Iraj left around 4 in the morning. At 7 we prepared for leaving but his mama prepared breakfast (and also gave us some bread and fruits for the trip). Iraj’s nephew, Mohammad Reza, accompanied us to find our road the E32.
In the morning it was fresh but after half an hour it was pleasant and later in the day it became hot. But only on the first 15km it went up and that not too steep, so all in all it was ok. Sometimes the frontwind reduced our speed but in the end we did those 107km in 7,5 hours, including some small breaks.
One of these breaks was a strange encounter. A man, about parking on the other side of the street, near a well, waved and shouted we should stop and come over. So, we came. He wanted to make an interview and Nader had his phone for filming that. Quite soon he asked about me being religious and my answer was too shocking. He tried to convince me, he said he felt sorry for me, but it was not enough. While the place at first had seemed to be lonely, after a few minutes 5 other man were around, and he shared his disbelief about my unbelief with them. But we could leave them.
Only 5min later, a car stopped, and a family asked for the interview. In this case it was a shy boy aged 13, looking 1-2y younger, who asked some questions and afterwards we had a photo shooting.
Around 3 0’clock, it was finally so hot that the water in the bottles tasted like liquid plastics and in the last hour the mouth was chronically dry despite drinking.
But we had done it and found a hotel in Meyaneh, the one btw, that god’s advocate had recommended. In the evening, we went out to buy a new bike lock for me, dried fruits for us and sunscreen for Nader who today had experienced a sun-burn.