After so many late night drives in Iran I have fallen behind on the whole blog thing, luckily theres not much to look at in desert on a straight road, so I can probably catch up while Chris drives; even the road is as straight as an arrow it might be a bit risky.

The Eco Park wasn't so dark in the daylight, so an early wake up call from the other teams displayed the stoney glory of the ground we had slept on. Now I'm not too sure what made where we were an Eco Park, it might have been the trees dotted amongst the gravel and weeds. Sholeh's (the guide, a lovely woman) brother owned the park and was kind enough to bring us cold watermelon. We then went next door to have some breakfast at a cafe, complete with blaring Iranian dance music which whenever someone turned it down was instantly cranked back up again. Breakfast was tea, egg and some flat bread made more delicious by the selection of jams and chutneys.

Back at the Eco park things were progressing slowly, the main annoyance of a convoy is waiting while other teams arse around. At least Po was being stripped down in attempt to lose as much weight as possible having limped into camp at 5a.m. The rear seats were tossed, the dashboard was thrown out, and clothes were dumped. By 12 we were finally ready to go, well aware we were going to arrive ridiculously late again. 

 

After a few hours of none stop driving, not even to take a dip in the Caspian, we hit rush hour traffic in a random city along the coast. This time we were on fine form after our practice run the day before, and the Iranians seemed to know. As we moved slowly through the city, we caused more traffic problems by other people jostling positions just to get close enough to talk. We chatted happily enough with people who spoke no English, we spoke to some who did. Most knew enough to say hello, some told us they loved us, while some men told Chris he was beautiful. Baby's were held out of windows so we could take a look and confirm that they did in fact have a baby. One man attempted a to start a dance off, and was quickly shown up by Chris' shapes. A huge amount of people offered us a place to stay at their homes, and had we not been tied to the others in the convoy we would have accepted . the man who said he had a jet ski would have been favoured. Ramadan was over (we had somehow missed any Eid celebrations) so food was offered and accepted. With traffic as it was the photos got more intimate with people getting their pictures with the car. Unfortunately the lead car in the convoy had heard of a crafty short cut, so we left the traffic behind and headed through some back streets. At 9ish we headed for a restaurant Sholeh had suggested, as with all good restaurants it was situated under a motorway fly-over.    Unfortunately the fashion police had spotted us on the road, and pulled us all over. Now I'm not sure they were the fashion police, as they had embarrassingly shown up wearing the same outfit - they did however instantly tell the driver of front car to take off his bright shorts and put on some stylish jeans.

 

After checking the guides' documents we were allowed to have our dinner. The menu was in Farsi, so we let Sholeh choose. We ended up with most items from the menu, which was a beautiful selection of meats and dips with flatbreads. Eating so much food made me sleepy, so while Chris drove I slept. The traffic this late in the night is much more sedate, the main danger is falling a sleep; as soon as Chris got tired we swapped over so he could sleep while I drove. We pulled in to a petrol station around 1a.m, Soleh had received a phone call from another team who had left earlier than us, their passports had been taken by the police and they were being held at a random hotel. I saw the guys last night (in Turkmenistan), they had been trying to find a place to stay and had accidentally stumbled upon the Iranian equivalent of MI6. Needless to say the Iranians weren't pleased with two Brits showing up at a secret base in the middle of the night. Luckily Sholeh managed to explain their lost tourist story and they were allowed to leave.

 

We arrived at the hotel that was planned at 3, only to find it was full. Another rally team was parked by the roadside so we joined them. Needless to say we couldn't be bothered putting up a tent to sleep for a couple of hours, so slept in the car.