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22nd February 2016 by Johannes
Motorcycle Travel Logbook, Roads to Persia

A Tale of Two Castles

A Tale of Two Castles
22nd February 2016 by Johannes
Motorcycle Travel Logbook, Roads to Persia

Before going on a trip, there is the preparation, Ali had to get new brake pads and an oil change to do before we could depart for Babak Castle. While he was working on his bike, I had the chance to take some pictures in the moody backyard repair shop with bikes in various states of disassembly hanging from the rafters and stand in the employees’ way. Early in the next morning we departed to Babak Castle, which is half a day’s ride to the north of Tabriz. There we followed a mountain road to a nomad’s camp from where we had to walk the last 2 km to the castle. The merciless sun and barren landscape without any shadows made hiking in motorcycle gear a sweaty exercise, but the castle with its commanding view over the surrounding landscape more than made up for the sweat.

A motorcycle repairshop in Tabriz.
A puzzle?
The employees were straightening a brake disc.
Landscape to the north of Tabriz.
Somewhere on the road to Babak Castle.
The mountain road leading to the castle.
Nomad's camp
A narrow footpath leads to the castle.
The access to the castle via winding stairs.
Babak Castle
Nomad's camp
Nomad's lunch, bread, eggs and natural yoghurt. We also had doogh, an iranian yoghurt drink, fermented and carbonated. It has a strong taste, that needs getting used to.
On the way back down

We found a place to camp not far off the castle in a more wooded area, where I had a little disagreement with Ali about the temperatures in the evening. He considered it to cold to wash in a nearby stream, while I thought it was way too hot to not go for a cool down. On the next day on the way back to Tabriz we had a go at the other kind of riding, the riding on a four legged-horse made of flesh. Much to my  surprise we just showed up at a horse farm and a horse was prepared for us after Ali asked for a trial lesson. Most useful lesson for me was, that transportation with a will of its own has an inherent error. At one point I came too close to the exit gate of the riding area and the horse just stopped and refused to budge because it wanted to go back to the stable, I needed help from the instructor to get it going again. My Tenere has never let me down like that!

Drinking water was gathered drop by drop during the night.
Two sheepdogs
They had some magnificent and enormously big horses.
Ours was a bit smaller though (and quite stubborn).

In the next morning I thanked Ali for his hospitality and the great time in Tabriz and hit the road towards the Alborz Mountains further to the east. Because of the temperatures I altered my daily routine, getting up before sunrise to ride in the cool morning hours and doing siesta during the hottest time of the day. Although this day I didn’t get much rest. Instead I became some kind of attraction in the park of a small town named Mianeh, a lot of people started to ask questions: Where I’m from? Where I go? What I think of Iran? How fast the motorcycle goes? They were taking pictures with me or of themselfs next to the Tenere. Apart of the usual high attention for travellers, my motorcycle was a big attractor (especially for teenage boys) because large capacity motorcycles are almost nonexistant in Iran.

The attention can get tiring though especially when people get obtrusive. There was one guy who first gave me his falafel sandwich and then blathered for a full hour, trying to convince me that the holocaust in Germany is a lie from a zionistic conspiracy which is controlling the current US government. Don’t get me wrong though, most of the people who approached me were friendly and genuinely interested. I had quite a few interesting conversations or even invitations. Like Amir, who is host for travelling bicyclists and tries to promote and conserve the local cultural heritage, a stretch of the silk road and several associated monuments. He wanted to show me a mostly unknown castle in the vicinity of Mianeh.

Do you see a castle here? Me neither, but it is on the dominant rock to the left.
Or rather hidden behind that rock.
The view from the castle. A perfect position to protect the silk road. Protect as in extort tolls from travelling traders most likely. Luckily those times are over.
Amir, he showed me the castle.
Bridge of the ancient silk road.
After the castle we visited Amir's uncle, a harvesting melon farmer.
One of the melon farmers.
They gave us a melon, which we mostly ate on the spot. I was offered two more melons, but I had to decline, there was just no way I could carry two large watermelons on the bike.
Sunset and I have not yet found a place to sleep.
But I found a scenic spot in an almost dried riverbed.
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