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.
