I get up at 7 a.m. and Ramesh provides me with a nice breakfast. We have walnuts, sheepcheese, bread, eggs and cucumber. But I am too excited to eat much. I have packed most of my things yesterday and now I am carrying everything down the stairs. In front of the house I load my bike with all my bags. A woman passing by gives my thumbs-up and says "That´s very cool!" Ramesh looks at me as if I am the craziest person on the planet.
10 kilometers later that´s what I also think. It´s not that I did not already know that I am crazy, but now it´s proved. Even the very first little incline is unbelievable. It´s really just a small incline, but it is almost unbearable with all the luggage. I really need to get rid of some of my things.
A few kilometers out of Tehran I enter the Atesh Highway. It is very hot already and since I am cycling eastward the sun shines in my face directly. In addition the exhaust-clouds of the cars don´t make a very nice mixture, but somehow I make it out of the city. At every single incline I have to get down and push the bike.
At a shop I stop and buy some water. While I am in the shop three young men from a nearby workshop come by and are looking at my bike very curious. But when I get out of the shop they act as if nothing happened, standing next to their workshop door again. Then they watch me from afar while I am pouring the bottles of water into my waterbag inside the backpack.
In another shop I buy peaches and figs. They are super yummy and their peel is yellow, not purple as I know it. A few meters along the road another guy asks me where I am from. He has lived in London and speaks very good English. As always they ask me about my nationality and where I go, from where I come. He wants to give me his mobile number so I can call him if I run into problems. I thank him, but tell him, that I am fine. Meanwhile 4 men standing around my bike and everyone wants to take a picture from this crazy German woman. So I have the opportunity to hand them my camera also, so they can take pictures of me.
I continue through this brutal heat to a lake. If my online map is right, the street will go along the side of the lake. But the fun being on a nice paved even road does not last long. Suddenly I end up at a gate, which is open, but that can not be right way going through this gate. But my map says that´s exactly where I should go.
On the left side an unpaved gravel road leads uphill, so I think that will be the right road. I can not ride this incline at all, so I am down to pushing the bike again. After pushing the bike for 600 meters I notice that the direction the road is taking is not right at all. I decide to turn around and go through the gate. Maybe I am lucky and the road continues.
There is nobody in the wardens´ house that sits at the entrance. Down at the lake, two young men with cowboy hats are busy welding some metalbars. English, no chance. I ask them for the road to Damavand and they tell me it´s indeed the unpaved road I just tried pushing up the bike. Two other men arrive, one of them telling me he speaks english. Well, I think at least HE believes he speaks english, I can not communicate with him.
The older one tells the younger one to come with me and show me the road. Well, I know which road they mean, but they still come with me to show it. Very nice of them, but I really got it. The guy starts to drive up with his motorcycle, while I instead have to push up the bike, because the road is way too steep. Behind the gate a car with a couple in it has stopped. She speaks a little bit english, but well the thing is clear, it is this steep and unpaved road. They say: "Welcome to Iran!" I thank the guys and start pushing my bike.
5 minutes later the guy with the motorcycle comes back with his brother on the back. He speaks a little bit more english and they ask me whether they can help me pushing up the bike. No thank you, I can do it. Well, the whole thing takes me more than an hour, because the bike is so heavy. I even started counting steps (25 steps, then stop - 25 steps, then stop).
A truck driver, apologizing that he is not going in my direction, so he could have taken me with him, passes me. It is really unbelievable how nice everyone is. When I finally made it, I have a nice downhill on the other side down to the river, which runs into the lake. The river is very dirty and there are piles of trash lying around. I don´t want to have picnic here. I can´t understand why people are just leaving their trash wherever they stand, sit or go. I think about making a short break here to eat something, but the area is just too disgusting. I sit down under a tree a few meters away from the trash and eat something. Everyone passing is greeting me.
After half an hour I have to continue pushing the bike up a last part of the road before it enters the mainroad, which is more flat. Stopping every 25 steps, a car stops beside me, the driver indicating that I should hold onto the frame of the window, he will push me up. I am not able to do this, no chance with the left hand anyways. I would fall from my bike as soon as he starts driving. His son offers me to push the bike up the hill. I am really tired, so I say yes. I can not believe it, but he really gets on the bike and starts riding it up the hill, grinning. Arriving up there he had to admit that it really was "kheili sachte" (very heavy). I was sitting in the car with A/C - very nice. His wife pours me some cold water into my waterbottles and we take some pictures. As a thank you I give the boy a mousepad with an BMW i8 on it. My luggage has to get lighter, that´s for sure.
At that point I have to decide whether to go along the super dangerous Haraz-Road or the route I wanted to do through the mountains. I am looking at the route in my App and I am quite sure, that I can not make it over the mountains even in one week. Maybe it is too steep at all for cycling and I have to push it the whole way. Since the Expressway this morning was not that bad I decide to take the Haraz-Road.
The road continues on the other side of the lake and then it winds downhill towards the Haraz-Road. Seeing it, it is cristalclear for me that I will not ride this road, because traffic is crazy and no hard shoulder to ride the bike. When noticing a taxistand, my decision is made. I will go there by cab. I ask the taxidrivers if somebody can take me and the bike to Polour (the starting point for the trip up the Damavand). I have to walk with one of the guys to the taxi-office. They have a long discussion, of which I understand absolut zero. But somehow they decide it can be done, a guy says he will do it. I ask how much it will cost, but he says he can´t say since he does not know how many kilometers it is. They also don´t have a Taxameter.
But right now I really don´t care how much it is. I just don´t want to go on this bike again today and do one more incline in this tremendous heat. Somehow they get my bike on the backseat and all the luggage in the trunk. Then I get up in the codriver seat, which normally you don´t do as a woman, but well there is no other choice now.
When entering the cab I am under the impression, that this guy is smelling of alcohol. But we are in Iran, right, so that can not be the case. I think I mis-smelled it. On our way we have to stop at a gasstation und as we continue the driver takes a totally worn waterbottle, opens it and holds it under my nose. No doubt now, it is some kind of Schnaps, Gin, Wodka something in it. He pours himself something in an old coffeepot, adds coke and offers me the whole thing. No, thank you - I don´t drink alcohol. He admits, yes it´s warm, but he likes it and drinks the cup in one big gulp.
Wonderful, now I am on the very dangerous road with a drunk cabdriver! No wonder, the guy is driving like he wants to escape hell. I am really very adventurous, but right then I am not sure, if we ever will arrive in Polour alive or if we end up as one of the death fatalities that happen here every day. Now I almost regret, hiring this guy. But I would have never been able to do this with the bike, which gets obvious after this one hour drive. Nobody can image how this guy drives - I have never experienced something like that. Unfortunately my GoPro is in the trunk in one of my bags, that would have made the top movies on YouTube. He goes with full speed right and left and in between other cars on the road. And if he´s not able to get through two driving cars from one side, he just tears the steering wheel to the other side and tries it from there. Everything is very, very close, there is not one hand-wide space on the right or left side. The whole ride with him smoking like nothing and with eardrumming music. At some point he asks me, if I like his driving. I am just able to say "kheili khub" (very good).
Being able for you to read this report, everything was o.k and I survived this highway through hell. I hope he has also survived, turning back. I am lucky because at the beginning of the road to Base Camp II somebody speaks english and lets me know about his price. I pay 50€, but I don´t care.
When I see the road going up to Base Camp II it is obvious, that I will not be able to do this with the bike also. So I decide to hire one of the 4x4 cars here to carry me, my luggage and the bike up to 3000 meters. Today I don´t care about much anymore and my decision is made, that right after hiking Damavand I will go to the Caspian Sea and from there send parts of my luggage back home. I really don´t want to torture myself during the next three months.
I knew, that this trip would be strenous sometimes, no problem, but if you are not able to get up the smallest incline, because everything is just too heavy, than the whole thing really is no fun at all.
Arriving at Base Camp II I get invited by one of the guides, his name is Mahsoud, to his metal hut. We have tea with fried eggs and Lavash (very thin bread), salted butter and even sweet carrot marmelade. Very delicious. He speaks very good english and his favorite sentence is: "I am an international man".
I can leave my bike and the rest of my luggage here, when I start my hike up to Basecamp III. We are a nice little community inside his little metal hut and even I don´t understand a lot, we have much fun.
There are tents set up here already and since I don´t want to build mine, I can sleep in one of the tents. My luggage goes inside and then I sort out what I need for the hike and what stays down here.
I get water from one of the tanks and a toilet is also here. Not the nicest one, but it works. There is also water at Base Camp III so I don´t have to carry all the water up.
Unfortunately the weekend starts today which I really wanted to avoid, but well can´t change that now. Mahsoud offers me to be my guide, but I really don´t think I need one. He really takes good care of me, says goodbye later, because for the night he is going down to Reineh to his family. But he says he will be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. to make breakfast for me.
I write my report and want to get up at sunrise tomorrow.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen