Marched up to the top of the hill

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Geo: 37.1697, 48.9333

Babak Castle was the destination of a long drive day from Tabriz. We stopped off in Ahar for a cook shop and lunch stop along the way, and encountered Iranian hospitality to the max. Those that required a WC were invited into a local Kebab shop owners house, to use his facilities and join him for some tea with watermelon. On returning to the truck, a group of children had arrived that seemed to be fascinated by the 'foreigners' and their big orange truck. The kept saying hello, so to begin with we waved at them and took a few photos. They were standing right outside a ice-cream shop, which of course had to be visited by ourselves. As we ventured out they all came to say hello, well to the men more than the women, shaking their hands and welcoming them to the town. Once we had our ice-cream, photos were taken by us, and them on their phones. By the time it was departure time, the truck must have had over 100 pairs of eyes, gawping in wonder at it. With an extremely loud toot of the horn, we were on our way again. Gorgeous smiles, on such friendly faces.

The base camp at the bottom of Babak Castle (a 9th century, hideaway building perched on top of a cliff face, on top of a mountain) seemed to be a favoured place for Iranians to come for an evening picnic or small holiday. It was beautiful, with hard standings dotted around the place with roves to hide under if it decided to rain. The toilets were squat toilets, full of leaf debris and what we liked to think was mud, and so the ‘peeing behind a bush' seemed like a much more pleasant option. The tent went up nice and quickly, so it meant that we had plenty of spare time to play cards with Mohamed. We played Iranian trumps (like what we call whist at home), which is played in teams, rather than individuals. It is a cracking game, esp when people, like Mo are very good at cheating!!

The walk up to the castle was supposed to be a 2.5 hr ascent with a 1.5hr decent, through dense woodland and a steep scramble at the top. As David (aged 70) was going to attempt the climb, described by L.Planet as a ‘hard climb' and the heat of the day, we decided to leave early doors at 6am, to give us the capacity to take our time and still return in time for departure at midday!! There were 5 of us in our little gang, the others being Dan, Vic and Jay. The path we followed originally came to a dead end at a waterfall. Just to check that there was no other way around, I stepping stoned my way across the water and scrambled up the side of the waterfall to see if I could see anything, I couldn't, so returned to the gang, at which point we back tracked and found a track heading up in what we thought was the correct direction. This path weaved uphill for quite an hour before that too vanished. We followed the stream for a little longer and decided to hack, uphill through the woodland, to break the tree line to take stock of where on earth we were and whether it was worth continuing up, or to admit defeat and abandon ship. The trees that we were relying on for support, were mostly rotten to the core, which meant it was a little bit of a lottery as to whether they would support or not. No Bambi instances …. Yet. On reaching the open air, we sat down for a short time, took on some fluids and decided what to do next. Myself and Jay went for a little more of a scramble, to see if we could find a path. Any path, be it up or down. A type of gorse like bush did not make this easy, nor did the huge footprint we saw in the mud….. I thought it was a big cat, Jay thought it was a bear! Either way, after we discovered that the only way up to the castle from our location was a scramble down a hill and pretty much a vertical climb the other side, we beat a hasty retreat. On return to Dave, Dan and Vic, we made the very grown up decision to head back, as we were concerned that if we got lost on the way back through the forest, we would be exceedingly late back to the truck, and downhill through what we had adventured up would not be pleasant on any ones knees, let alone a 70 yr olds.

It was as hard as we expected, with all of us ending up on our backsides more than once, but nothing too dramatic. We actually made stonking time and made it back by 10! It was an adventure….. not quite a successful one, but we all enjoyed ourselves and were very grateful for a cup of tea and an ice-cream at the bottom! The girls had set off with Mo at abt 8am and were not back by 12.. we began to worry, especially when the heavens opened and thunder began to rumble around the mountain. We were all sat in the truck waiting, when Emily and Becca came running down the road, absolutely drenched …. They had taken no kit with them at all, soon to be followed by the others, all soggy, but all full of tales of their adventures with smiles on their faces. Amazing what a mountain can do for you!

After a good few hours on the road, we pulled up at our bush-camp for the night. It was absolutely stunning. Very close to the border of Azerbaijan, the mountain view looked like it should be on a post card. It was possibly on of the most picturesque views I have seen since South America many moons ago. As the guys cooked dinner, we sat and watched a storm rumbling around a snow capped mountain, hoping that the storm would remain that side of the valley! Our hope failed us. The howling wind was of epic proportions, only drowned out by the occasional rumble of thunder. The rain also battered the tents, who earned their keep by not blowing off the mountain side. It was not a peaceful night to say the least, but again the view definitely made up for it.

The following day, we paid a very short visit to the Caspian Sea…. We dipped our toes in it to say we had done it and then sat in a restaurant with a kebab, watching the world go by, until it was time to head to the hills for the next Iranian adventure.

Masuleh is a hillside community in the Iranian mountains. It is a popular tourist destination for the Iranian people, and arriving on a Friday (their holiday day as they call it… ie their weekend) it was CHAOS! Sooooo many people and cars on tiny, narrow roads, all being delayed further, by 20 white people walking up the hillsides carrying packs!! They do love to stare at us!

The houses were built on such an angle, that the roves of the houses below, made a walkway / front yard to the houses above. We were met on the truck by the owner of the local supermarket (Medez)… that may not seem a lot, however he seemed to know everyone in the town and even be able to tell the police how to run the show and let us through the crowds on the rds, when they really shouldn't have. It was his apartments we were staying in whilst in ‘his' town, and what a shock we got when we entered. They were immaculate and wouldn't look out of place in London. We had sofas, flat screen TV, a kitchenette, beds, a shower and a proper toilet! It made our evening. We were all shattered from the rubbish night in the storm, and so settled in for the night with a hot drink and crisp sandwich. We watched ‘Crazy stupid love' on the tv, from one of the hard drives on the trip. A proper girly night.

The following day, we all had a lie in and ventured out through the streets of the town to find brunch. This involved weaving through the bazaar to the end of the shops, where a small ‘restaurant' was serving traditional food. The best thing we ordered, was a garlic, egg and aubergine dish that was sort of all mushed up together…. It tasted a lot better than that sounds, but it certainly would have scared away any vampire in the vicinity!

The bazaar was then wandered, with strawberry slush-puppy esque drink to hand (amazingness), nothing but a jar of carrot jam purchased, but it was just as fun to window shop. The area is famed for its knitted dolls, which almost resemble voodoo dolls and as you can imagine are a little freaky. Some of the guys headed back, but I wanted to see what was up the hillside, so a few of us ventured and found their graveyard. Beautiful headstones, overlooking the whole town; it was so peaceful up there, and a just setting for the purpose. On return to the flat, we bumped into a few more of the gang and decided that we should do the proper Iranian thing and have some tea in a tea house! It was lovely just to chill on a rooftop terrace and watch the world go by with sugar between your teeth, slurping tea. It was then rooftop photo shoot time, accompanied by another Iranian tradition of a picnic in the starlight there too!

I think we were all sad to leave this area, as the people had been so friendly to us all, and the apartments had been so lovely. It was a real eye opener to the very non scary side to the beautiful country.

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