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Tehran - Shahpasand
E.Route : Teheran - Shahpasand : ETD 0500 : ETA 1900 : Dist 446m.
A.Route : Teheran - Shapasand* : ATD 0528 : ATA 1915 : Dist 300 m.
- Depart Teheran 0528
- 0706 - 0733 Police halt for convoyage
- 0806 - 0823 Fuel stop
- 0928 - 0935 Crew change
- 1030 - 1035 Crew change
- 1113 - 1142 Police halt
- 1435 - 1507 Caspian swimstop
- 1629 - 1636 Bogstop
- 1701 - 1756 Shopstop ( Gorgan )
- Arrive Shahpasand 1915
Est.A.Spd : 31.8 mph : Gross A.Spd 21.70 mph. : Net.A.Spd. 27.70 mph.
Stop time : 2:59 hr : Speedo TD 7428 : Speedo TA 7728
Comment : A slow day, although we did not reelise how suddenly after Shahpasand the roads changed sharply for the worse. The attempts of the police to guide us through the mountains, and the gradient of the mountains themselves, did little to boost average speed. Asterisk on A.Route - original destination was Chaman-bid - this and next destination both officially changed.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
Over the hills to the Caspian coast. We started about 0500. The folding of the tent and groundsheets
would have been impeccable but the usual suspects delayed things by leaving their treasures lying around.
Today we formed up in a convoy of a kind and had a police escort on the slow journey out of town. The
suburbs were rather featureless and not well-endowed with English-language signposts, so this was
welcome. In fact the police were with us all the way through the mountains until they signed off on the
Caspian flatlands. They were rather fussy and insisted on stopping us all at one point until a couple
of strays (Oxford and Leicester, I think) had caught up. The road wound up (and later down) the sides
of gorges and there seemed more than the usual number of wrecks down by the river. The poor policemen
escorted us for more than seven hours at a pathetically slow speed, so I don't imagine it was much of
a treat for them.
It was much more humid north of the mountains, and instead of the desert of the last couple of
travelling days, everything was green and there were huge fields of cotton and other crops. We were
all quite keen to see the Caspian but our road was well inland for most of the way. Eventually it
converged on the south-east corner of the sea, which is actually a huge lagoon almost cut off by a
spit. Although the shore consisted of reedbeds and muddy creeks rather than sand, we had a sort of
swim stop. This attracted the usual crowd including little children wobbling around on their bikes
whose handlebars did some damage to the mechanics' hope of winning the trophy for the best-kept coach.
We had a long shopping stop in Gorgan. There were more children there, and they had fun playing with
the screen washers. Gordon turned these on now and then for them to soak each other until one of the
crafty little things managed to turn one of them so that it sprinkled a large policeman.
The municipality of Shahpesand provided us with a sports ground for an overnight camp, and they had
rigged up brilliant overhead lighting. This attracted every insect in the province, and I had a great
time checking out mole crickets, locusts, mantises and other good things. The insects particularly
liked the wash troughs, and there was a lot of screaming. Ricky and some like minded people were
delighted to find that we had been dropped into a cannabis field, so they harvested and dried it
and sat around getting high. Or possibly not - the following morning I met a botanist from another
contingent who was delighted that we had been parked in a field of wild camphor.
Damāvand, the Caspian and flying morsels by Liz Y
The slow crawl through the Elburz Mountains and later further east must have been nerve-racking for the
drivers. For those of us lounging in our seats, it gave us a chance to revel in the awesome views of dramatic
rock faces and deep ravines, even though the coach was hot and stuffy in the intense heat. For me the most
dramatic moment was when the steep, snow-covered slopes of Mount Damāvand came into view. I did my best to
ignore the incongruous Pepsi Cola sign raised high on a pole at a bend in the road and interfering with the
view. I wish I'd known more about this iconic volcano at the time and have since read a bit about it.
Apparently it is the highest volcano in Asia and the highest mountain in Iran. It is described by geologists
as an active, stratovolcano, explaining its symmetrical conical shape topped by a crater. There are thermal
springs at the base and fumeroles are sometimes visible at the summit.
There are many legends about Mount Damāvand and Iranian poets have waxed lyrical about it over the centuries.
An old story of Zoroastrian origin talks of a three-headed dragon imprisoned within it. In another version,
there is a wicked despot, Zahhāk, with black snakes growing from his shoulders, tied up for eternity in a
cavern below the mountain. When local people hear rumbles from Mount Damāvand, they say this is Zahhāk raging
against his internment. In another story, an heroic archer, Arash, gives his life while firing an arrow over
a vast distance from the mountain top in a challenge to define the territorial limits of Iran. Mount Damāvand
is revered in Persian mythology as a symbol of opposition to despotism.
We were eager to see the Caspian Sea and eventually we stopped by an area of coastal wetlands. There are
stretches of sandy beach around the Caspian in Iran, but the shore here was muddy and the water shallow.
Probably our visit coincided with a low tide. It wasn't an ideal spot or time for swimming, but some of the
group went out in a small boat with its local owner and took a dip in the water.
There is a debate about whether the Caspian is a sea or a lake. It evidently matters in terms of whether
international rules of maritime law apply. If it is agreed to be a lake, then only the five littoral states
have rights. The issue has never been fully resolved. Whatever the definition, it is the largest landlocked
sea or lake in the world. At the southern end it the second deepest after lake Baikal. For us it was yet
another amazing bringing to life of an interesting faraway place we only knew through geography
textbooks.
We were now in a verdant, humid area and destined to spend the night in Shahpasand (now known as Azadshahr),
where a campsite had been neatly laid out and prepared for us by the Iranian army, which had gone to the
trouble of rigging up a string of electric lights. The problem was bugs. A variety of enormous flying insects
was attracted by the lights. To say it was like being trapped on the wrong side of the screens in the Bugs
House at Regents Park Zoo might be a slight overstatement, but it was pretty dire. We could turn off the
lights but we did need a light to use the latrine, which would otherwise be in pitch darkness with unforeseen
consequences. So we had to run the gauntlet of the insects. At one point a huge green locust landed on my
shoulder. This was very off-putting at the time, but it occurs to me now that we missed an opportunity.
Locusts are edible. People eat them as a delicacy in the Middle East and elsewhere, frying them into crispy,
savoury snacks. I've even read about fried locusts being dipped in melted chocolate, which raises the question
of how they would taste with a coating of apricot jam. There would also have been a bit of a saving on the
daily food expenses, as locusts are evidently a good source of protein and other nutrients. It seems they
are really quite tasty and have a satisfying crunch!
