FROM ASSASSINS TO BLUE TILED MOSQUES

In our way to Teheran we decided to pay a visit to Alamut, land of the assassins...

Surrounded by the snowed peaks of the Alborz range you can find numerous castles situated in strategic points, like Gazor Khan castle dating from the time when the Mongol empire use to rule this part of the world.

Some roads, nowadays hardly travelled by locals, where busy with merchants travelling the silk road, selling their goods in some of the castles and that's when the assassins (that means, those who smoke hashish) used to strike their victims... Luckily for us just a quiet place with stunning views and relaxed friendly locals.

After two days enjoying the impressive views from Gazor Khan castle, it is time to head towards Teheran and find out if we can manage to get the "precious" Turkmenistan visa.

The Capital welcomed us with over 18 million people and probably with the same amount of cars racing in the streets, not caring about pedestrians, traffic lights or driving backwards when there are plenty cars coming in your direction... just using the horn as their excuse for everything and to let you know that they are coming.

Fighting against the horribly busy traffic early morning, we arrived to the Turkmenistan's embassy just on time to find out the we will have to wait to Mashad to get our visa trammited.

Not willing to get killed by a car or the pollution we jumped into a night train to Isfahan escaping the crazy city.

Once the capital of the Shah kingdom, Isfahan is probably one of those magic places hard to forget.

Inspiring architecture and crafwork are to be seen everywhere, especially in the famous Imam Square with its palaces and stunning Mosques with their blue tiled domes and facades. You can just travel back in time imagining the amount of skill and work that would take to build such impressive buildings, or when you get lost in the bazaar and hear the hammering of the craftsmen that invite to have a tea while they explain how the do their jobs.

Is not a secret that the biggest treasure of this city is its people which will stop you in the streets by their curiosity and will offer you their house, their food and their time even when you are a completely stranger for them.

Friday is the big praying day for them an luckily for us we are welcomed to experience the ceremony called Moharram where they whip themselves with metal chains to commemorate the death of the last of the twelve Imams.

Iranian New year, or Noruz is coming and everything is getting ready to receive the more than 3 million visitors expected, so for us is time to keep heading south to Yazd and Shiraz before finding a place to stay become nearly impossible..

WELCOME

Leaving behind the staring eyes from the Armenian border police and crossing it through a maze of trucks with different goods, we managed to cross over to Iran by foot, again.
"Welcome" was the first word that we heard as we were showing our passports to the immigration officer and after the usual formalities we were already catching a taxi ride towards the next significant city.
We arrived to Tabriz after enjoying a stunning sunset in the mountains that literally separate Iran and Azerbaijan.
50 euros make you feel like Donald Trump when you exchange them and you get something close to a million of the Iranian rials and your wallet it is just not big enough to carry them and walk normally.
We also did find out that the traffic lights and the traffic police are just simply decoration in the roads of Tabriz, just to find out afterwards that it was nothing to be compared with the "crazy" traffic, as they say, from Teheran.... just scary to cross the road!

Our "lovely" guidebook is a bit old, and even being the last edition, we realized sadly that everything is going to be at least twice the price suggested on it...
So after tighten up our belts we walked some of the city streets where the face of the Ayatollah and the black veils are to bee seen everywhere. A young local trio studying tourism approached us and after a nice talk they invited us over for lunch the next day where we learned a lot about how hard is living in Iran nowadays, specially for them because freedom to go anywhere or just to speak freely are something hard to imagine.
Two more days visiting the bazaar and learning a bit more of the making of the world famous carpets from Tabriz and after rejecting some really good special prices as they say, we headed south to Zanjan.
In the bus ride we met Naser, a young computing student who offered us a place to stay.
Moslem and Yosef are his flatmates and being excellent hosts they introduced us to their friends, showed us the local wonders and helped us to remember the good times about the student life and the pleasure of not having to worry about waking early.
We celebrated Jorge`s birthday with some folklore about this part of Iran, named East Azerbaijan, which they speak so proudly about.
Willing to stay with them for a few more days as they ask us for, we say goodbye to them hoping to have gained three more new friends for life. Qazvin awaits for us just two hours ahead in the highway towards Teheran.