Blogs from Iran, Middle East - page 55

Pues si....aburridos.....que le vamos a hacer. Despues de la gran nevada de ayer hoy ha salido el sol, y la ciudad esta mas practicable aunque aun hay riesgo de ostiarse con las placas de hielo que aun se resisten a fundirse. Esta noche, a las 20.00, sale el tren a Teheran. Compartimento de 6 personas, literas....como sardinas en lata...ya me lo estoy viendo, y a Marc le va a dar claustrofobia :) Y ahora estamos en internet, dejando pasar las horas porque no hay nada que hacer, no hay muchos cafes donde sentarte y si te sientas te echan enseguida, y en la calle hace frio....pero no me voy a quejar mas, que a fin de cuentas estamos aqui porque queremos :) bueno, pues hasta pronto y deseadnos un Buen Viaje!!!!! ... read more

It’s the day before I leave. All the preparations are made. I’ve just got to spend this afternoon in the office with a visitor, and then tomorrow at 1400 I’ll board Emirates for my 8-hour flight to Dubai. I’m travelling in economy. No great problem, it’s Emirates, which (so far), seems a fantastic airline, but later in the trip I’m with the (possibly) dodgy Iran Air, who operate a fleet of Boeings, but apparently can’t get spare parts from the Americans. Later still, I’m with an Indian airline called Sahara Airlines. It seems a strange name for an Indian airline; but then navigation might not be their strongest suit. I have my currency after being ripped off by a well-known credit card company, and I have my Visas (for Iran and India) after being ripped ... read more

No one should leave Iran without a visit to Esfahan. I took the bus in the evening and since it's only six hour from Tehran to Esfahan I arrived in the middle of the night. Everything was very quiet and the streets were empty. After walking the silent city a bit I found a soup corner that was open all night, the owner was friendly, he gave me a tea and some bread for free. Together with the leftover cheese from the mountain that was almost a nice breakfast. When the sun finally came up I found a good backpacker hotel. Cheap, a courtyard with some plants in the center, and an Australian who told me how to play backgammon. Here I also met a German who had been studying psychology in Marburg, Germany. How small ... read more

On last Friday Nick and me finally started. We had bought food for six days, two types of bread, oats, raisins, dried apricot, cookies, spread cheese, jam, and honey. We left some luggage at the guest house, packed all nessesary cloth, Nick's tent, the sleeping bag, and a new bought wolly hat. Our first night we sleept in the tent near the lowest shelter which is a mosque at 3050m. It was not to cold and the next morning we freshly started climbing to the next shelter. The next and also final shelter is at 4100m which is quite high already. We tried to find a place to put up our tent on the way, but there was no good location, everything to steep. So we sleept the second night at 4100m already. That was to ... read more

When I arrived in Tehran it was on a Friday. On a Friday there is not much going to happen in Iran. Everything is closed. Still I managed to change some money with an obscure person approaching me on the street. My plans where to go to mount Damavand in the Alborz mountains north of Tehran. It's the highest mountain of Iran (5671m) and I thought it should be a good training for the treking in Karakorum or Himalaya. So I went straight on from the western bus terminal to the eastern bus terminal in Tehran (which is not to difficult, just get the city bus along the street all the way east) and took the bus to Reine, a small village located at Damavand (2200m). Here I explored all the conditions for climbing Damavand, incuding ... read more