Planalto Cycles

As a nervous person, I woke up early, because still I was more than 250km from the port where I should leave at 21h (and be there at 17h). So, my bags were packed soon. At 7:30, Majid started packing my bike in the car and with a lot of ropes, he achieved a stable construction.

At 7:50 we sat down for breakfast and at 8:20 the whole family was in the car – they had decided to take a day off to go with me to Bandar Abbas!
Majid is a fast driver, the kilometres were melting and I was glad that there was no reception most of the time, so he could concentrate on driving.
I was waiting to see camels but when Majid showed me some, it was on the other side, so, no photo (it would have been a bad one anyway).
We reached the city shortly after 11

but the city is big (the second biggest Austrian city, Graz has less than 300000 inhabitants, Bandar Abbas has >500000), it took 30min to get to a beach near the city center. The boys ran to the water, the family wanted to stay there for a while,

and I started to unleash my bike to drive to the office of Mohadeseh. On couchsurfing, she originally had offered me to stay in Bandar Abbas but at that time (and until a few days before), I had not expected to come there. Now, there was a chance to meet in person and talk a little in German as she had started learning that language.
Majid offered to bring me there and so here was a goodbye at the beach from Taha and Matin and Sedigheh who had cared so much for me and now had tears in her eyes.

And 10min later, a second goodbye with Majid with 3 kisses on the shoulders.

Then, I was alone after a week of family life, my last and in a way most intense week with one of those incredible families in Iran…
I took a deep breath to cope with this situation of goodbye and leaving. Then I contacted Mohadeseh, she came to bring me up to the office where her nice colleague and her boss greeted me, and we sat down in her room to talk for a while. She also had ordered lunch, 3 different kinds of this Iranian food I love. Her friend and co-worker joined as for some bits.

She most of the time was without headscarf, smoked some cigarettes and had 3 tattoos on her arm what is a bit surprising even at the end of my Iran-days full of “aha-experiences”
Mohadeseh was shy to use her German, I tried to talk in German but after a while we ended up in English.

We had 3h time and packed them with different topics, from culture to agriculture, but then I realized that I would have to do 15km to reach the port and that I was late. It was a nice meeting and maybe it was easier to go because of time pressure but it was another goodbye so short after getting to know.
On the street, I didn’t find the route to the port on Mr.G and in slight panic I tried to connect phone and Mr.G to get the route. An old beggar approached me, and I would have loved to give some money and tried to say to her she should wait until I am ready with my tools which were making me mad. But the guard of the office came and send her away. When I finally was ready, I saw her in the wrong direction.
On the way, a motorcyclist came near me, asking where I am come from. After my answer he said good bye and drove on. After a minute, he let me catch up for another piece of conversation. He did it four times, always asking 1-2 question and the driving away! Then he asked me for my number and while driving saved my contact. Then he went on. After a while, he was here again, because something was wrong with the number. Then it was done, and I could concentrate on traffic, To add to my tension, Mr.G made a little detour with me and it was getting dark. My front light did always work only for 3-5min although I was going at least 20km/h all the time. But at 17:30, I reached the port. The use of being there so early (What minutes before I had considered as late)? Waiting…
First, I wanted to get confirmed that there is no problem with my Bandar Lengeh-ticket in Bandar Abbas and there was no.

A bit more relaxed, I went to the waiting area, looking for a good place to “park” my bike when someone called my name. It was Daniel, (day 078) sitting to another foreigner, Tomasz from Poland and a couple from Linz (Austria). We had not met in Shiraz, what would have been easy and as we had agreed and now we met in Bandar Abbas, because his and my plans had (been) changed.
Before sitting down next to them, I wanted to get something sweet. I regretted to be in a hurry and not buying something in a confectionary (I like them!) and there was a little kiosk selling tea and some small things to eat. In my wallet, I had some notes summing up to ~50000 and one 500000. I chose two small cakes and after shortly hesitating the shop keeper was ok with the small notes.
We “foreigners” sat together for a while, exchanging news and experiences. Daniel wants to get to Oman without any detailed plans and also Elisabeth and Harry were on their way to Oman with their self-customized old Landrover.
And then, around 18h, some movement around the passengers started. So, we also queued up. But then an officer took Daniel and me with our bikes aside and said we should wait there. And there we were standing for the next 1,5h, all the other passengers should pass before us.
In the end it is not so important where you wait, inside or outside.
Finally, we came to the x-ray which means to put all the bags down and after that put the bags back into their places to continue to the passport control. There some men wanted to enter the line in front of us, but Daniel told them to queue up at the end of the line. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but I liked the situation with a German putting through what he regards as one of the basic universal rules and some Iranians perplexed by that but going to the end of the line and even telling some others that they should do the same, because of the tourists. (I guess, because I only could understand the word tourist and saw people going to the end of the row.)
After passport control, there was another x-ray, so again the bags had to be disassembled and then put back. After that, there was the next waiting area, but not for long this time and Daniel and I were in the middle part of passengers going to the ship. Someone showed us a place at the side of the ship to put the bikes and said we should leave the bags there, so we just grabbed a few things and went up to the passenger’s room. We had tickets with seat numbers but should just go to the back side (men’s side) and everyone chose a row of 3-4 seats for himself
First was tea time and you could see how important this was for most of the people! At 21:00 the ship didn’t move, but dinner was served. I didn’t try to eat extra fast but even if I would have, the Iranians were faster.
Around 23:00, the last trucks and the one car of Harry and Elisabeth were on board and the ferry took off. I wrote some good-bye messages before I would lose connection and then fixed my SPOT GPS railing to get some marked spots on my travelling map.
I was tired enough to try sleeping but the seats made this a bit difficult.

In the morning I prepared a route to several bookstores (I only had found one, Nader helped me from Mashad with more addresses), because I wanted to find something for Taha (and Matin?) to get into English and/or to buy some funny t-shirts for both or something else for the family. So, I explained that I later in the morning would like to go out, but Majid told me that Sedigheh would go with me by car if I need anything….
We found a compromise, Sedigheh had to go shopping anyway, (in a confectionary, she bought some nuts and so and only later i knew the reason – she made Raginak for me, another present!)

creative names for chocolate (Spanish? Portugese??)

and she would bring me to the bookstores and I would be allowed to pay.

the castle and the ruins by daylight

Four stores were more paper shops with some books and if English then for adults, the 5^th was for kids but it had only schoolbooks for English, nothing for playfully learning and only the last shop had something in the right direction. I took a small selection and we went on to get Matin from pre-school. On the way, I found a message from Nazanin from the Iran Travelling Center: The departure from Bandar Lengeh is cancelled due to bad weather conditions. I could take the next ferry on Saturday (too late for my freighter from Dubai to Malaysia) or go to Bandar Abbas to reach the ferry from there to Sharjah (Near Dubai). This was the only option, so I asked Nazanin to organize a transfer between the two ports for me and my bike as I still was in Lar, depending on Majid to bring me to Bandar Lengeh this noon. When we were at home with Matin,

some sleep during the lessons, Matin fell asleep after schoop

everything was planned and partly organized. At 14:00 Majid arrived at home and I told him about the situation and he had a new plan:
He would bring me to Bandar Abbas directly tomorrow morning instead today to Bandar Lengeh. He called Nazanin and cancelled the transfer and we had lunch together,

still the last lunch, but I brought my packed bags back in the room to stay another night.
After lunch, I was tired, many things besides this endless ferry story bothered me (China Visa, the freighter from China to Sydney, organizing meeting with my Dubai hosts under the new conditions of arriving a day later and at 5 a.m. instead of 2 p.m., the cancellation of the freighter from Singapore to Dunkerque…) and I tried to clarify at least parts of that. I this respect, I could take good advantage of this unexpected additional Lar afternoon…

After an ice-cream we left for picnic in a park. Before that, it was a lot of driving for shopping that confused me about directions and location. In the end, we were at a park near home and ate roasted sheep meet with special Lar-yoghurt that is so thick that it comes near to crème cheese. This time, both parents talked to me about their Canadian dream and I was again a destroyer….

The night was short again, I could not fall asleep although I was tired. The hallucinations were more pleasant than yesterday but still disturbing and the Azan (call for prayer) did a better job than necessary at 4 a.m.. Yesterday it was also little sleep but the whole day I was not sleepy, today I was.
Early in the morning, I began to look for all the papers and documents I need for the freighter. The have attracting names like letter of indemnity and it is a long list. Some I had in my dropbox, some I could find in the emails to and from “Langsam reisen”, some via link of this company and finally I had the whole collection.

Majid had shown me “the way” to a print shop and the barber (I have IRR left and a beard to cut), one is 2 houses to the right, the other is on the opposite side of the street. Let’s say: easy to find.
So, I was surprised when Sedigheh came to accompany me. Her English ends where my Farsi ends, so this would not count. It was easy to find out – I had no chance to pay, well she also could not, the shop keeper didn’t accept any payment, not her card and not my money.
We left the printshop (I with a lot of paper) to the barber. On the way, I tried to say that my beard would call for my money but Sedigheh entered the shop first and paid in advance. She said she would go (most of the time when I say “say” it is either sign language or talking in a language the other one doesn’t understand), but for a while I saw her waiting in front of the shop. The barber had a special seat for very young customers, a seat in car design with buttons to press to give sounds. A father and the barber did there best to keep a small boy happy while the barber cut his hair. They did a great job, only the last minute some tears flowed and in the and the boy seemed to be satisfied. I got a kind of remake of the design Naser had given to my hair and left. Sedigheh seemed to be gone home and I thought that this could be my chance to spend some money (I would not get much for it when I change it and here most of the things are cheap, at least cheaper than I thought as the next example shows.
I went again to the Bazar and found a shop with some electronic devises and asked for a SD card reader. The shopkeeper had one. Even in Austria I would not know exactly what it could cost and in Iran with the rapidly sinking value of IRR to $ I roughly expected a price around 2-300000 and was not surprised when I was told “6!”. So, I offered a 500.000 and a 100.000 and the shop keeper took only 100.000 and gave me back 40.000. That means I would have paid 10x the price without problem and the shop keeper helped me to get it right.
I went on to the confectionary to buy some chocolate against my craving and some for the family as I expected that they would not open the box. On the way, the man who was the next after me at the barber came to me and said, “woman waiting you!” I showed that I am sorry, and that I will be back in 15min. In the shop, they knew me from yesterday and were very helpful again. The next, I wanted to buy was some tasty juices for the family and they showed me the way. I was near to that place but met Sedigheh on the way who took my back in direction home. I explained via translator what I wanted to do and so we went to a fruit shop near the house and she bought lots of fruits. At home, I got a fresh made carrot juice instead of me bringing something for the family. Again failed…
This afternoon, I fell asleep for a while. When I opened the door, Majid and Sedgheh came in, she had a box and he explained that she had a present for me. In the box was a little box and in it the landscape of Iran plated in silver….

Maybe you can guess my mixed feelings.
The evening continued with two shows:
Matin showed what he does in Gymnastics (before that, Taha had been coming home in martial arts uniform) and then, Majid had suggested that a friend could bring a guitar so that I would still have a rest but would not feel bored.
Let us say it was one friend but with his son and another friend. And let us say the friend’s son brought his guitar but the father with a little help of his friend brought also a Ney (flute, played by pressing it to the inner upper lip!), a (Se)tar and an Iranian and an Arab drum (Zarb and Timpou).
But first, Saeed played an Iranian melody on his guitar. He played musically and very fluent and so I completely misjudged the time he learns – it is not 2-3y, he only practised since 3-4months!
His father then played on all the other instruments and sang and accompanied himself with both drums. It was great to hear that and a nice gathering of the complete family with those friends!