My first morning in Yazd is spent applying for a visa extension. Because I only got a visa on arrival I can only get one 10 day extension. I am not terribly impressed but there isn't a lot I can do. I would love to be able to spend more time in Iran but I have no choice.
After dealing with beurocracy, I catch up with Jeff and Neil and we go to a garden and drink an amazing milkshake. This garden has the worlds largest bagir - tower designed to catch the wind and keep houses cool.
Vahid's cousin, Moien meets up with us and we grab lunch and then hot the sweet stores. Yazd is famous for its sweets and I am not disappointed.
Moien also takes us to an ice cream shop and I have the best banana smoothie I have ever tasted. It has rose water ice cream and pistachios and I don't know what else. Amazing.
The afternoon is spent napping before meeting most of Vahid's other siblings in the evening.
We pack our things in the morning and head to town. I pick up my passport with my measly 10 day extension and then find Neil. He has found a welder that will fix our broken aluminium racks. A few hours of waiting and $6 later my front racks are fixed. They were in poor form, one had broken in two places and was held together with tape and a nail working as a splint. The other was only broken in one spot. My front racks are the only problem I have with my bicycle set up. Next time I will use forks that have rack mounts and get steel racks.
Due to time restraints the three of us have decided to catch the bus to Shiraz. We get in at about 9.30pm and find our couch surfing hosts. It turns out that the host Neil has arranged lives about 100m from my couch surfing host.
My host, mamali is rad. He plays in a band and works at an awesome cafe around the corner from his house. I spend a wonderful few days hanging out with him and his room mates, swapping music and stories, eating fruit.
Jeff and I visit town and do some sightseeing, Vakil mosque is very impressive, flowery tiles line the large domes, very different from the mosques in Esfahan.
In the evening we visit a nearby village with Neil, his couch surfing host and a bunch of other couch surfers. This village is very relaxed and we manage to get hold of some wine. Not the most delicious wine I have ever tasted but it is pretty cool to drink wine in Shiraz.
The following day is pretty low key, sitting at the cafe, waiting for emails to load. In the afternoon I visit another mosque and then have ice cream with Jeff.
Jeff and I are up early the following day to visit persopolis. It is amazing. It must have been such a rich society to spends so many years, money and labour building such big palaces and statues. The carved rocks are amazingly well preserved. Funnily enough, there is graffiti from explorers in the early 1800's.
In the evening Neil, Jeff and I have one last dinner together at a very fancy house.
I wake in the morning and meet some new couch surfers that arrived last night at Mamali's place. It turns out that I met the two travellers in Murghab in Tajikistan. The world is a small place sometimes.
My last morning in Shiraz is spent at the cafe, one last check of emails and arranging a couch surfing host in Tabriz. I am sad to say goodbye to Jeff and Neil, the three of us going in different directions. I am also sad to leave Mamali, he has been a great host in the most relaxed and laid back Iranian city I have been to.
11/10 Yazd & Shiraz: rode 23km, ODO 3245km
16/10 total Shiraz: rode 40km, ODO 3261
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