beautiful, its bridges, the second biggest square in the world with a huge bazaar surrounding all this area, many green places and very big parks.
We also met nice cyclists again while staying for a couple of days in the same hostel. It was probably the last time on this trip we met them since from now on they are heading in a different direction, doing good old silk road, crossing all the Stans and trying to enter China after all. There was one very impressing guy, his name is Daisuke and he is from Japan. He is ten years on the road so far riding around the world in very big circles the second time. He is a legend under cyclists..
Our next aim is Shiraz taking mostly small roads, doing lots of high meters when crossing Zagros mountains.
