We left our fabulous caravansari in the rain and it kept on raining the whole day. We were scheduled for camel riding through sand dunes this morning- something I’ve really been looking forward to, not to mention counting on for the dvd. So when it was rained out I was bummed. Then the rain turned to sprinkle and the guide really wanted us to try it so we were redirected to the highway with trucks whizzing past us. The poor camels were shivering so hard the whole time they nearly shook us off their backs. We were all shivering as we were riding in sprinkles with temps in the 40’sF with no raingear on. Our little fingers were bright red and numb when our meager 15 min ride ended. I at least wanted to get a bit of video of the little sister and our guide coming in and dismounting the camel but my cameras were locked into our car and the driver was no where to be found. By the time he showed up the camels were locked back up into their stalls and were no where to be seen. So much for my ideas of riding a camel through the sand dunes in the blazing sun. Now I will always think of shivering camels and holding on for dear life with numb fingers. And no, the irony of getting rained out in the desert has not past me. The writer in me thinks it’s funny because it makes a better story, the photographer in me laments the lost opportunity for camel photos and the videographer in me weeps because I was really counting on this scene. “ I guess we’ll just have to try again in Egypt.” I tell the girls when we get back into the car. “We have to go to Egypt? Not before Christmas, right?” Right. Not before Christmas.
The only photos of the day were taken with the girls snaptastic camera:
Once we got into the town of Yazd the rain had flooded half the city. By flooded I mean there were cars floating, shops flooded and streets turned into rivers. The detours were outrageous. We spent hours trying to get to what should’ve been minutes. Let me also mention here that I was 8 years old the last time I’ve traveled in this fashion. That’s to say on someone else’s schedule. We are following an itinerary and guided by our lovely guide. I really do appreciate her and would not want to navigate this country on my own. Take for example the restaurants that we’ve been to. Most of them are unmarked doorways at street level that have stairs leading down into a lovely little restaurant. We would never in a million years have found them on our own. Usually I like to wander down side streets and pick a place by how it looks. That strategy would never work here. Not speaking the language is also quite a barrier here. In short, I’m thrilled to have our guide. What I’m not so thrilled about is spending most of my day in the back seat of a compact car with my charming, cheerful cherubs on either side of me that have lost most of their charm and cheer while driving days ago. The seat in the middle has no seatbelt so it’s my designated seat. One on either side of me and me with the bump in the middle where my legs should go. We’ve spent between 4 to 8 hours a day in this position getting in and out of the car to look at sights. Some have been incredible but I’m not really that into sightseeing. Some architecture really grabs me but often I don’t feel any different seeing a building in person than I do looking at it in a picture. I like to explore the living aspects of a culture- its people, food, and nature. We’ve seen a lot of buildings here- many under scaffolding with a gray sky background as this is December. The guide books show pictures with bright blue skies in the background and green trees and flowers in the foreground. We are not here at the best time of year for photos.
Photo by the big sister. I am the brown blob in the foreground.
After our trip to the henna factory- something that sounded so fun, but in reality was a huge dust fest that had us all choking on henna powder and coating our still damp bodies from the camel ride in a fine green raw henna powder- I pull the plug. We were like pieces of dredged flounder ready for the frier. This photo says it all. Look at all the stuff in the air!
That was enough for me to bail out on most of our scheduled sight seeing and opt instead to check into our hotel the minute it was ready- 2pm and take hot baths in the middle of the day. After two days of no bathing it was heavenly to scrub, shave and wash- and of course remove all of the henna boogers! It was fabulous. Until the fire alarm went off. We quickly got ourselves dressed, I grabbed by camera bag and computer and that was it. The little sister was near tears about leaving her doll and clothes behind but I told her that’s what we do in situations like this. I poke my head out of the hotel door into the hallway and when a man passing by looks at me apologetically and then covers his eyes I realize of course I am bare-headed. My hejab is nowhere near my head. I dart back inside, wrap up my still wet head and we run down 4 flights of stairs with our coats on. Since we’ve just finished our hot baths we are in a full sweat by the bottom stair. We get to the reception desk and ask what’s going on as the alarms are still blaring and lights are flashing. They laugh at us, “No! No fire! Just happens when kitchen gets too smoky. No fire!” and keep laughing. We are a little less amused than they are and take the elevator back up. The elevator walls are mirrored and I have to laugh when I look at three sets of red rosy cheeks staring back at us. The elevator plays Barbara Streisand’s Woman in Love, elevator style, which for the rest of the day is stuck in my head.
Our guide tells us we should really come back out at 6pm to see traditional Iranian sports. Our usual schedule at home is dinner at 5 followed by baths and getting into bed at 6:30 to read until 7, at which time lights are out and the girls go to sleep. So going somewhere at 6 is kind of lame but I’m assured it’s really worth it.
It turns out to be what Kabuki is to me in Japan. Something I find mildly interesting and worthy of a photo or two, but anything past one minute of exposure is a real challenge for me. The weather is fairly cold here, which can only mean one thing- setting the heater inside at about 80F. The gas burning type of portable heaters that stand in the middle of a room with a tea kettle full of water on top that wreak of butane gas and give me an immediate stomach ache. If you’ve never traveled to a place where these exist there’s no real way to describe the scent, except to say it’s something like turning on the gas stove without lighting it. It’s so hot inside and my natural instinct is to peel off the layers and then I remember I’m in Iran and my layers must remain. So we sat down and kept right on sweating during this very strange ‘sport’ that didn’t actually involve any sort of game. It was a bunch of men and boys in a circle basically doing a strange form of calisthenics first with nothing, then with wooden pegs and then with chains. No contact, no points and from our western perspective no point. Oh, and there was a man scream/singing directly into a microphone while pounding on a drum the whole time. Oh, and it’s popular with young boys- lots of young boys – all with their shoes off. Ya. Nearly every one of my senses assaulted at the same time. The girls were tired so were whining and wanting to go to bed to boot.
Needless to say at this point I am also constipated and PMSing. The comfort in this is that the one illegal item I have smuggled into this country meticulously wrapped up inside my socks in my suitcase are tampons. Something I learned the hard way from previous travel in Islamic countries. I have about three times the expected amount I should need. This is my form of travel insurance. I never again want to spend an entire day on a bicycle-taxi searching for what menstruating women use to deal with their menses and end up with a cotton ball filled 1.5 inch thick pad with a plastic liner at the bottom that rustles when I walk. In a day or so I will be committing a very secret and private crime by inserting a wad of cotton that should go where only one husband has the legal right to enter.
