Northern Iran

Our first sight of the infamous Ayatollahs

After cycling in the dark and not findiong anywhere to camp we got invited into a “Hubble Bubble” lounge. The tall guy was the owner and had to leave to go to volleyball practice.

Iranians: If you don’t believe in god what do you believe in Finnian:Education?

We slept in one of the guys from the hubble bubble’s living room

That dot would be the closest I got to Hugo today. I was a bit sick and spent the day sweaty, red and about an hour behind him.

Farsi is painted on pretty much every wall in sight

Mosque in Germi

Our iranian posse

After waking up to ice blocks in my cleats, I learned that I would have to clean them out before night fell. When everything we own turned to ice

Hugo heating up his iPad after it says it’s too cold to work

Freewheeling downhill with a view like that. Definitely one of those moments you stop and think ” and I cycled here?”

I believe i was listening to The Real Slim Shady when taking this photo

They love volleyball in Iran

The government’s advertising can be pretty crazy at times

This guy very kindly gave us a free breakfast and some cinnomon tea

After i left to get some water i the shop keeper produced a seat and some chai and i chatted with him and his friends. After i finished the chai i felt i would be keeping Hugo. I found him in another building also having chai so then i got invited for more chai.

Abghoust is a mutton, potato, tomato and chickpea stew. which you pour into a bowl and mash with the mallet

Big passes are always fun

Highest we’ve been on the trip so far

Camels

Too cold to take your gloves off

That evening climbing hunch

Sun set before tabriz

Forgot to clean my cleats

Us and some kurds.

A huge amount of very larges rocks pass us every day

Easy does it, easy does it

Ah Christ

Nothing better than waking up knowing you’ll be going downhill all day

Still downhill

Frozen paddy feild

Amir

Climbing out of miyaneh

The broken bridge

This was our coldest morning yet, at about 1600 metres.

Visiting a Mongols tomb

We had the whole thing to ourselves

There haven’t been many camp photos in winter because it’s usually straight into the tent

Although from the photos it may seem like we are always smiling, heres one to prove otherwise.

Hugo pulled over one morning and said ” do you want to go slegding?”

So we slide down the hill on our map cases

Iran has been really windy so far

Can put up the tent without even looking at it

Learning Farsi is hard. The shape of the letters change depending whether they are at the front middle or end of the word. We know a few letter like ‘n’. All these cities end in ‘n’.