After a relatively short but complicated border crossing, we were there: Iran. So much we had heard before, now we were curious as hell, what would expect us. What we expected most of all: Conny and the hijab. So it was time to put on a headscarf. I preferred a thin scarf wrapped around my head. This headscarf brought different emotional phases with it. At first, it was “Actually, it looks pretty nice, it makes the women incredibly interesting.”, Followed by a “Hmpf, my head is itchy” and a “Why does it always slip like this?” to a “What a crap, it bothers mewhen hiking, you can not lie with it under the car and repair and anyway, who has come up with that?” until sometime to a “Arrrgh, what a shit!”
So us and the headscarf dipped into this mysterious land. We left quickly the first city, Astara, behind us after a short sim card purchase with a fingerprint and drove on the Azerbaijan border to the west. What started in the previous country, namely vegetation again, finally continued here. We drove in many curves up the mountains and around every corner it was greener and greener. It’s amazing how you can enjoy shrubs, trees, bushes and just green! During the drive we were rewarded with beautiful views over the Caspian Sea, to Azerbaijan and into the mountains.
The exhilaration was completed by the many friendly greetings and honking drivers. We passed the mountain range on the Caspian Sea and suddenly there it was again: a lot of nothing. In front of us a fairly large, rather undeveloped and quite flat plateau opened up. We drove past Ardabil to get to the next mountains. The streets became narrower again, the roundabouts, whose rules were still very incomprehensible, again emptier and the air cooler. Were it under the Caspian Sea sultry 24 degrees, we were now just back at the freezing point. And that within a few hours. One more curve and then: everything white! No snow, but frozen air humidity. Everything was surrounded by a thick layer of ice, the trees bent under the load and you could hear this soft crackle.
We looked for a lonely place and spent the night there. The next morning, the next surprise came. Ice away and everything green. Spring was finally here! With a headscarf, spring fever and finally charged sim card we headed southeast again. Back via Ardabil, direction of a large nature reserve. It meant refueling for the first time. We had previously heard that getting diesel should be difficult for tourists in Iran. Well, get to the gas station, prepare your hands and feet for communication and try. Without problems, the gas station employee put the required card in the machine and Ernst got the tank full. So far, everything ran smoothly in this country! So Ernsti started and we continue to go south direct … Meeeeeeeeeeeep! The sound was new.